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taking on more risk in the short term by taking lower rent while the business gets its footing. As a tenant, the guaranteed base rent would be lower at first while the business is getting developed and higher when the business is more established.
Q: How does the city of Sandy Springs restrict percentage rent? What problems does that cause?
A: The guidelines for applying for a liquor license in Sandy Springs include a section that does not allow for percentage rent to include the sales of alcohol. The reason behind this is to ensure that all owners of a liquor license go through the proper background checks. The definitions of percentage rent and profit-sharing (as a business owner might be entitled to) are very similar. The way the guidelines are written, the city manager may approve an application for a liquor license that includes a percentage rent clause, but that application may be delayed due to the process of review and scheduling of the necessary meetings. This requirement may delay the business from opening, or discourage a business choosing the location based on lesser requirements from another jurisdiction.
Q: If the law was changed, how would it benefit restaurant owners and customers? Could it change the types of restaurants in the area?
A: Percentage rent is a way for small and local chefs and restaurateurs to start their business with less capital needed up-front. With the way rents are increasing, the variety of restaurants may be limited to larger corporate and chain restaurants who can afford those rents from the beginning of the lease. Changing the law would create and foster the notion that Sandy Springs wants to attract these smaller, independent, chef-driven restaurants.By Eom Da-sol
Will Smith, right, and Jaden Smith visited Korea in 2013. / Korea Times file
Will Smith's son Jaden plans to release a K-pop single this year.
"I will be dropping a K-pop single in the next four months," he said on Twitter on Apr. 21. He gave no further details.
Since last December, Jaden has been proclaiming on SNS his dream to be a K-pop singer. "People see me and ask me if I want to be a K-pop star as if I have not made my goals for 2017 clear," he said. "I just want to be a K-pop star. G-Dragon is my inspiration."
Netizens doubt if his plan is genuine because he is famous for making jokes. A Twitter user wrote, "Smith has to compete with K-pop singers who have been under rigorous training for years in their entertainment agencies. It will not be easy."
Will and Jaden Smith visited Korea in 2013 to promote "After Earth." Jaden told a press conference, "I want to work with G-Dragon. If the movie goes viral in Korea, Smith family and YG Family will collaborate for an album." YG Family refers to YG Entertainment artists, including G-Dragon, a member of boy band Big Bang.
EXP Edition, a boy band consisting of four Americans, debuted in Korea on Apr. 17. People criticized the band for its lack of skills and poor Korean language ability. A netizen said, "They should have debuted in the U.S., not Korea."In his home country, Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny, 61, has a reputation for being somewhat wooden. But when he meets with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other top German politicians, he's capable of unaccustomed gallantry, as the Irish have noted with surprise. For instance, Kenny has recently proved that he's a master of the diplomatic art known as "air kissing."
This Tuesday, the Irishman will have yet another opportunity to demonstrate his skills. Kenny is traveling to the southern German village of Wildbad Kreuth, where the conservative Christian Social Union (CSU) -- the Bavarian sister party to Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) -- is holding its annual gathering. At it, Kenny hopes to schmooze with Horst Seehofer, the CSU's chairman, and Gerda Hasselfeldt, head of its federal parliamentary group. Shortly after breakfast, and before a speech by the chairman of the Bavarian Farmers' Association, Kenny plans to present his country as a model of successful reform policies.
Kenny's charm offensive is not entirely altruistic. For over two years -- and to the delight of the Anglo-Saxon media -- the conservative leader has been trying to get European taxpayers to foot the enormous bill for bailing out Ireland's ailing banking sector. But, taking their cue from the Germans, the Europeans have so far balked at the idea.
Instead, Chancellor Merkel has been quick to praise the way Ireland has implemented economic reforms and used money from European bailout funds over the past few years to emerge from the crisis: Exports have risen, the country has regained its competitiveness, and it has even succeeded in getting private creditors to lend it some money.
Unfortunately, this gleaming façade obscures a rather dismal reality. Although Ireland's economy has stabilized, its debts continue to mount -- despite the fact that the country has been diligently fulfilling all of the demands made by the troika of lenders, which consists of the European Commission, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the European Central Bank (ECB). This year, Ireland's public debt is expected to increase to 122 percent of its annual gross domestic product (GDP) -- in other words, beyond the limit at which the IMF believes long-term debt sustainability can be achieved.
The 68 billion ($90 billion) in bailout funds are only expected to meet the country's financial needs until the end of 2013. But Ireland has a trick up its sleeve that it hopes will allow it to avoid a second official aid package: Kenny would like to transfer one-quarter of Ireland's public debt -- the amount that was amassed solely from bailing out the country's banks -- to the EU. "By June, following the decision of the European Council, we expect agreement on the modalities of reducing the burden that the Irish taxpayer took on from the recapitalization of the going-concern banks," Kenny reportedly said shortly before Christmas.
Spreading the Pain
On Jan. 1, Ireland assumed the presidency of the European Council, which rotates every six months. During this period, Kenny is expected to forge important compromises among the EU's 27 member states. But, more importantly, he intends to use his position to highlight Irish concerns.
Ireland's demands are very precise -- and could be costly for the Germans. At stake are the 31 billion that the country received from the system of European central banks to save two crisis-ridden Irish financial institutions in 2010. The country is expected to pay this money back in installments over the next 10 years.
Already last year, the Irish pushed long and hard until they were allowed to pay back the first installment with the help of a new loan. But that was not a long-term solution. Starting this year, the state will explicitly be liable for the debts of Ireland's nationalized banks. This has prompted the Irish to look for a more creative solution this year. "We would like the payback period for the debts to be extended and the interest rates to be cut to a reasonable level," European Affairs Minister Lucinda Creighton told SPIEGEL.
This notion has met with resistance from the ECB, however. ECB President Mario Draghi regularly snubbed Kenny when he broached the topic at the numerous Brussels summits last year. The ECB wants to avoid any more accusations of directly financing ailing euro-zone member states. For Draghi, the simplest solution would be for the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), the euro zone's 700 billion permanent backstop fund, to step into the breach and take over the debt.
Kenny would ideally like to use the ESM as a way of getting European taxpayers to shoulder the risks associated with all the debts of the Irish banking sector. He intends to use the six months of his European presidency to push through a banking union that would also make the bailout fund responsible for dealing with toxic assets in the European banking system left over from the financial crisis of 2007-2008.
But to achieve this, Kenny will need the support of Chancellor Merkel and Germany's parliament, the Bundestag. If he manages to push through his agenda, Europe's taxpayers will have to absorb a significant portion of the risks of Ireland's banking sector. If the Germans refuse, it will become more likely that Ireland will have to be bailed out a second time this autumn.
It looks as if Kenny's newfound talent still has to be put to the test.SCP-1326
Item #: SCP-1326
Object Class: Euclid
Special Containment Procedures: SCP-1326 is to be contained in a standard Site-19 containment cell, with a box of used literature (e.g. newspapers or magazines) kept outside its cell. One magazine from this box is to be left within the SCP's containment cell as a precaution, and must be replaced pending "feedings'. Every 3 weeks, a staff member is to "feed" the SCP by bringing the book kept inside the containment cell within 30cm of the SCP's front cover and held in place until activity ceases, then discard the magazine in question and replace it with another paper from the box outside SCP-1326's cell. Should the SCP release SCP-1326-2 due to failure to perform aforementioned procedure, SCP-1326's containment cell is to be kept on lockdown until all instances return to SCP-1326, at which point lockdown may be lifted and the magazine absorbed during the event must be replaced ASAP. All readings of SCP-1326 contents must be performed by D-class only, and any content deemed safe and/or useful to the Foundation is to be transcribed and stored on a Foundation computer under Document 1326-82.
Description: SCP-1326 is an ornate leather-bound hardcover book adorned with various moving parts on its front cover, including a circular numbered dial in its upper-left corner, a semicircular dial in the lower-left corner, and several jointed mechanical arms crossing over its center, ending in mechanical claws or circular lenses. SCP-1326 is secured by a lock on its right side, designed to fit a small key designated SCP-1326-1.
SCP-1326 may only be opened by SCP-1326-1; attempts to open the lock using picks or replicas of SCP-1326-1 have failed.
The content of SCP-1326 appears to be an encyclopedic collection of various works and articles on diverse topics. The nature of these entries varies between known works by known authors, altered versions of known works, or unidentified works covering known or unknown material, some of which may be related to SCP's under or out of Foundation custody. The content yielded by SCP-1326 when opened may be changed by inputting "index numbers" via the dials on the book's front cover. These numbers do not appear to follow any sort of classification system, as no correlation has been found between the index values and the contents they yield. List of works found within SCP-1326
If SCP-1326 is brought within one meter of another book or written document, the arms on its cover will begin moving of their own accord in order to line up the lenses on the ends of these arms with the document in question. Once aligned, the lenses will emit a blue light and "scan" the document for approximately 5 seconds, then return to their original positions. Testing has confirmed that this behavior is a means for the SCP to acquire new information, which will be presented in readable format under an apparently random index designation. How SCP-1326 is capable of identifying sources of information is unknown, though staff theorize it may possess a certain degree of sentience. It is also possible that the book simply reacts to repeating symbols or patterns, as it has been observed scanning Foundation staff nametags or groups of ceiling tiles, though such scans have been noted to be shorter than scans performed on complete books or written papers.
It is advised to provide SCP-1326 with new material on a monthly basis, as the object will become hostile if not "fed" regularly. See Incident Report 1326-█ for details.Jarrius Robertson's irresistible personality and positive attitude has inspired the team as he fights a chronic liver disease. In late April 2017, Jarrius' wait for a new liver ended, enabling a transplant. (6:46)
New Orleans Saints superfan Jarrius Robertson underwent surgery Sunday to receive a long-awaited liver transplant, his father, Jordy, tweeted.
Jordy Robertson said the surgery, which he earlier estimated would take eight to 10 hours, went "great," but the next few days following the surgery were important for his 15-year-old son.
Surgery went GREAT! JJ is resting now with NEW, working liver 🙏🏻 We will see him in a few hours. Next few days of monitoring are big - Jordy — Jarrius Robertson (@Jarrius) April 30, 2017
Jarrius, who signed a "contract" last year on "Good Morning America" to become an official "hype man" for the Saints, has become a larger-than-life figure around the team, handing out an award on the NFL Honors awards show with Sean Payton and Harry Connick Jr. earlier this year, among other appearances.
Saints owners Tom and Gayle Benson called Jarrius on Saturday, while Payton and quarterback Drew Brees wished him well on Twitter.
Pray for @Jarrius today as he receives his liver transplant in New Orleans. Can't wait to see you running around the #Saints facility, JJ! — Drew Brees (@drewbrees) April 30, 2017
Athletes from other sports, such as women's soccer player Carli Lloyd and Atlanta Hawks center Dwight Howard, also tweeted to support him.
Robertson battles biliary atresia -- a chronic liver disease that affects his physical growth. He has been in and out of hospitals since receiving a liver transplant when he was 1. At one point, he was in a coma for an entire year.The Reds’ epic MLS Cup run was more than historical, record-breaking and undoubtedly worthy of being honoured as the Sun’s George Gross Sportspersons of the Year and Postmedia’s Team of the Year.
Toronto FC’s captivating season was a story of redemption — something that wasn’t lost on club president Bill Manning during TFC’s victory parade.
After winning everything there was to win this season — an MLS title, a domestic Cup and Supporters’ Shield — TFC’s top boss reminded a crowd of 10,000 red-clad fans at Toronto’s Nathan Phillips Square they’re lucky he didn’t listen.
“One last thing,” Manning started, “When I arrived there was a hashtag ‘Vanney Out’. Now, he’s Coach of the Year, Greg Vanney.”
And Vanney’s Reds aren’t just Postmedia’s Team of the Year. They’re the undisputed greatest team in MLS history — the first side to win three crowns in a calendar year amid setting a record for points (69) in a regular season.
“I can’t imagine that will be happening again any time soon,” TFC GM Tim Bezbatchenko told Postmedia ahead of Christmas. “I think it will be a record that holds for a long time,” he added.
The youngest GM to guide his team to an MLS title recalls looking at TFC’s record in August and realizing the Reds were on pace for something special.
“There was a point mid-summer where we knew 70 points was attainable,” Bezbatchenko told Postmedia. “Greg brought it up during a post-game speech — the ‘Mission to 70,’ doing something that’s never been done before.
“It was about rewarding the fans for all the years of pain and suffering. What better way to do it than to go into every game to play the way we did.”
The Reds lost just two games between Canada Day and November, the start of Major League Soccer’s playoffs. Just as remarkable, the club finished the season with an 11-1-5 record against playoff teams — all while playing in the far superior Eastern Conference. Toronto FC’s 2.03 points per game was the highest total since 2005, when the league consisted of just a dozen teams.
Additionally, the Reds matched the all-time single-season wins (20) record while scoring the second most goals (74) in Major League Soccer’s modern era.
“I think it will be extremely challenging (to break TFC’s points records),” Bezbatchenko added. “There are more teams competing for the Supporters’ Shield. With the influx of money I think it’s going to be more competitive.”
So, what now? How do you follow up the best season ever with something better?
How do you satisfy fans’ insatiable hunger for more results?
“We have to look at our goals a little differently,” Bezbatchenko answered. “With CONCACAF Champions league (CCL) the dynamic has shifted.”
If they make the CCL final the Reds will face eight additional games in 2018.
Inevitable squad rotation could make repeating as Supporters’ Shield winners difficult. It will make breaking their own points record almost impossible.
“We want to win the treble again, but is that the priority?” Bezbatchenko pondered. “Let’s see how we can do in CONCACAF Champions League and make sure we don’t step on our own feet in the regular season.”
That said, some goals never change, he added.
“What we want to do is win the Canadian Championship and ensure we’re in CONCACAF in 2019. We want to be a consistent contender. We need to get a (playoff) bye again. Those things don’t change.
“To satisfy fans is to create a dynasty and a culture where the expectation is for us to win. That’s what we expect from ourselves. That’s what our fans expect. There’s always something else out there to achieve.”
Maintaining, if not expanding, the gap that has opened between the Reds and the rest of Canada’s MLS clubs remains top of mind.
Bezbatchenko was almost two humble when asked to comment on leaving the Vancouver Whitecaps and Montreal Impact behind.
“We want to raise the bar and continue to be the preeminent team in Canada,” Bezbatchenko said diplomatically. “We want to grow the game. We want our national teams to be full of TFC players.
“I thought Vancouver had a very good year. They were in touching distance of being first in the West. Montreal is always a heated battle. They play us hard every time we play them. When the dust settled we had the trophies, but they’re not far behind.”
Reminded the Impact finished 30 points behind the Reds in the East, Bezbatchenko let out a chuckle.
“I’m not stoking the fire. I let the players talk,” he answered.
“We love beating Montreal, there’s no doubt about that.”
But while the ‘Caps and Impact have already started retooling this offseason, the Reds are intent on retaining the core that got them to back-to-back finals.
Defensive linchpin Drew Moor re-signed days after MLS Cup. Toronto FC is negotiating to bring back Eriq Zavaleta, Steven Beitashour and Jason Hernandez. They’ll look to sign a wide attacker and, as Bezbatchenko told Postmedia, the next best available player.
“When it comes to our top 14 (players) in minutes played, we’re trying to bring back everybody,” Bezbatchenko explained. “You have to have some measure of stability. We want as little turnover as possible in those numbers.
“It’s extremely challenging,” he added. “We’re not looking to move anyone.”
Most importantly, TFC’s high-priced difference-makers — Michael Bradley, Jozy Altidore and Sebastian Giovinco – are set to return. Midfielder Victor Vazquez, the missing piece, has two years left on his contract.
“He had a unique background, skillset,” Bezbatchenko said of Vazquez.
“The good thing about our roster is we’re not looking at these new players to be players we’re going to build the team around,” he added. “We’re looking for players who provide something a little bit different than we have.”
Players who, perhaps, will improve a record-setting squad that delivered an unbelievable MLS season and a points record that won’t soon be broken.
“If it’s broken, I hope it’s broken by us,” Bezbatchenko finished.
REDS WERE POPULAR CHAMPS
Everyone likes a winner.
It didn’t take long for Toronto FC’s bandwagon to fill up.
Heck, Mercedes-Benz Canada even produced a GregVANney after the Reds won MLS Cup — a Metris van painted in images of TFC’s coach’s face.
It seemed like everyone hopped aboard the Toronto FC hype train.
Toronto FC general manager Tim Bezbatchenko told Postmedia he received calls and emails and notes from Maple Leafs president Brendan Shanahan and Raptors top boss Masai Ujiri.
Jays executive Mark Shapiro sent Toronto FC brass well-wishes along with Toronto Argonauts GM Jim Popp.
Bezbatchenko said Brian Burke was a supporter, and offered a story about how he first bumped into the ex-Leafs GM.
“He was back picking up some things at the Air Canada Centre,” Bezbatchenko recalled. “One of the first things he told me was how much he hated soccer. But he said his daughters love it, so he watches it. But he’s always occasionally dropped me a line. He’s just been a big supporter over the last few years.”
Asked if there was a commonality between the hat-tips he received, Bezbatchenko said there was a common thread.
“You don’t get a lot of praise all the time from colleagues across the league because we’re all so competitive, but so many people came out and told us it was well-deserved — and that we were a team on a mission this year,” he said. “It wasn’t just about the win but how we went about our business in (the final) game and how that game looked. A lot of people just said how dominant we were — a credit to our players and Greg.”
Bezbatchenko later admitted he hasn’t come down from the high of hoisting the Philip F. Anschutz Trophy in front of a captivated city and the 3.4 million Canadians who watched at least a portion of TFC’s MLS Cup win over the Seattle Sounders.
“It just feels like a really special time and really special time in Toronto with all the teams having a degree of success,” Bezbatchenko added.
klarson@postmedia.comby
When protesters gathered in the Ukrainian capital Kiev in November of last year, few could expect that the sequence of events that unfolded there would lead to the worst crisis between Russia and the western world since the collapse of the Soviet Union over two decades ago.
The political crisis that has gripped Ukraine has revived Cold War-era suspicions that are most noticeable in media coverage of the situation there. Political commentators and analysts have by-and-large laid the blame for the unrest squarely on the shoulders of Russia, while downplaying or omitting facts on the ground that suggest otherwise.
When protestors began occupying the Maidan [Independence Square] in Kiev in November of last year, Ukrainian society was deeply polarized over a proposed association agreement with the EU. Citizens in the agricultural west of the country generally were supportive of efforts to integrate into the EU, while those in the industrialized east favored closer ties with Russia due to their Russian ethnicity and familial ties to Russia.
Ukraine was approaching near-bankruptcy when ousted President Viktor Yanukovich decided to reject the EU deal, which would have required painful structural adjustments of the Ukrainian economy and liberalization measures that would have hurt the country’s domestic agricultural and industrial sectors. Yanukovich instead took up Russia’s offer of $15 billion in loans and a sharp discount on natural gas prices.
Yanukovich’s decision to take Moscow’s loan emboldened demonstrators at Maidan as protests grew increasingly more violent in the weeks ahead. Ukraine was in utter chaos by February as Yanukovich received death threats and was forced to flee to the country. Representatives of the protestors in Maidan became the new government, while the heads of ultra-nationalist groups such as Svoboda and the Right Sector were integrated into high-level ministerial positions.
The transfer of power in Ukraine was entirely undemocratic and unconstitutional, as ragtag paramilitary groups armed with baseball bats and molotov cocktails occupied government buildings and ousted a democratically elected leader. Yet, leaders in Washington and Brussels showed no hesitation to immediately recognize the new government Kiev, which remains – legally speaking – an unelected putsch regime.
In geopolitical terms, Washington and Brussels were keen to see Ukraine break from Moscow’s sphere of influence, prompting the West not only to recognize the regime change in Kiev, but also to create conditions for it to be possible. American diplomats and politicians at the highest levels endorsed the protest movement. US Senator John McCain addressed protestors at Maidan and dined with right-wing extremists from Svoboda.
US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland was photographed handing out cookies to protestors, and spoke on several occasions about how US government foundations donated some $5 billion dollars to Ukrainian opposition groups over the last decade. Nuland was humiliated when a phone call between herself and US Ambassador to Ukraine leaked to the media.
The American officials discussed who they thought should be in power once Yanukovich was ousted. It is no coincidence that Arseniy Yatsenyuk – handpicked by Nuland for the role of prime minister – now occupies that position in Kiev’s new leadership. The United States has essentially midwifed the new government in Ukraine while turning a blind eye to the abuses committed by ultra-nationalists groups allied to the new regime.
Svoboda and the Right Sector laid the groundwork for the putsch by occupying the Maidan and attacking security forces. Members of these far-right groups openly espouse ethnic hatred against Jews and Russians and promote neo-Nazi ideals; their members wear symbols that include the Celtic cross, which has replaced the swastika for many modern white-power groups associated with the German Nazism.
Since seizing power, the putsch regime in Kiev has attempted to pass laws against the official use of Russian and other languages throughout the country, prompting outrage from eastern Ukrainians that culturally and linguistically identify themselves as Russian, who have now revolted to show their rejection of the new authorities, with many storming government buildings and demanding a referendum on autonomy.
Russia refused to recognize the legitimacy of the new government in Kiev, and so it created conditions for a peaceful referendum to be held in Crimea at the request of the region’s autonomous government – in other words, it was legal. The population of Crimea is largely ethnic Russians, many of whom feared for the future under an ultra-nationalist dominated Ukraine.
Crimeans voted overwhelming in favor of rejoining Russia (where it was historically part of until 1954) in a peaceful referendum that European monitors observed. Russia was perhaps motivated to create conditions for a referendum in Crimea because it has a strategic naval base on the peninsula, which housed Russian troops in accordance with an existing treaty signed with Ukraine in the 1990s – in other words, the presence of Russian military personnel in Crimea was legal.
Moscow was characterized in western media as invading Ukraine, which it clearly didn’t do. Washington and Brussels denounced and refused to recognize the Crimean referendum, despite enthusiastically supporting self-determination movements in Kosovo, South Sudan and elsewhere when it serves their economic and geopolitical interests.
Even if one doesn’t agree with the way Russia influenced events in Crimea in the midst of a legal vacuum created by the putsch, the peaceful referendum in Crimea was undeniably more democratic and legitimate than the overthrow of a democratically elected president.
Washington and Brussels are now backing the unelected government in Kiev to the hilt, as they deploy the Ukrainian army in the east to put down the protests calling for autonomy referendums. One may disagree with how eastern Ukrainians are conducting their protests – their occupation of government buildings is clearly illegal – but they have undeniably legitimate social grievances and democratic demands.
Washington accuses Moscow of stoking protests in the east, but is unable to substantiate its claims with any hard evidence. Washington and Kiev are unwilling to admit that the protests in the east are grassroots opposition to regime change, so they would rather characterize their rebellion as the results of shadowy Russian interference.
Washington and Brussels championed the cause of pro-EU protesters occupying state buildings and denounced the elected government for sending in riot police armed with batons to disperse the crowds. Today, they denounce pro-Russian protesters as terrorists and endorse the unelected government’s deployment of tanks, soldiers, and fighter jets to crush the rebellion.
The double standards over Ukraine are overwhelming and show clearly how the Western countries have a very selective commitment to democratic principles. The so-called ‘free press’ of the West is more concerned with portraying Russian President Vladmir Putin as a dictator rather than producing even-handed coverage of the conflict in Ukraine.
As relations between Moscow and the West hit rock bottom and NATO troops advance toward Russia’s border, there is a genuine danger that the events in Ukraine can spark a hot war if diplomatic avenues are not substantively pursued. The new Cold War in an undeniable political reality, but which side is behind the Iron Curtain this time around?
Nile Bowie is a columnist with Russia Today, and a research affiliate with the International Movement for a Just World (JUST), an NGO based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption The moment the SpaceX rocket exploded
An investigation into how a SpaceX rocket exploded is uncovering a "difficult and complex failure", the firm's founder Elon Musk has said.
Mr Musk tweeted that the explosion of Falcon 9 during a routine filling operation was the most complicated in the space travel firm's history.
He said that the engines weren't on and there was "no apparent heat source".
The rocket's payload, a satellite on which Facebook had leased capacity, was destroyed in the explosion last week.
"Still working on the Falcon fireball investigation. Turning out to be the most difficult and complex failure we have ever had in 14 years," Mr Musk tweeted.
Image copyright AP Image caption Billionaire Elon Musk is also chief executive of electric car maker Tesla Motors
Facebook, with Eutelsat Communications, had been due to use the Amos-6 satellite for broadband internet coverage for parts of sub-Saharan Africa as part of Facebook's Internet.org initiative.
The force of the blast at Cape Canaveral shook buildings several miles away.
Mr Musk tweeted that support for the SpaceX investigation by Nasa, the US Federal Aviation Administration, and the US Air Force was "much appreciated".
The technology entrepreneur owns and leads SpaceX. Mr Musk is also chief executive of electric car company Tesla Motors and chairman of solar energy firm SolarCity.Nearly 100 people gathered in the rain outside the Charlotte police headquarters to protest the decision not to prosecute the police officer who fatally shot Keith Lamont Scott on September 22. (Reuters)
The officer who fatally shot a Charlotte man in September will not be charged for the shooting, prosecutors said Wednesday, concluding that the man was armed and that the officer acted lawfully during the encounter.
“It’s a justified shooting based on the totality of the circumstances,” R. Andrew Murray, district attorney for Mecklenburg County, said during a news conference.
The shooting of Keith Lamont Scott on Sept. 20 set off days of heated, sometimes violent protests in Charlotte, some of the most intense demonstrations seen nationwide amid an increased focus on how police use deadly force.
Murray said that the recommendation from 15 career prosecutors in this case was unanimous. He said that he informed Scott’s family of the decision earlier Wednesday.
“It was a difficult decision,” Murray said. “However, the family was extremely gracious.”
Scott’s family said they were “profoundly disappointed” by the announcement. They also thanked Murray and investigators for sharing information about how the probe unfolded and concluded.
Charles Monnett, an attorney for the family, suggested during a news conference that Scott’s relatives may still seek a civil lawsuit against the police department or the city for the shooting, adding: “We look forward to someday obtaining justice for Keith and his family.”
[Video taken by Scott’s wife shows her pleading for his life]
Police have said that Scott raised a gun at officers before Brentley Vinson, a black plainclothes officer in Charlotte, fired the fatal shots.
Protesters raise their arms during a march in Charlotte on Sept. 22 prompted by the fatal shooting of Keith Scott. (Jeff Siner/The Charlotte Observer via AP)
Scott’s family has disputed that the 43-year-old pointed a gun at the officer and whether he had a gun. After the shooting, police released photos of a gun and ankle holster, and authorities said that gun was loaded and had Scott’s fingerprints and DNA.
During the news conference, Murray pored over details from the day of the shooting, ultimately saying he had no doubt that Scott had a gun during the encounter. He also said the gun — a Colt. 380 semi-automatic — was loaded, the safety was off and a bullet was in the chamber.
“There’s been some speculation in the community regarding whether Mr. Scott was armed,” Murray said. “All of the credible and available evidence suggests that he was, in fact, armed.”
District Attorney Andrew Murray discussing evidence as he announced the decision Wednesday. (Diedra Laird/Charlotte Observer via AP)
In a letter to Bob Schurmeier, head of the North Carolina Bureau of Investigation, and Kerr Putney, chief of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg police force, Murray said that evidence included DNA on the gun’s grip and slide, officers discussing seeing the gun on the radio before the shooting and a person admitting they illegally sold Scott the same gun found at the shooting scene.
Police had previously released a photo of a “blunt” from the scene. Authorities said officers in an unmarked car in the apartment complex where the shooting occurred were conducting surveillance in an unrelated case when they saw Scott, in his own car, rolling the blunt with marijuana.
Murray said Wednesday that while police said they were not going to act on the marijuana, they decided to move on Scott when they saw him raise a gun while sitting in his car.
Vinson was not wearing a recording device at the time of the shooting, police said, but the department released other videos from the scene after intense pressure. Murray said Wednesday that none of the videos showed Scott with the gun in his hand when he got out of his car, something all four officers at the scene reported seeing.
A still image from a video the Charlotte police released showing Keith Scott looking at officers with hands by his sides just before he was shot. (Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department via Reuters)
However, Murray said that videos did appear to show that Scott’s pant leg was pulled up above where police said they recovered the ankle holster. During the briefing, Murray also showed surveillance video footage from the same day showing a bulge in Scott’s ankle that he said was consistent with a holster and a gun.
In a recording of the shooting taken by Scott’s wife, Rakeyia, she can be heard yelling at the officers that her husband was unarmed while pleading with them not to fire.
“Don’t shoot him,” she says in the video. “Don’t shoot him. He has no weapon. He has no weapon. Don’t shoot him.”
In his report on the shooting, Murray said that officers called on Scott to drop his gun 10 times before he got out of his SUV and continued saying it after he was out of the car.
Vinson told authorities that he felt Scott was “an imminent threat” to him and the other officers. During an interview with a Charlotte detective conducted a day after the shooting, Vinson said he fired because Scott was looking at the officers like he was “trying to decide who he wanted to shoot first.”
“I felt like if I didn’t do anything right then at that point it’s like he…he was gonna shoot me or he’s gonna shoot one a my buddies, um, and it was gonna happen right now,” Vinson said during the interview, according to a transcript released by Murray’s office.
The family of Keith Lamont Scott — including his wife Rakeyia Scott, right — at a news conference after finding out charges would not be filed against the officer who shot and killed him. (Davie Hinshaw/The Charlotte Observer via AP)
Footage from a body camera worn by another officer at the scene captured part of the encounter, but it lacked audio because the officer did not activate it until after the shooting. Investigators and the public were therefore unable to learn some key details about what happened before the shots were fired.
An autopsy showed that Scott had four gunshot wounds, including one to his back.
According to Murray, investigators spoke to a number of people who said they saw the shooting, but some of them gave conflicting statements. Three of these people had said on social media or told reporters they thought Scott was unarmed, but investigators determined they never saw the shooting, Murray said.
The State Bureau of Investigation put 63 agents on this probe, and they spend more than 2,300 hours on the case, Murray said.
While initial accounts said that Scott was reading a book when he encountered police, state investigators found no evidence he had a book with him when he was shot.
Police in Charlotte, N.C., released video from one body camera and one dashboard camera on Sept. 24th of the fatal Keith Scott shooting. (Editor's note: This video contains graphic content.) (Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department)
Scott’s family, as well as attorneys representing them, called on anyone who protests the decision to do so peacefully.
“While we understand that many in the Charlotte area share our frustration and pain, we ask that everyone work together to fix the system that allowed this tragedy to happen in the first place,” the Scott family said in a statement released through their attorneys. “All our family wanted was justice and for these members of law enforcement to understand that what they did was wrong.”
By 7 p.m. Wednesday, a small group of protesters wearing ponchos gathered in the rain outside the Charlotte police headquarters. The crowd gradually grew to a few dozen demonstrators over the next two hours as the rain receded. The protesters marched through downtown to a spot where a man, Justin Carr, was fatally shot during a previous protest in September in the days after Scott’s killing. Police said three people were arrested for obstructing traffic. A suspect was arrested, who according to officials confessed to the Carr killing, but the demonstrators Wednesday continued to blame police for his death.
“We recognize that for some members of our community, this news will be met with different reactions,” the city of Charlotte said in a statement Wednesday. “No matter where you stand on the issue, the events surrounding the Scott shooting have forever changed our community, and we intend to learn from and build a stronger Charlotte because of it.”
The unrest set off by Scott’s death left the city reeling and struggling to return to normal. Some small protests continued after the demonstrations that garnered national media coverage, while downtown streets remained unsettled in the aftermath of peaceful protests that had descended into chaos.
“The lives of both the Scott and Vinson families have been changed forever,” the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department said in a statement Wednesday. “One of our officers’ had to make the difficult but split second decision to use their service weapon and as a result a life was lost. In these circumstances |
has has spawned the entirely new fields of quantum communication and quantum computing.
But ask a physicist what the capacity is of a quantum information channel and she’ll stare at the floor and shuffle her feet. Despite years of trying, nobody has been able to update Shannon’s theory of communication with a quantum version.
Which is why a paper today on the arXiv is so exciting. Graeme Smith at the IBM Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights NY (a lab that has carried the torch for this problem) and Jon Yard from Los Alamos National Labs have made what looks to be an important breakthrough by calculating that two zero-capacity quantum channels can have a nonzero capacity when used together.
That’s interesting because it indicates that physicists may have been barking up the wrong tree with this problem: perhaps the quantum capacity of a channel does not uniquely specify its ability for transmitting quantum information. And if not, what else is relevant?
That’s going to be a stepping stone to some interesting new thinking in the coming months and years. Betcha!
Ref: arxiv.org/abs/0807.4935: Quantum Communication With Zero-Capacity ChannelsThe sex hormones that bathe a fetus in the womb are some of the earliest and most potent determinates of gender differences in brain structure and social behavior. But other chemicals produced by the human body more subtly tweak the neural pathways underlying these distinctions. Endocannabinoids, natural compounds in the brain that excite the same receptors as marijuana, influence gender-specific behaviors, according to a study published in November in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA.
Desiree Krebs-Kraft of the University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, counted the number of actively dividing glia (nonneuron brain cells) in the medial amygdala (MeA) of four-day-old rats. The MeA controls gender-specific differences in youthful play and regulates mating, parenting, aggression and territoriality in adults.
Krebs-Kraft found that females had more dividing MeA glia than males did. But when the researchers gave newborn rats a drug that mimics the effect of endocannabinoids on brain cells, the rate of cell division in females slowed to the same pace observed in male brains. The drug also changed behavior. Juvenile male rats usually engage in more social play than females, but female rats that received the drug frolicked just as much as the males.
Marijuana affects the mind because substances in the plant called cannabinoids imitate the naturally occurring endocannabinoids found in the brain. “Our results show that endocannabinoids are part of a natural signaling system that underlies the establishment of sex differences in the brain that are an important part of social behavior,” explains Margaret McCarthy, one of the study’s co-authors. “This would suggest that the use of cannabis during pregnancy could alter those systems and have unintended consequences,” she says, though cautioning that much more research is needed to say for sure. Studies have shown that the cannabinoids in marijuana can in fact breach the placenta, so an indulgent mother is smoking for two.
Curiously, the cannabinoid treatment had no effect on cell division or play behavior in males. The researchers found that male rats have inherently higher levels of endocannabinoids in their brains than females, so trying to give the males a little boost did not cause any measurable changes.OAKLAND — A seemingly done deal to keep the A’s in Oakland for up to 10 more seasons has hit a roadblock as city leaders question whether they are making too many concessions.
With Oakland officials seeking amendments to the lease extension, the public agency that operates O.co Coliseum called off a Friday vote to ratify the agreement.
The postponement frustrated A’s co-owner Lew Wolff, who thought he had a done deal.
“We had thought this would be voted on this Friday,” Wolff said in a prepared statement Tuesday. “We have made countless concessions, including many requested late last week after we were told we had a deal. We are done negotiating. It is up to them to vote.”
Any lease extension would have to be approved not only by the Coliseum board but also the Oakland City Council and Alameda County Board of Supervisors. Council members got their first look at the deal Tuesday evening during a closed-door meeting.
Council members could direct their representatives on the Coliseum board to seek more concessions; they also could endorse the existing terms.
The A’s have been seeking a long-term lease in Oakland as they continue seeking Major League Baseball’s permission to move to San Jose.
Oakland officials, hopeful that the team can be swayed to build a ballpark at their current home, also want a lease deal. But sources said they fear that if they give up too much in negotiations now, they won’t have any leverage for another decade.
Relations between the team and their landlords in the city and county have been acrimonious at times. Last year, MLB intervened on the A’s behalf to seal a two-year lease extension that required the team to increase its annual payments from $800,000 to $1.75 million but didn’t include additional concessions sought by the Coliseum board.
Talks on a long-term extension came to a halt two months ago as both sides traded barbs in the press. Negotiations heated up again in May when the framework of an agreement was hashed out during a meeting between Wolff and Councilwoman Rebecca Kaplan and Alameda County Supervisor Scott Haggerty.
However, sources said several city officials aren’t sold on the deal. It failed to resolve whether the A’s must pay the city more than $5 million that the team has deducted from its rent payments to offset a city parking tax. Also the deal originally allowed the A’s to give only one-year’s notice to leave Oakland with minimal financial penalty.
Sources said the team has agreed to several revisions over the past week sought by attorneys representing the city — a few of which provided additional flexibility for the Oakland Raiders if they build a new football stadium adjacent to the Coliseum. However, the A’s have refused to agree to any amendments that could change the economics of the deal, sources said.
The lease deal has come under fire from fan groups who fear that it concedes too much to the A’s and could potentially push the Raiders out of town.
Jim Zelinski of the group Save Oakland Sports called on city officials to closely scrutinize any extension with the A’s. “I think every aspect of it should be studied to make sure it’s in the best interest of the teams, the taxpayers and the fans,” he said.
Contact Matthew Artz at 510-208-6435.About 3,000 pages of transcripts of evidence given by 19 individuals to the Pollard inquiry set to be made public
A censored version of Jeremy Paxman's criticism of BBC management's handling of the Jimmy Savile scandal is expected to be published on Friday among transcripts of the evidence given to an internal inquiry into the crisis.
The BBC will publish online about about 3,000 pages of evidence given by 19 individuals who were interviewed by the former head of Sky News Nick Pollard, consisting of transcripts of their interviews with the review team, plus supporting documents including relevant emails and texts.
Some of the evidence given by Paxman and Peter Horrocks, who as global news director is responsible for the World Service and BBC World News channel, was potentially defamatory and lawyers have removed it, according to sources.
It is understood that Paxman and Horrocks were particularly critical of how senior BBC News management handled the Savile scandal in the autumn.
It is also understood, however, that less than 10% of the soon-to-be published Pollard review transcripts will be redacted.
The BBC published the findings of Pollard's inquiry in December, covering the corporation's handling of Newsnight's abandoned Savile investigation in late 2011, and the aftermath when the story finally broke in October.
Lawyers working on the transcripts are understood to have found the task of redacting more difficult as BBC staff and executives spoke freely as they gave evidence, given that it was not known at the time that the material was going to be published.
The BBC Trust chairman, Lord Patten, said before a Commons select committee in November that the annex on which Pollard based his conclusions, including the transcripts of witness statements, would be published.
When the Pollard report came out on 19 December, it emerged that Paxman said he believed the decision to axe Newsnight's Savile investigation was a "corporate decision", suggesting that the programme appeared to be "hiding" by refusing to cover the story that eventually emerged in an ITV documentary in October.
He emailed the former Newsnight editor Peter Rippon within an hour of the editor publishing a blog defending his decision to drop the Savile film – it was later shown to contain several inaccuracies – to say the blog "doesn't answer all of the accusations laid against us".
Paxman told Rippon: "I have to say, I think we make a problem for ourselves by running away from this story."
Pollard's report criticised the BBC and the former director general George Entwistle for failing to look hard enough at the issues surrounding Savile tribute programmes that were planned after the Jim'll Fix It presenter's death in late October 2011, even though they knew their flagship current affairs programme had launched an investigation into child sex abuse allegations.
The report was also critical of the former BBC News director Helen Boaden for being "too casual, too fleeting" when she raised the issue with Entwistle at an awards ceremony in late 2011. Pollard said he was surprised she didn't take "a more proactive role" and said it was clear a "significant part of the division she headed was in meltdown".
Entwistle, Boaden, Rippon and the former BBC director general Mark Thompson were among the 19 witnesses the Pollard inquiry interviewed over a six week period.
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The woman says she had no idea he was a firefighter, and says she had no idea that the man she heard trying to get inside of her front door was her next-door neighbor.
Investigators say the 64-year-old woman physically is doing alright, but emotionally she is shaken. At around 9:30 p.m. Monday, she says she heard a man fumbling around the front gate of her Porter Heights home on Youpon Lane. According to deputies, it sounded to her like he was trying to break in. She was home alone, so detectives say she grabbed her protection -- a revolver.
"At the time, she again told him to leave and that she was armed," said Sgt. Dan Zientek, with the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office.
After several verbal warnings, she pulled the trigger.
"She fired twice through the door, striking the person," Sgt. Zientek said.
The shots hit Samuel Keen, a four-year veteran with the Houston Fire Department. He was transported to Ben Taub Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Neighbors say they are shocked and saddened.
"Obviously our thoughts and prayers go out to his entire family, and his extended family -- the Houston Fire Department," said HFD Chief Terry Garrison.
While deputies collected evidence, the question of motive began to surface and how he was able to get through the woman's gate.
"It's normally closed at all times. How he gained entry... he appeared to walk up to the yard without a vehicle," said Sgt. Zientek.
Detectives thought it was odd that if it was an attempted break-in, there was no evidence of a getaway car. But that's because the man's vehicle was parked in his driveway. Keen was the woman's next-door neighbor.
Investigators say earlier on St. Patrick's Day he was at a bar with friends and took a cab ride home. Unfortunately, the 27-year-old husband never made it home.
Earlier Tuesday across the city, firefighters had a moment of silence in Keen's honor.
Deputies say no charges were filed against the homeowner. Detectives say they are still interviewing witnesses and investigating the incident to prepare the case for presentation to a grand jury.
Copyright 2014 by Click2Houston.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Wolverhampton Wanderers striker Benik Afobe is delighted to see Jack Wilshere win the FA Cup with Arsenal.
Wolverhampton Wanderers striker Benik Afobe has taken to social networking site Twitter to congratulate Jack Wilshere on winning the FA Cup for the second season in a row with Arsenal.
The Gunners defeated their Premier League rivals Aston Villa 4-0 in the final of the prestigious competition at London’s Wembley Stadium on Saturday evening.
England international forward Theo Walcott put the North London outfit in the lead in the 40th minute, and Chilean star Alexis Sanchez doubled the advantage five minutes into the second half.
German defender Per Mertesacker made it 3-0 to Arsenal with a header just past the hour mark, and France international striker Olivier Giroud wrapped up the comprehensive win late on.
Midfielder Wilshere did not start the encounter, but he came on as a substitute for Mesut Ozil in the 77th minute.
Afobe, who is good friends with the England international and joined Wolves from Arsenal in the January transfer window, has taken to Twitter to express his delight at the 23-year-old winning the FA Cup yet again.Wall Street Speculation
Legislation was introduced on Wednesday to impose a financial transaction tax on the trading of stocks, bonds and derivatives. The measure would reduce gambling on Wall Street, encourage the financial sector to invest in the productive economy, and significantly reduce the deficit without harming average Americans. "This bill offers us a clear choice. We can balance the budget on the backs of working Americans and senior citizens on fixed incomes or we can ask the gamblers on Wall Street to pay a little bit more in taxes," said Sen. Bernie Sanders, a cosponsor of the bill.
Under the proposal, there would be a speculation fee of 0.03 percent on credit default swaps, derivatives, stocks, bonds, and other financial transactions. It would yield about $200 billion in new revenue over the coming decade. The lead sponsor in the Senate is Tom Harkin. Rep. Peter DeFazio filed companion legislation in the House.
Some of the largest and most profitable financial institutions in this country now pay little or nothing in federal income taxes. Last year, Bank of America received a $1.9 billion tax refund from the IRS, even though it made $4.4 billion in profits and received a bailout from the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department of more than $1 trillion. Citigroup made more than $4 billion in profits last year but paid no federal income taxes, even though it received a $2.5 trillion bailout from the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury. And, in 2008, Goldman Sachs paid only 1.1 percent of its income in taxes even though it earned a profit of $2.3 billion and received a bailout of more than $800 billion from the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury Department
"Enough is enough," Sanders said. "At a time when we have a record-breaking national debt and unsustainable federal deficit, the very least we can do is demand that Wall Street pay its fair share.OKLAHOMA CITY – It’s still early in the season, but a winless start after the club’s opening three games left OKC Energy FC Head Coach Jimmy Nielsen disappointed after a 1-0 setback to Rio Grande Valley FC in the club’s home opener in front of 5,889 fans at Taft Stadium.
“Yeah, this one here is going to hurt a bit,” said Nielsen following Saturday’s loss. “We’ll come in early tomorrow morning and evaluate this year and we’ll move on to the next, but something needs to happen. I hope we can use this as a wake-up call for all of us.”
It won’t get any easier for Energy FC, which hosts Sacramento Republic FC on Tuesday night in the USL Game of the Week on ESPN3 at Taft Stadium on Tuesday night. Sacramento has made a perfect start, going 3-0-0 after its 2-1 win on Saturday against Tulsa. But OKC goalkeeper Cody Laudendi is looking at the current spot the team finds itself in as an opportunity.
“This could be a very galvanizing moment for us,” Laurendi said on Saturday. “You know, the work rate and the heart is there. At times it’s a little misplaced. The aggression, but it has to be controlled aggression. We’re going to learn from this.”We've released an updated post for Angular 2.0.0 RC4. Read it here
We've re-released an updated post for Angular 2.0.0 RC5. Read it here
Here at ZingChart, we are big Angular fans. A few of our internal tools are built upon it, and we even built an Angular directive wrapped around our charting library: ZingChart-AngularJS Directive. We are also getting ready for Angular 2. We’re watching each step in the library’s development and checking out the latest developments.
When Angular 2 reached their first beta, we decided to see how well ZingChart would integrate with the new framework. Since then, we’ve developed an Angular 2 example with ZingChart.
Stay tuned for an official ZingChart Component for Angular 2 when the framework reaches maturity. But this example is uses the current Angular 2 release (beta-9), so syntax and ideas are subject to change.
Angular 2 is a pretty vast departure from its first iteration.
Many of Angular's core fundamentals have been done away with, such as:
Controllers
Directive Definition Objects
$scope
Angular's lifecycle has been reworked and modified to use new concepts. The familiar $scope.$apply() to signal a manual change is no longer needed. The framework's source isn't even written in vanilla JavaScript! Even worse, Angular 2 is not backwards compatible with Angular 1!
Put those pitchforks (and tridents) away. The Angular 2 hate train has come and gone.
Web Components
While these changes signify an end to AngularJS 1, the team responsible for Angular made it clear that AngularJS applications will continue to receive support and there will be a clear path to migrating to Angular 2.
In fact, you can easily use Angular 2 components inside of your Angular 1 application to make the transition seamless: https://angularjs.blogspot.com/2015/08/angular-1-and-angular-2-coexistence.html
These changes are necessary to evolve with the web community and the direction towards which it is headed: Web Components. Web Components aim to be an industry standard where developers can create encapsulated building blocks. In turn, these blocks can create even bigger pieces to develop into an application.
They aim to ease development by creating a declarative environment where complex logic can be contained, while interfaces and APIs can be clearly exposed.
Angular 2 isn't the first to do it : React and Polymer are two alternative frameworks that embrace the idea of Web Components, and share a lot of similarities with Angular 2.
Typescript
As for the choice of TypeScript as the default language, it seems like a natural fit. TypeScript is a superset of ES6 (the next iteration of JavaScript) and comes with a slew of features such as:
Types
Generics
Interfaces.
Big projects such as Angular 2 will benefit from the added syntax, by improving maintainability and compile-time reassurance for a project that will last many years. While Angular 2 is offered in different flavors including ES6 and Dart, we highly recommend sticking with TypeScript if you choose to develop with Angular 2.
Being able to reference the source code of the framework, and to understand code snippets from most of the Angular 2 articles written with TypeScript will make developing much less painful.
With that being said, let's dive into an Angular 2 example using TypeScript!
Angular 2 Example: Hello World
The scope of this article assumes you have basic knowledge of ZingChart, TypeScript, and ES6 modules. An introduction to Angular 2 is recommended, but not required. If you are unfamiliar with any of these technologies, we recommend the following links:
We start off by setting up a simple boilerplate which includes ZingChart, Angular 2, and polyfills for browsers that are incompatible with some of Angular 2’s dependencies. You can follow along by forking this starter plunker : https://plnkr.co/edit/Z4ruHyfmBwxUT9Iov7QP, or you can skip ahead to a completed version : https://plnkr.co/edit/PDR1egLEzrAdETcoQdfc.
index.html
<!DOCTYPE html> <html> <head> <title>ZingChart + Angular 2</title> <script src="https://code.angularjs.org/2.0.0-beta.6/angular2-polyfills.js"></script> <script src="https://code.angularjs.org/tools/system.js"></script> <script src="https://code.angularjs.org/tools/typescript.js"></script> <script src="https://code.angularjs.org/2.0.0-beta.6/Rx.js"></script> <script src="https://code.angularjs.org/2.0.0-beta.6/angular2.min.js"></script> <script src="https://code.angularjs.org/2.0.0-beta.6/http.min.js"></script> <script src="https://cdn.zingchart.com/zingchart.min.js"></script> <script> System.config({ transpiler: 'typescript', typescriptOptions: { emitDecoratorMetadata: true } }); System.import('app.ts').catch(console.error.bind(console)); </script> </head> <body> </body> </html>
Dependencies
We include a number of dependencies inside of our HTML file. The majority of these dependencies will not be needed for production code if you intend on compiling and bundling the code. Going into each of these dependencies in detail would be enough information for another article in itself, so in short :
angular2-polyfills.js - Needed for zone.js and reflect-metadata
system.js - A module loader
typescript.js - A client-side version of the language TypeScript
Rx.js - Observables
angular2.min.js - Angular 2
http.min.js - The HTTP class
zingchart.min.js - The ZingChart library!
We utilize a library called SystemJS as a polyfill for the upcoming es6 require syntax. This allows us to pull in files dynamically into our application, similar to how require works in Node.js.
The line System.import('app.ts') brings in our external file app.ts via ajax to be interpreted by the browser. Let's look at that file now.
app.ts
import {bootstrap} from 'angular2/platform/browser'; import {Component, NgZone, AfterView, OnDestroy} from 'angular2/core' @Component({ selector:'my-app', template: ` <div> <h2>Hello {{name}}</h2> </div> ` }) class App { constructor() { this.name = 'World' } } bootstrap(App, []).catch(err => console.error(err));
We utilize es6's import statement to include two important functions into our application. bootstrap is our injection point to start the Application. Angular takes in our root component App and traverses through its dependency tree creating components and appending them to the DOM.
Component, NgZone, AfterView, and OnDestroy will be discussed later in the article,but we include it now for completeness.
Classes
The class notation is new to ES6/TypeScript. It is syntactic sugar on top of Prototypes in JavaScript which allows for Object-Orientation and inheritance. Classes allow developers to abstract logic cleanly without developers creating their own abstractions of other OOP based libraries.
Classes are essential in Angular 2, so let's look at our first Class App. It has a single constructor function which initializes the attribute name to a string World. We can pass this Class definition to Angular's bootstrap function to create our first component; the root component.
Directly on top of the class, we decorate it with the function @Component. This function is an Angular module that decorates our class with Angular syntax. The first property selector allows our component to be referenced declaratively from the DOM as a custom element. In this example, the element <my-app></my-app> acts as an injection point for our App component.
The template property allows additional DOM content to be injected inside of our component. Note the new back-tick ` syntax available in ES6. This allows us to break up our HTML string visually without having to concatenate strings together. The {{}} syntax is familiar to those coming from an Angular 1 background.
We utilize this syntax to interpolate our class variables directly into our string template. The name property that we instantiated in our constructor is available from inside our template by calling the variable {{name}} inside of the brackets. We then set our template to have a h2 element wrapped inside a div.
Finally, let's add our newly created component into the <body> of our index.html page.
<my-app> loading... </my-app>
In the browser, Angular will detect our new app and compile it to output the following :
<div> <h2>Hello World</h2> </div>
Angular 2 Charts : Adding ZingChart
Now that we have an Angular 2 example application running, let's add ZingChart to the application.
Creating a model
class Chart { id: String; data: Object; height: any; width: any; constructor(config: Object) { this.id = config['id']; this.data = config['data']; this.height = config['height'] || 300; this.width = config['width'] || 600; } }
First, we create a class called Chart that will contain four properties :
id data height width
Inside of our constructor, we initialize each Chart using the same configuration object used inside of the zingchart.render function, and pass those properties to our members. The height and width are optional parameters and default to 300 and 600 respectively. This class will act as our Model, and will provide the uniformity we need to create our charts.
Creating the ZingChart Component
Next, we create another class that will handle creating each chart. We call this component ZingChart which will contain a single instance of the Chart class we just created.
class ZingChart implements AfterViewInit, OnDestroy { chart : Chart; ngAfterViewInit() { } ngOnDestroy() { } }
We utilize TypeScript's ability to accept interfaces for our class. We implement the interfaces OnDestroy and AfterViewInit. These interfaces hook into Angular's lifecycle events and allow us to perform actions during this event sequence. Two such events we will use in this example are AfterViewInit and OnDestroy.
AfterViewInit is called when the component's view has been fully initialized. This allows us to prepare the DOM before the ZingChart library injects itself into the <div> we provide in our template. OnDestroy notifies us when the component will be destroyed.
This is perfect for cleaning up each chart. We'll create stub functions for now by prefixing each event name with ng. Our single public member in this example is an instance of our Chart class.
Next, we decorate the ZingChart Class.
@Component({ selector : 'zingchart', inputs : ['chart'], template : ` <div id='{{chart.id}}'></div> ` }) class ZingChart implements AfterViewInit, OnDestroy { chart : Chart; ngAfterViewInit() { } ngOnDestroy() { } }
We designate the keyword zingchart as a selector for our new component. The inputs parameter allows us to take any number of inputs from a Parent component to be accessible inside our class. In this example, we accept a single input chart which corresponds to the chart member in our class. The template simply renders out a <div> element to allow the ZingChart library to attach itself to.
Informing our App Component
Before proceeding any further without ZingChart component, let us notify our parent component, App that we have a new component to be utilized.
@Component({ selector:'my-app', directives: [ZingChart] template: \` <zingchart *ngFor="#chartObj of charts" [chart]='chartObj'></zingchart> `, }) export class App { charts : Chart[]; constructor() { this.name = 'Angular2' this.charts = [{ id : 'chart-1', data : { type : 'line', series : [{ values :[2,3,4,5,3,3,2] }], }, height : 400, width : 600 }] } }
We expand our App class by adding a member charts to hold all of the charts in our application. This will be of type Chart[], which is an array of Chart objects. Inside of our constructor, we initialize a new Chart object to be stored within this array.
Inside of the decoration, we add our component into the directives parameter, and modify our App's template to render out a single chart. The *ngFor syntax allows us to create N charts, based upon our Class's charts member.
Rendering a chart
Back at our ZingChart class, let's implement how our chart renders.
class ZingChart implements AfterView, OnDestroy { chart : Chart; constructor(private zone:NgZone) { } ngAfterViewInit() { this.zone.runOutsideAngular(() => { zingchart.render({ id : this.chart['id'], data : this.chart['data'], width : this.chart['width'], height: this.chart['height'] }); }); } ngOnDestroy() { zingchart.exec(this.chart['id'], 'destroy'); } }
Zones
Inside of our constructor, we introduce a new concept : Zones.
"A Zone is an execution context that persists across async tasks. You can think of it as thread-local storage for JavaScript VMs."
In a nutshell, Angular 2 utilizes zones for change detection and eliminates having to use $scope.$apply or $digest from Angular 1 to update our UI. It handles all of that in the background for us by attaching itself to browser events including window.setTimeout and window.setInterval.
For more information, head over to Zone.js's github repository https://github.com/angular/zone.js.
So why is this important to our ZingChart example? ZingChart relies on window events such as window.setTimeout and window.setInterval for updating visual changes such as tooltips or highlighted state on the chart.
By default, Zone.js will listen of these events as well and treat them as part of the applications lifecycle -- not good! We do not want the small visual changes that ZingChart provides to be listened to by Angular. Therefore, we need to render each chart outside of the zone.
We accomplish this by wrapping our zingchart.render function inside of the zone.runOutsideAngular function. Inside of the zingchart.render function, we pass in our chart instance's members to render out the chart.
Finally, we modify our ngOnDestroy hook to properly destroy our charts when Angular needs to re-render the view. We utilize the ZingChart API method call destroy.
Now run the page and you should see a chart appear on your page. Congrats! You have created your first chart using ZingChart inside of Angular 2!
For a complete working example, see : https://plnkr.co/edit/PDR1egLEzrAdETcoQdfc
Looking towards the future
We hope you enjoyed our explanation of this Angular 2 example. When the Angular 2 framework reaches a point of maturity or when it becomes officially released, we will provide an official ZingChart Component complete with API integration similar to our ZingChart AngularJS directive for Angular 1.
If you have any suggestions on features that would be useful in our future component, please share your thoughts in the comments below.
Related Content:Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have found a cluster of young, blue stars encircling the first intermediate-mass black hole ever discovered. The presence of the star cluster suggests that the black hole was once at the core of a now-disintegrated dwarf galaxy. The discovery of the black hole and the star cluster has important implications for understanding the evolution of supermassive black holes and galaxies.
"For the first time, we have evidence on the environment, and thus the origin, of this middle-weight black hole," said Mathieu Servillat, who worked at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics when this research was conducted.
Astronomers know how massive stars collapse to form stellar-mass black holes (which weigh about 10 times the mass of our sun), but it's not clear how supermassive black holes (like the four million solar-mass monster at the center of the Milky Way) form in the cores of galaxies. One idea is that supermassive black holes may build up through the merger of smaller, intermediate-mass black holes weighing hundreds to thousands of suns.
Lead author Sean Farrell, of the Sydney Institute for Astronomy in Australia, discovered this unusual black hole in 2009 using the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton X-ray space telescope. Known as HLX-1 (Hyper-Luminous X-ray source 1), the black hole weighs in at 20,000 solar masses and lies towards the edge of the galaxy ESO 243-49, which is 290 million light-years from Earth.
Farrell and his team then observed HLX-1 simultaneously with NASA's Swift observatory in X-ray and Hubble in near-infrared, optical, and ultraviolet wavelengths. The intensity and the color of the light shows a cluster of young stars, 250 light-years across, encircling the black hole. Hubble can't resolve the stars individually because the suspected cluster is too far away. The brightness and color are consistent with other clusters of young stars seen in other galaxies.
Farrell's team detected blue light from hot gas in the accretion disk swirling around the black hole. However, they also detected red light produced by much cooler gas, which would most likely come from stars. Computer models suggested the presence of a young, massive cluster of stars encircling the black hole.
"What we can definitely say with our Hubble data is that we require both emission from an accretion disk and emission from a stellar population to explain the colors we see," said Farrell.
Such young clusters of stars are commonly seen in nearby galaxies, but not outside the flattened starry disk, as found with HLX-1. The best explanation is that the HLX-1 black hole was the central black hole in a dwarf galaxy. The larger host galaxy then captured the dwarf. Most of the dwarf's stars were stripped away through the collision between the galaxies. At the same time, new young stars were formed in the encounter. The interaction that compressed the gas around the black hole also triggered star formation.
Farrell and Servillat found that the star cluster must be less than 200 million years old. This means that the bulk of the stars were formed following the dwarf's collision with the larger galaxy. The age of the stars tells how long ago the two galaxies crashed into each other.
The future of the black hole is uncertain at this stage. It depends on its trajectory, which is currently unknown. It's possible the black hole may spiral in to the center of the big galaxy and eventually merge with the supermassive black hole there. Alternately, the black hole could settle into a stable orbit around the galaxy. Either way, it's likely to fade away in X-rays as it depletes its supply of gas.
"This black hole is unique in that it's the only intermediate-mass black hole we've found so far. Its rarity suggests that these black holes are only visible for a short time," said Servillat.
More observations are planned this year to track the history of the interaction between the two galaxies.
The new findings are being published in the February 15 issue of the Astrophysical Journal Letters.Ruling as he did during the Five Dynasties period of Chinese history, the emperor Mingzong (r. 926-933) has not received the same degree attention from historians as have many of his counterparts. In From Warhorses to Ploughshares: The Later Tang Reign of Emperor Mingzong (Hong Kong University Press, 2015), Richard L. Davis provides readers with the first modern biography of Mingzong. Born Miaojilie, Mingzong grew up among his fellow Shatuo Turks and rose to become a leading commander of the forces of the Tang dynasty. After taking the throne in the aftermath of a military rebellion, he managed relations with other states with success and instituted a series of economic reforms designed to encourage trade. Though the territories of the Tang prospered during this period, peace was cut short by Mingzong’s death, with his dynastic line coming to a violent end less than a decade later. Davis’ book offers a window into a dramatic era in China’s past, one in which Mingzong’s reign stood out for its stability amidst the tumult.When the Guangzhou Daily uploaded a photo of a street vendor to Weibo, the reporter was doing it to commend the seller for remaining friendly and happy despite being chased away by chengguan 7-8 times a day. Netizens soon noticed something much more important about this vendor in particular however: he fiiine.
#潮汕帅哥# (Handsome Chaoshan Guy) was soon trending on Weibo, with many netizens commenting that they’d like to chase this Chinese version of Ridiculously Photogenic Guy themselves. Others commented that Handsome Chaoshan Guy bore a striking resemblance to Thai-German model Mario Maurer. As of writing there are over 128,000 discussions under the Handsome Chaoshan Guy tag.
The man in question, Ji Zezhi was slightly overwhelmed by the attention and initially deleted his personal Weibo account, though it is now back online.3 reasons to Run 300’s to Get Old School Tough ——–
Workout: 6 x 300’s with 3-minute rest usually run at 800 pace. The true benefits come from running over a mile of 300’s, faster than your normal 800 pace. I describe this as being similar to kick boxers kicking hard surfaces over and over, but with less Chuck Norris toughness.
300’s are on many 400-800 runners schedules, but milers are always surprised when I throw 300’s into their workout schedule. It is always easy to spot a miler with strong anaerobic strength especially around the 800 to 1200 mark. When 99% of milers’ pace drops in the 3rd 400, they are the ones that hold pace and crush a 59 bell lap. Your mile pace will feel like a cake walk (for least 1200 meters), I have seen athletes extend their coast period from 800 meters to 1200 |
that the island has since been gifted to the singer Bjork by Iceland’s government for putting the country on the international radar. But we hear that’s not actually the case.
So while little is known about this house, it has definitely captivated our imaginations.By of the
You might think that Milwaukee County Sheriff David A. Clarke Jr., who has a master's degree in security studies, could lend some insight into Friday's terrorist attack at Paris cafes, a concert hall and the national stadium that killed at least 127 people.
But that wasn't the case.
Instead, Clarke took to Twitter to explain that he believes if Republicans play the Paris attack in a "politically smart" way, they can all but guarantee a victory in next year's presidential election. He added, "War is politics carried on by other means."
If GOP plays this politically smart they can end any chance that the Dems win the WH in 2016. War is politics carried on by other means. — David A. Clarke, Jr. (@SheriffClarke) November 14, 2015
His tweet was "liked" by more than 500 people by Saturday morning.
In the past, Clarke has been sharply critical of Democrats who have tried to use mass shootings to push a political agenda, such as gun control legislation.
"Shame on the left, shame on the Democrats for once again exploiting misery and tragedy to pursue a political agenda," Clarke told Fox News' Sean Hannity in August after a Virginia shooting left a reporter and cameraman dead. "Shame on the president of the United States to invoke terrorism into this horrific incident that happened in Virginia."Syrian refugees and underprivileged Muslim youth are getting their first introduction to one of Canada's favourite summer pastimes: camp.
It's four days and three nights of team-building, problem-solving and outdoor activity meant to teach the kids survival skills and self-confidence, as well as help them integrate into Canadian culture.
The children, many of whom are new to Calgary, are attending Camp Kindle for free, through sponsorship by the Muslim Families Network Society.
"Camping is a Canadian culture, a Canadian custom," said MFNS board member and camp volunteer Khaled Chaabani.
"It's a good way to help them to learn how to live the Canadian way in a healthy environment."
Camp activities include archery, wall-climbing, ropes courses, a zipline, arts and crafts and hiking. (Dave Gilson/CBC)
Between tackling the climbing walls, zipline, ropes courses, archery and water sports, the kids are fed Halal meals and observe all five daily prayer times.
Chaabani said he was encouraged to see kids from Syria, Iraq, Sudan and other countries playing together and talking about their difficult past experiences.
"I was happy that they were able to open up, and that they felt this was a good environment, a safe environment," he said.
Khaled Chaabani is one of the five volunteers from the Muslim Family Network Society who is supervising the activities at Camp Kindle this week. (James Young/CBC)
Chaabani said language and cultural integration remain the two biggest challenges facing the newcomers, but he's optimistic they'll make a smooth transition.
"They are sharp kids. They went through a lot, and when you go through that struggling, you gain some skills that you don't gain when you think you're comfortable."
Mohamad al Said starts grade 10 this year and agreed that learning English has been tough, but he said he likes it here.
"I like Canada. You know why? Because people in Canada are very nice, respectful," al Said said.
The $350 camp fee was waived for Syrian refugee families and underprivileged youth thanks to bursaries and sponsorships coordinated by the Muslim Families Network Society. (James Young/CBC)
Tech-free camp
The camp has a strict ban on cellphones, cameras, computers and video games, which gives the kids ample time to get to know each other, said camp coordinator Wes Aitken.
"A lot of times, kids these days, they're so plugged in. They are so glued to their screens and stuff like that. We are one of the last places without cellphone reception, and we sell that," Aitken said.
"They get to get back to what's important, getting into nature with people and connecting at a real level."
Nasrin Ali, a camper originally from Sudan, said she's already made some friends at camp.
"It's nice that there's no technology or anything. That gives us the opportunity to talk to each other," Ali said.
"It's been fun making new friends."When high schooler Chelesa Fearce had to study for exams at night, she would read her books using the light from her cell phone because it was dark in her homeless shelter.
According to WBSTV.com, Chelesa was homeless for most of her high school career -- and sometimes her family even slept in her mother’s car. But that didn't stop her from graduating at the very top of her high school class. After achieving a final grade point average of 4.466, Chelesa was just named valedictorian at Charles Drew High School in Riverdale, Ga.
Watch Chelesa talk about her incredible story in the video above.
“I just told myself to keep working, because the future will not be like this anymore,” Chelesa told WBSTV.com. “You’re worried about your home life and then worried at school. Worry about being a little hungry sometimes, go hungry sometimes. You just have to deal with it."
On top of her outstanding GPA, Chelesa will be ahead of the curve when she enters Spelman College in the fall because for the last two years of high school, Chelesa tested high enough to take all college courses. Because of her hard work, she will be enrolled as a college junior.
And Chelesa isn't the only one making her family proud this graduation season: Her sister, Chelsea, is graduating as the salutatorian of her class at George Washington Carver High School in Atlanta.
"I'm very proud," their mother said. “I read to them a lot, took them to the library. Everything around was a learning experience."
Another teen who achieved an incredible accomplishment this year despite challenging circumstances is 18-year-old Lane Gunderman. Like Chelesa, Lane didn't have a stable home, but he focused on his schoolwork and made it to the final round of the Intel Science Talent Search, according to the Chicago Tribune. It was reported in March that he will receive a full scholarship to Stanford University.
"I always knew I was going to go to a college," Lane told the Chicago Tribune. "But I didn't know if it would be a very good one."
And then there is last year's standout student, Samantha Garvey, who received national recognition for her achievements in the Intel science competition while living in a homeless shelter. She received a scholarship for $50,000, courtesy of AT&T, so she could attend the college of her choice.
"My family's setbacks are a source of motivation. I want to get my family ahead, which is why I do well in school," Samantha told Newsday.Memphis-led team awarded $13.8 million to develop mPerf mobile sensor technology for workplace assessment
July 26, 2017 - Many of us use mobile sensors to monitor our health and wellness. These sensors can now also be used to help us improve our work performance and productivity.
Toward that end, a University of Memphis-led, six-university team will develop and test a system of mobile sensors and software, called mPerf, that can be used to objectively assess everyday job performance. The mPerf project is sponsored by the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA)'s Multimodal Objective Sensing to Assess Individuals with Context (MOSAIC) program.
Such current workforce evaluation tools as interviews, cognitive assessments and questionnaires do not always capture how an individual performs on a day-to-day basis. mPerf will address this challenge by building upon an open-source software platform developed by the NIH-supported Center of Excellence for Mobile Sensor Data-to-Knowledge (MD2K), also headquartered at the University of Memphis. This platform allows researchers to gather, analyze and store high-frequency mobile sensor data to discover and validate mHealth biomarkers. mPerf will extend this platform to model and predict work performance based on passively collected sensor-based markers of activity, behavior and context.
University of Memphis Professor Santosh Kumar, Lillian and Morrie Moss Chair of Excellence in Computer Science, will direct the project. Widely regarded as one of the nation's leading scientists in mobile health, Dr. Kumar will lead a team that includes some of the nation's top researchers in work performance (Deniz Ones, Minnesota), interpersonal communications (Eugene Buder, Memphis), stress (Mustafa al'Absi, Minnesota), sensor design and signal processing (Emre Ertin, Ohio State), mobile sensing (Tanzeem Choudhury, Cornell), mobile computing (Deepak Ganesan, UMass Amherst and Mani Srivastava, UCLA), and machine learning (Benjamin Marlin, UMass Amherst).
"Through MD2K, we have already developed many novel ways to monitor health and wellness using mobile sensors," Kumar said. "The mPerf project allows us to expand MD2K's offerings to help assess work performance and productivity using the same mobile sensors."
The mPerf team will collect data from 600 employees at five to 10 different organizations in the U.S. and abroad to develop and evaluate its models. mPerf researchers will leverage their decade-long experience in this field to develop unique sensor-based markers. They will then apply novel sensor data analytics to create a library of sensor-based indicators to measure work performance.
"This project further establishes Memphis as a national leader in mobile sensor research," said Dr. M. David Rudd, UofM President. "Dr. Kumar and his impressive team of collaborators are again poised to make seminal contributions in this impactful area of research. It is quite an honor to be recognized at this level."
Find out more about the mPerf project here: mperf.md2k.org.
About IARPA's MOSAIC program:
MOSAIC is a new program looking at new ways to measure and predict individual job performance using unobtrusive, passive and persistent sensor-based measurements. Its goal is to improve the Intelligence Community's capabilities to evaluate its workforce throughout their careers. For more information, go to https://www.iarpa.gov/index.php/research-programs/mosaic.
About MD2K:
The MD2K Center at the University of Memphis is one of 13 national Big Data Centers of Excellence awarded by the National Institutes of Health as part of its Big Data-to-Knowledge initiatives. MD2K's goal is to generate generalizable theory, methods, tools and software to address major barriers to processing complex mobile sensor data. MD2K brings together top minds in computer science, engineering, medicine, behavioral science and statistics, drawn from 13 universities (Cornell Tech, Georgia Tech, Harvard, Northwestern, Ohio State, UCLA, UC San Diego, UC San Francisco, the University of Massachusetts Amherst, the University of Memphis, the University of Michigan, the University of Utah and West Virginia University). To learn more about MD2K, go to https://md2k.org.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Contact: Barbara Burch Kuhn
Director, Communications & Media
MD2K Center of Excellence
barbara.kuhn@memphis.eduYou can thank our friends at BoingBoing for tipping us off to this neo-Victorian series of models, a work in progress by Lego artist Matt Armstrong aka “Monsterbrick.” His crazy steampunk inventions — which range from an antique typewriter to a meerschaum pipe (complete with a plume of smoke!) — are surprisingly realistic and detailed, in spite of the fact that they’re entirely made up of little plastic bricks. Click through to get a better look at Armstrong’s impressive work, and let us know in the comments which piece is your favorite.
Image credit: Matt Armstrong
Image credit: Matt Armstrong
Image credit: Matt Armstrong
Image credit: Matt Armstrong
Image credit: Matt Armstrong
Image credit: Matt Armstrong
Image credit: Matt Armstrong
Image credit: Matt Armstrong
Image credit: Matt Armstrong
Image credit: Matt ArmstrongNote: This article is also available in Spanish.
Introduction
‘Why Gay Men Don’t Need Feminism’ is a four-part series of articles adapted from a speech that was intended to be presented at the Second International Conference on Men’s Issues in 2015 by the author, Matthew Lye (a.k.a. Andy Bob). The four parts are:
Part 1: Challenging Assumptions
Part 2: The Takeover
Part 3: Gay Bashing
Part 4: Brotherhood
As these articles are written from the perspective of a Men’s Human Rights Activist (MHRA), they focus on the dysfunctional relationship between feminism and gay men. Feminism has had an entirely different relationship with lesbians which is irrelevant to this topic, and has been examined in detail elsewhere.
Why Gay Men Don’t Need Feminism – Part 1: Challenging Assumptions
In April, 2012, Gloria Steinem repeated one of modern feminism’s most durable and self-serving myths when she reaffirmed the unity between feminism and gay rights. She claimed that they were “completely the same thing”.1 Predictably, no prominent media pundit publicly contradicted her. This is due in part to the fact that St Gloria is a feminist, which means she gets a pass from the mainstream media to spew whatever offensive nonsense pops into her head without it ever being challenged, and partly because no-one is entirely sure if she’s still chummy with the CIA. However, the main reason is that feminists like her have succeeded wildly in hoodwinking people who ought to know better – including hordes of gullible gay men – that it’s true.
To be fair, Steinem called it ‘women’s rights’, but she meant ‘feminism’, in the same way that feminists refer to something called ‘the patriarchy’ when they’re really just talking about ‘men’. It’s always amusing how often feminists think they’re fooling anyone by conflating these terms whenever it suits them. Like many gay men, my response to Steinem’s baseless assumption that feminism and gay rights are completely the same thing is: “Not so fast, Gloria”.
While there is a large number of gay people, often involved in LGBT activism, who – through a combination of fear, political convenience or just plain old ignorance – are content to huddle obediently on the coattails of feminism as it stomps its destructive path through our social, political, legal, educational and media institutions, there is also a significant number gay men who are under no illusions about the true nature of feminism and are outraged that their own rights movement is so closely, consistently and publicly associated with it.
One of the many gay men who weren’t buying what Steinem was selling had this to say in the comments section of the website that conducted the original interview:
“Women have had equal rights for years. Modern day feminists are seeking female supremacy. It’s really quite disgusting that an allegedly gay-oriented site would compare a legitimate civil rights movement to the nonsensical, insane ideology that is feminism. They’re not the same thing, not in any sense. Feminists are some of the worst enemies gay men will ever encounter.”1
To be completely blunt, it never fails to astound me whenever I come across any man, regardless of their sexual orientation, who doesn’t know that feminists, to put it mildly, really don’t like them. This is an ideology that has spent many decades loudly and aggressively blaming men for every single problem the world has ever known. It has demonized all non-approved manifestations of natural masculinity as inherently toxic aberrations that need to be either corrected, eliminated or punished.
It has pathologised male sexuality to the extent that all sexual activity involving men is interpreted as some form of violent sexual abuse – leading some prominent feminists to conclude that sex between consenting male adults is a re-enactment of heterosexual rape.2 The absurdly perverse view that all intimate relations involving men is an expression of so-called rape culture is so tightly woven through feminist ideology, that feminists have succeeded in convincing governments to fund nation-wide campaigns and compulsory seminars and workshops in educational institutions, the military and the workplace in order to teach men and boys not to rape.
Whether or not governments really believe that men and boys won’t realize that rape is wrong unless some Gender Studies graduate tells them so, or are simply hoping to avoid being branded misogynists for not giving in to the increasingly outrageous demands of feminist lobbyists, academics and media pundits, is ultimately irrelevant. What is relevant is the fact that governments have no place colluding with feminists to promote the assumption of the inherent criminality, violence and sexual deviancy of half of their constituents, and their sons. It is an open and direct assault on the dignity of men and boys that serves absolutely no purpose other than to validate feminist threat narratives and impose them on to the whole of society.
Feminists believe that men and boys are naturally evil, and our governing institutions agree with them – so, apparently, does LGBT, because allying with feminism can only mean that they support this kind of hateful, anti-male propaganda. Perhaps they see it as anti-straight male propaganda, which somehow makes it OK. If that’s the case, then LGBT has forfeited whatever credibility it may have had to lecture anybody about the sins of bigotry, prejudice and discrimination.
The goals of feminism and the gay rights movement may look identical to Gloria Steinem, but to keen observers of what feminists actually say and do – as opposed to the thumbnail definition in whatever dictionary they insist on waving in the faces of unbelievers3 – their goals and interests could not possibly be more diametrically opposed. One would have thought that the fact that feminists loathe men to the point where they will stand back in silence whenever one of their own suggests, culling, exterminating or genetically modifying the male population in order to solve what they call ‘the man problem’ would have alerted gay men who identify as feminists to the fact that feminist ideology is not their friend.4
As LGBT’s continued public support of feminism proves, gay men can be as clueless about the true nature of feminism as anyone else, and feminists like Gloria Steinem are only happy to ensure that they stay that way in order to exploit the political benefits of their allegiance.5
Feminism has been relentless in promoting false and misleading assumptions about the MHRM. Many may wonder why they are not referred to here as accusations rather than assumptions. While they are usually asserted in the unmistakable tone of accusation, they are invariably based on assumptions which are sometimes genuine, but are usually fabricated. Apart from Steinem’s glib assumption that feminism and gay rights are the same thing, there are three other significant assumptions about the MHRM that are particularly relevant to the topic of Why Gay Men Don’t Need Feminism, and need to be addressed before moving on to examine how feminism bullied gay men into an alliance with man-hating bigots who openly despise them.
Assumption One: The MHRM ignores issues relevant to gay men
It must be understood that the author of this series of articles does not represent the Gay Division of the Men’s Human Rights Movement (MHRM) for the simple reason that there isn’t one. Nor is there a Ladies’ Auxiliary Committee full of Honey Badgers tenaciously organizing bake sales to raise money to help fund The Patriarchy’s evil plan to restore its privileges, silence women and promote rape culture.6
The MHRM doesn’t have a Gay Division, or a Non-white Division, an Other-abled Division or, mercifully, a Feminist Division. This is because the MHRM is not about division. It is about unity – unity among men, and the women who love them, to address issues that impact the rights and welfare of men and boys, regardless of their race, religion, ethnicity, ability, political affiliations or sexual orientation.7
This is not to say that the MHRM doesn’t recognize the fact that many men and women experience adversity, particularly in the form of political and social discrimination, as a result of their various identities, it is simply that there are already well-established, well-organized and well-funded advocacy groups dedicated to addressing issues specific to those identities.
The MHRM has a well-documented history of wishing these groups well in their pursuit of their goals, providing of course, that those goals are geared towards fighting genuine injustice, and that they do not engage in promoting dishonesty or bigotry, or endorse bullying, censorship or violence in order to achieve them. With such limited resources, organizations like A Voice for Men, cannot offer much in the way of meaningful assistance to these already well-funded groups. This is the principal reason why A Voice for Men limits its focus to those issues which can impact the lives of all men and boys.
In many ways, this is a relief, and something of a blessing. Leaving these various identities at the door, so to speak, enables MHRAs to completely side-step the utterly pointless and indulgent game of comparing what feminists call ‘points of intersectionality’. The number of points you manage to accrue establishes your victim-cred and determines where you sit in the Hierarchy of Oppression, and who gets to have the loudest voice.8 White, middle-class, able-bodied women feminists obviously cheat when playing this game as they invariably hog the top rung of this hierarchy every time they play. Then again, it’s their game, so they believe that they get to make the rules as much as they believe that they get to create and control the narratives regarding all issues.
The MHRM is not interested in playing feminist games involving identity politics which achieve nothing and create division and suspicion where there should be agreement and resolve. The MHRM encourages open and honest discussion which has inevitably resulted in the debunking of false feminist narratives and conclusively invalidated their most hitherto reliable myths, tropes and memes.
I participate in the MHRM, not as a gay man, but as a person, with a deep conviction that men and boys matter as much as everybody else. As such, I have always been accepted in this movement as a man who is concerned that men and boys are confronting urgent issues that deserve to be addressed honestly and openly, without being constantly derailed, marginalized, ridiculed, demonized and misrepresented by feminists and their enablers.
The sexual orientation of MHRAs, like their sex, race, religion and ethnicity is ultimately irrelevant to the credibility of their perspectives. Being gay does not give a MHRA any special insight into the devastating impact that feminism has wrought onto the gay rights movement. Anyone who can read and conduct research can reach similar conclusions to mine. Being gay simply makes this particular issue more personal – nothing more. The fact that feminists have gained such complete control over the political wing of the gay rights movement – and uses organizations like LGBT to attack its ideological opponents, like the MHRM – makes it an issue worth addressing.9
Assumption Two: MHRAs believes that feminism created men’s problems
This ridiculous, and frequently-touted, assumption is typical of how feminists try to cope with being called on their bigotry, hypocrisy and deceit: they attempt to cover up their obvious lies with more lies that are even more unfounded and absurd.10 No MHRA has ever blamed feminism for creating the issues addressed by the MHRM because that would be as foolish and impossible to support as believing in the existence of the so-called patriarchy.
Domestic violence, workplace deaths, suicide, homelessness, anti-father bias in family courts, genital integrity, chivalry justice, the assumption of male disposability, indifference to male pain and lack of reproductive rights were around long before feminism reared its ugly head to claim a monopoly on the public discourse on addressing these issues – and by addressing these issues, I really mean ignoring, marginalizing, minimizing and ridiculing them, as well as the men and boys whose lives they affect.
Feminists have certainly exacerbated these problems by lobbying for anti-male legislation and social policy, and by promoting a social and political climate so hostile to men and boys that the idea of addressing our issues honestly, compassionately and effectively is widely dismissed, thus ensuring that society now cares less about men and boys than it ever did. However, feminists did not actually create the issues themselves.11 Feminists will continue to make this claim because they know that the mainstream media will continue to report it without bothering to find out whether or not it’s actually true.12
I don’t know what they teach in journalism courses these days, but it obviously doesn’t include instructions on how to use Google, send emails or make the necessary phone calls to discover what MHRAs do, or do not, believe.
Assumption Three: MHRAs don’t understand feminism
This is one of feminism’s most condescending assumptions about MHRAs and it deserves to be vigorously challenged. Feminists never tire of claiming that feminism is not a monolith. We are constantly reassured that not all feminists are like that – NAFALT for short. Apparently, only radical separatist feminists hate men. The rest of them care about men and have, in fact, always been working tirelessly on our issues.
Some feminists even claim to have male family members and friends that they care about, despite them being cis-gendered patriarchs wallowing in male privilege they are too ignorant to check. Anyone who identifies as a feminist accepts both the existence of ‘the patriarchy’ and the idea that we live in a ‘rape culture’ – and are convinced that even their most beloved male relatives and friends collude in it, however unwittingly.
In other words, feminist believe that men are toxic beasts who have oppressed all women throughout all history and need to be taught not to rape. This caricature of reality is so foundational to feminist ideology that rejecting it would be akin to a self-identified Christian rejecting the divinity of Jesus Christ. Many feminists struggle to reconcile the anti-male bigotry inherent in their chosen ideology’s dogma with their own personal relationships with the men in their lives, but that’s their problem, not ours. Unless a feminist has actively engaged in publicly refuting the anti-male bigotry of feminist ideology, then they have no right to claim that they are not ‘like that’.
Only a few feminists have earned the right to make the claim that they are not ‘like that’, and they deserve to be mentioned. These feminists, all women, embody the egalitarian principles that NAFALTs like to pretend they possess. Their innate integrity has never allowed these women to step away from the truth, but to speak to it boldly and eloquently, often at great personal and professional cost. Their rarity proves the rule about the monolithic nature of feminism.
The late, Karen DeCrow, friend and colleague of renowned MHRA, Dr. Warren Farrell, was an avid supporter of shared parenting. This former president of The National Organization for Women declared, “I’ve become a persona non grata because I’ve always been in favor of joint custody.”13 Consider how much independence of thought, genuine belief in equality and raw courage it must have taken for the president of N.O.W. to make the following statement about male reproductive rights:
“Justice therefore dictates that if a woman makes a unilateral decision to bring pregnancy to term, and the biological father does not, and cannot, share in this decision, he should not be liable for 21 years of support. Or, put another way, autonomous women making independent decisions about their lives should not expect men to finance their choice.”14
Dr Warren Farrell eulogized his friend with these words: “With Karen’s death passes a feminist who, were her leadership allowed to be the guiding light, would have allowed millions of children to have a dad to guide and love them.”15 Unfortunately for those children and their fathers, feminism could never be sustained under wise and benevolent leadership – it would be disbanded. Karen DeCrow was marginalized within the feminist movement because her egalitarian instincts were at odds with its misandric dogma. She stood by her instincts until the end of her life, ensuring that her memory will be always be honoured by those who share them.
Christina Hoff Sommers identifies as a feminist in the belief that feminism could be miraculously redeemed if feminists developed self-awareness and stopped hating men and boys. This demonstrates a kind of pie-eyed optimism that is oddly endearing. I say “oddly” because one would have thought that the author of The War on Men and Boys and Who Stole Feminism?, which are both intensively-researched studies of feminist corruption and its devastating impact, would have known better than anyone just how far feminism is from the possibility of redemption.
Christina Hoff Sommers has made the following observations: “We must have moral education in the schools, anti-bullying programs, but this does not mean programs to feminize boys.”16 She also stated: “I’m concerned that boys have become politically incorrect, that we are a society in the process of turning against its male children.”16
Sommers blames feminism for undermining the rights and welfare of boys, which explains the vitriolic response she receives whenever she accepts speaking engagements at universities to share her concerns about these destructive developments.17 Few people have defended the dignity of boys more passionately than Christina Hoff Sommers.
No summary of feminists who aren’t ‘like that’ would be complete without including the fearless Camille Paglia. This brilliant woman has never hesitated to employ her robust wit to give feminists and their kin the kind of verbal spanking they deserve. I wonder how many trigger-prone feminists had to be bundled into hug boxes18 when she made this comment: “Let’s get rid of Infirmary Feminism, with its bedlam of bellyachers, anorexics, bulimics, depressives, rape victims, and incest survivors. Feminism has become a catch-all vegetable drawer where bunches of clingy sob sisters can store their moldy neuroses.”19
Anyone familiar with the self-infatuated hypochondriacs who enjoy flaunting their endless array of physical and psychological ailments with total strangers on feminist websites like We Hunted the Mammoth will require no further explanation.20
Paglia challenges some of feminism’s most cherished myths, like the one about male sexuality being a weapon used to oppress women: “Men are run ragged by female sexuality all their lives. From the beginning of his life, to the end, no man ever fully commands any woman. It’s an illusion. Men are pussy whipped. And they know it.19 Paglia usually puts ‘patriarchal society’ in scare quotes, which indicates that we should probably put ‘feminist’ in scare quotes when describing this admirable woman.
Feminists like to assert that MHRAs discuss feminism as a monolith due to our ignorance about feminism, whereas the truth is that MHRAs usually know more about feminism than most people who identify as feminists. It is important to celebrate these very rare feminists who really aren’t ‘like that’ in order to emphasize the glaring differences between these genuine egalitarians and the rest of the individuals involved in the feminist movement – a movement which is failing more miserably than ever to disguise its vehemently anti-male premises and precepts behind predictably disingenuous sham rhetoric about equality.
How on earth did such a deeply misandric ideology like feminism manage to glob onto a human rights movement as heavily populated with men as the gay rights movement – and why have so many gay men not only tolerated this, but continue to avidly supported it? In order to examine these questions, it is necessary to pinpoint the moment when feminism took over the gay rights movement. Fortunately, this can be done without detailing the entire history of gay liberation. So, with all due respect to the Gay Liberation Front, the Gay Activists Alliance, the Mattachine Society and the Daughters of Bilitis, we can cruise right onto feminism’s Second Wave.
In Part 2: The Takeover, we will go back to when the parasite that is feminism bullied and manipulated the gay rights movement into playing host, and demanded, as it still does, that gay men be grateful for it. This enterprise has been so successful, that many gay men today can only nod in ignorant agreement when someone like Gloria Steinem asserts that feminism and gay rights are sibling movements with complimentary goals. As we shall see, nothing could be further from the truth.
References:
[1] http://www.queerty.com/gloria-steinem-feminism-and-gay-rights-are-completely-the-same-thing-20120423
[2] https://www.marxists.org/subject/women/authors/millett-kate/theory.htm
[3] http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/feminism
[4] http://www.avoiceformen.com/feminism/feminist-violence/alexacaliente-alyssapry-anitasarkeesian-jaclynf-abc-radfem-hub-the-underbelly-of-a-hate-movement/
[5] http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/barbara-kay-at-pride-toronto-militant-feminist-dogma-trumped-rights
[6] http://honeybadgerbrigade.com/
[7] http://www.avoiceformen.com/policies/mission-statement/
[8] http://psychology.wikia.com/wiki/Hierarchy_of_oppression
[9] https://nowtoronto.com/news/think-free-blog/mens-rights-group-banned-from-marching-in-pride/
[10] http://time.com/2949435/what-i-learned-as-a-woman-at-a-mens-rights-conference/
[11] http://www.avoiceformen.com/mens-rights/opposing-shared-parenting-the-feminist-track-record/
[12] http://www.fighting4fair.com/uncategorized/persistent-pro-feminist-and-anti-male-bias-in-the-mainstream-media/
[13] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_DeCrow
[14] http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/k/karen_decrow.html
[15] http://www.avoiceformen.com/mens-rights/a-karen-decrow-appreciation/
[16] http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/c/christina_hoff_sommers.html
[17] http://www.academia.org/georgetown-university-upset-that-protest-was-filmed-and-is-on-youtube/
[18] http://www.avoiceformen.com/art-entertainment-culture/eating-while-mgtow-hug-box-feminist-vegetables/
[19] http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/c/camille_paglia.html
[20] http://wehuntedthemammoth.com/She's just three weeks old, and doesn't yet have a name, but that hasn't stopped the newest resident at the Detroit Zoo from being amazing adorable.
The baby pudu, a species of deer, was born on May 20 to parents Carol and T. Roy. And she and her mom seem to already have a very special (and heart-melting) bond:
Photo by Lee Fisher courtesy of Detroit Zoological Society.
Pudus are the smallest species of deer. The natural habitats of southern pudus like the little fawn are the rainforests of Chile or Argentina. There are fewer than 30 of them living in U.S. zoos; five have been born in the Detroit Zoo alone since 2008, including the newborn's sister, Hamil Girl, who was born last year. We smell a new municipal motto: Detroit Pudu City?!
The nameless-for-now baby will make her debut Friday at a benefit gala to support the Detroit Zoological Society. We're sure Carol will be tagging along.
What would you name the Detroit Zoo's new baby pudu? Leave your ideas in the comments.
Check out some other great moms from the animal kingdom:There is just a time when things end, Lorne will say. Even for the greatest impressionist in "Saturday Night Live" history. For Darrell Hammond, that moment came last September. The man famous for his lip-chewing Bill Clinton, his dirty-dawg Sean Connery and, for more than a decade, his Donald Trump, was sitting on a bench near his apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, smoking an American Spirit, when he got the call. The country had changed. The candidate had changed. And Lorne Michaels decided "SNL's" Trump needed to change. Now Alec Baldwin would don the yellow wig. With Season 42 approaching in a wild election year, Hammond was told the Trump gig was no longer his. But it wasn't Michaels who would deliver the news to Hammond. The "SNL" boss outsourced that detail to longtime producer Steve Higgins. Higgins and Hammond were old friends, both arriving at Studio 8H in 1995. They worked closely on some of Hammond's best material during his then-record 14 years in the cast. The pair had also managed what couldn't be seen on TV, behavior that would have shocked viewers, including Hammond's backstage self-harming incidents that left cut marks on his arms and the 2009 drug binge that landed him in a crack house during his final season as a cast member. All that seemed behind him. A sober Hammond had returned to "SNL" in late 2015 to reclaim Trump after an unmemorable three-appearance run by Taran Killam. "The comeback kid," the Wall Street Journal declared, and Hammond, anticipating a greater role in the fall of 2016, moved back to New York after five years away and spent the summer taking notes on the candidate. Then, Higgins called. It wasn't Hammond's fault. Just as Michaels had found magic in Kate McKinnon's Hillary Clinton, he wanted to capture the new Trump - the nasty-tweeting, "Access Hollywood" bully. Former "SNL" head writer Tina Fey suggested Baldwin, her old "30 Rock" co-star. "I needed another force, on an acting level, to have the power that Trump was embodying then," Michaels says. "The Darrell Trump... it wasn't the Trump that had gotten darker. It was the Trump from 'The Apprentice.'" Hammond did not take the news well. It was all his girlfriend could do to get him back to his apartment. "I just started crying," he says. "In front of everyone. I couldn't believe it. I was in shock, and I stayed in shock for a long time. Everything wiped out. The brand, me, what I do. Corporate appearances canceled. It was a hell of a shock, and all of it was apparent to me in one breath. That ends me." On a clear morning in July, Hammond, 61, is a long way from 30 Rock. About 2,155 miles to be exact. He sits on Amy and Barry Baker's patio in Park City, Utah, sipping coffee. The couple, who have held fundraisers for both Bill and Hillary Clinton in the past, are throwing a combination baby shower, birthday and graduation party for various family members |
fact, only four died. There weren’t even hundreds of Americans stationed at the Libyan Embassy. Stranger: Look i dont have time for your bullshit im really busy right now You: Busy with what? You were the one who came on a chat website to talk to people. If you are busy I don’t know why you would do that and then continue to stay just to tell people you don’t have time to talk to them. Stranger: Fuck you Stranger has disconnected. You're now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi! You both like Trump. You: Who are you voting for? Stranger: I’ll give you a hint Stranger: M Stranger: A Stranger: G Stranger: A You: Why are you voting for Trump? Stranger: I just answered that You: How is he going to make America great again? Stranger: well he has more money then you will ever make in your life You: And that’s a good thing? Stranger: yes someone who can turn 1 million into 100 billion is alot smarter then you or me or anyone You: A 100 billion? You: That’s ten times what he claims he has. That’s 40 billion dollars more than the richest person on earth has. Stranger: I know You: Where are you getting this info from that Trump has 100 billion dollars? Stranger: A place You: Can you tell me what place? Stranger: no Stranger has disconnected. You're now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi! You both like Donald Trump, and Trump. Stranger: heyyy You: Who are you voting for? Stranger: i dont get a votw sadly Stranger: you? You: President Clinton of course. Stranger: may i ask why? You: Well the only other option is that lying criminal Trump... Stranger: hahahhaaahaaa i cant tell if youre being serious or not You: How isn't that serious? Stranger: how is he the criminal? You: By breaking the law. Stranger: example? You: How about that time Donald Trump committed felony Obstruction of justice by destroying thousands of emails subpoenaed by a federal judge during legal hearings against him. You: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/06/13/trump-accused-destroying-email-evidence-lawsuit-10-years-ago-republican-hillary-president/85795082/ You: Or when he was fined 200,000$ in 1992 by the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement for not allowing blacks or women onto his casino floor while racist a Mafia leader who was a close friend of his was gambling. You:https://web.archive.org/web/20121115053737/http://www.tdbimg.com/files/2011/05/26/-trump—barrett-book—supplemental-report-12-1992-6_165247103386.pdf You: Or all the times he commits outright tax evasion. You: http://www.investopedia.com/articles/markets/061516/new-evidence-trump-didnt-pay-taxes.asp You: Or when he committed a felony by lying to the Securities and Exchange Commission about company earnings. You: http://www.sec.gov/news/headlines/trumphotels.htm You: Or when he stole over $300,000 from worker pensions. You: http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/news/deal-sealed-trump-tower-suit-article-1.834028 Stranger: hes openly said he minimises the amount of tax he pays because he doesnt like ehree its put Stranger: its not illegal its just proof he is smart hahaha You: It is illegal. You: That's why it's called tax evasion. You: Can I go on with my list by the way? You: Or the time he faced felony criminal charges for bribery. You: http://dcgazette.com/2016/donald-trump-facing-criminal-charges-bribing-ben-carson-here-are-the-details/ Stranger: yeah sure ita quite funny haha You: Or when solicited campaign donations from foreign elected officials in Iceland and Scotland, a violation of FEC guidelines and federal law. You: http://fusion.net/story/319256/trump-emails-scotland-campaign-finance/ Stranger: so much left wing bs You: Or when court cased implicated Trump in fraud, money-laundering, conspiracy, perjury and the theft of trade secrets. You: http://articles.philly.com/2000-03-12/news/25604405_1_donald-trump-trump-hotel-private-investigator You: Or when he was accused of rape by numerous women. Stranger: and you cant say hes racist cause hes doing great with minorities in the poles You: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3578088/Dark-tales-molesting-beauty-queens-raping-ex-wife-Claims-racism-cosying-mafia-gets-closer-White-House-TRUMP-stripped-bare.html http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/donald-trump-accused-rape-woman-7858242#rJUj9YEHx7x9Hf8m.97 http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/donald-trump-denies-rape-teenage-7857357 https://www.mrconservative.com/2016/04/72311-breaking-trump-accused-of-raping-13-year-old-girl/ http://www.inquisitr.com/3044556/donald-trump-rape-lawsuit-claims-trump-forced-12-and-13-year-old-girls-to-peform-oral-sex-on-him/ http://www.redstate.com/sweetie15/2016/04/29/donald-trump-named-lawsuit-alleging-rape-teen-girl/ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3546047/Beauty-pageant-organizer-accused-Trump-unwanted-fondling-contestant-claimed-said-women-bimbos.html http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/gossip/harassment-suit-trumped-article-1.764918 You: http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/638063/Donald-Trump-rape-ex-wife-Ivana-plastic-surgery-operation-documentary http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/donald-trump-ex-wife-claim-he-raped-her-resurfaces-in-new-documentary-a6836151.html http://gawker.com/the-time-donald-trumps-ex-wife-accused-him-of-brutally-1721129617 https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/he-raped-me-when-donald-trump-was-accused-of-sexual-assault?utm_source=vnfbus You: Including his ex-wife, former employees and a 13 year old girl. You: I didn't say he was racist though. Stranger: accused of rape? i could accuse yiu of raping me, does that make you a crininal? You: And he's not doing great with minorities in the polls. You: Why would you accuse me of raping you? Stranger: when was the last time you checked? You: He's doing terrible with everyone in the polls. You: https://www.theroot.com/blog/journal-isms/poll-just-1-of-blacks-back-trump/ You: He was polling 1% with them a week ago. Stranger: hes just over taken hilary in one today You: 1% You: Even Gary Johnson is polling better with them. You: And no he didn't Stranger: with who? what minorities? You: Hillary is beating him by double digits. Stranger: fuck you lefty hope soros pays you alot to tell these lies probably the only job you can get in your parents basement lol but you cant vote with a bullet in ur head lol by lefty Stranger has disconnected. You're now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi! You both like trump. You: Who are you voting for? Stranger: the only good choice You: Hillary? Stranger: is hillary going to stop ISIS? You: Yes?. Stranger: wrong again Stranger: she created ISIS in the first place her and barry soetoro You: Who? Stranger: Don’t play dumb with me boy Stranger: Trump dont have time to play shits and giggles he is going to make america great again You: When did America stop being great exactly? Stranger: idk what year did they start letting niggers vote? You have disconnected. You're now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi! You both like trump. You: Who are you voting for? Stranger: Donald Trump You: Why? Stranger: He is going to undo everything obama did to fuck up the country You: Like what? Stranger: letting millions of illegals in Stranger: destroying marraige forever Stranger: letting men use ladies bathrooms Stranger: taking away metals from veterans to give to faggot jenner Stranger: giving our jobs to china Stranger: should i go on? You: Stranger I don’t think President Obama did any of those things. Stranger: you dont read the news do you? You: I do. What you are saying isn’t even correct, just going down your list first thing President Obama has actually deported more illegal immigrants than any president before him? Stranger: lies You :http://fusion.net/story/252637/obama-has-deported-more-immigrants-than-any-other-president-now-hes-running-up-the-score/ Stranger: well obviously he hasn’t deported enough and trump will Stranger: and even if that one isnt true the rest of what i said is You: Not really. Stranger: are you telling me NAFTA hasnt destroyed jobs? You: Stranger when was NAFTA implemented? Stranger: under obama and look how it made the economy go almost as shit as this countries morals You: Stranger NAFTA was created in 1994… Stranger: you are just wasting your breath. like it or not trump is going to be our next president Stranger has disconnected. You're now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi! You both like trump. You: Who are you voting for? Stranger: TRUMP!!! Stranger: TRUMP!!! Stranger: TRUMP!!! You: Why are you voting for Trump? Stranger: Because the god emperor is our country's only hope from the PC babies You: So you are voting for him because most people get upset about racism and sexism? Stranger: lol racism and sexism you mean how u treat white males? You: How exactly do I treat white males stranger? Stranger: idk ask that mudslime in orlando who shot up all those faggots You: Stranger that doesn’t answer my question and now you are just adding Homophobia to your list of things people should accept. Stranger: im just quoting everyones favorite example of the religion of peace do you think he wouldnt of called them faggots? If he killed 50 faggots then he probably think those faggots are some pretty big faggots You: This is getting pretty off topic about Trump. Stranger: oh you want me to stop? did i trigger you? You: Not really. Stranger: so you want me to talk more about omar and what he thought then? I wonder why that is? you seem pretty interested in learning about what ISIS members think You: No I was just saying you didn’t really trigger me. Whatever you meant by that. Stranger: so a religion that condones child rape isnt triggering for you? how interesting and you still call yourself a feminist You: I never called myself a feminist stranger. Stranger: not yet but I can tell you are one little miss Trump Hater. Stranger: when is hillary going focus on real rape culture Brock Turner makes one mistake you want him dead but when muhhammod gang rapes millions of women across europe thats ok? You: Stranger again this has nothing to do with Trump you are just ranting incoherently at this point. Stranger: lol just tell me why you feminists focus on rape so much? could it be you want rapists in the country because you secretly hope they will go after you? You have disconnected. You're now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi! You both like trump. Stranger: f? You: Yes. Who are you voting for? Stranger: nice got pics? You: Why? Stranger: so i can see u wats ur kik You: I don’t have kik... Stranger: then how u gonna sendd me pics? You: I’m not... Stranger: u fat or something? You: No. Stranger: prove it then fatty bitch send me pics You: I’m going to go now. Stranger: 127.0.0.1 You still gonna leave bitch? You: What? Stranger: That’s your IP address I’m a hacker, now either you send me nudes or you get hacked You: That’s not my IP adress it doesn’t even have enough numbers to be anyone's IP address. Stranger: STFU WHORE Stranger has disconnected. You're now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi! You both like Trump. You: Who are you voting for? Stranger: What do a slinky and a liberal have in common? Both are useless but it's fun to push them down the stairs Stranger: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rw0VjUF0cvw Stranger: Lazy niggers Stranger: Filthy, nasty, shit skinned criminals that leach off our society. The only good thing about you monkeys is that you kill more of each other than you do us. Menthol cigarette breathed ape people. My daily wish is that some white terrorist group infuses the country's water supply with a virus that will infect and painfully/slowly kill every one of you fat lipped malt liquor drinking dirt fleshed baboons. Oh, you have (on average), bigger dicks? So do horses. How much respect do women who fuck horses get? None, because they're fucking animals. Like you. Yes you cornbread fed piece of antiquated farm equiptment. Nigger. Kill them when they're babies, and if you are absolutely against the ending of animal life, at least sterilize the knuckle dragging niggresses who continue to pump out infant after infant so they can collect more of our hard earned dollars in the form of welfare. God I fucking hate niggers. Stranger has disconnected. You're now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi! You both like Trump. Stranger: Hello. You: Who are you voting for? Stranger: Trump. You: Why? Stranger: I can explain why, but you have to respectful and considerate Stranger: Well before I begin, Hillary is a lying criminal You: No. You: I think you have them confused. You: Trump lies and commits crimes. You: Making him a lying criminal. Stranger: let me explain first why aim voting for Trump Stranger: I'm * Stranger: Trump cares for the Americans, not for external persons. I want a president that focuses more on its people than outsiders. As a business man I am sure he knows how to stop America's deficit spending and with that increase the value of the dollar making America economically stronger. You: His plan to fix the deficit is to print more money which would destroy the value of the dollar. Stranger: I know he has lied before, but he's not lying about his love for America. God loves America and sent Jesus his son to die for us all. That is how I know Trump will be our president. That is not even his plan by the way, and like I said please be respectful You: He even said he might trash the economy on purpose just to be able to renegotiate public bonds. You: That is his plan. Stranger: Source? You: http://heatst.com/politics/just-print-dollars-donald-trump-wants-america-to-be-zimbabwe/ You: http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/09/politics/donald-trump-national-debt-strategy/ You: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ae30974c-13a6-11e6-bb40-c30e3bfcf63b.html#axzz4BbLvmwCV You: http://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-treasury-haircut-idea-insane-2016-5 Stranger: I'm not taking anything from CNN, they're too democratically biased. You:http://www.salon.com/2016/05/10/donald_trump_is_just_this_dumb_he_doesnt_even_know_what_he_doesnt_know_but_his_latest_i You: I gave you five links. Stranger: If I click on them the chat will disconnect. You: No it won't. You are just making up excuses at this point. You: His current spending plan would bankrupt the country. You: His Tax cuts would add $24.5 trillion to the national debt You: http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/2015/12/23/Trump-s-Tax-Cuts-Would-Add-245-Trillion-Debt You: He thinks unemployment is really 40% despite the fact that would put the unemployment rate at twice the height it was during the great depression. You: It's obvious he doesn't know the economy works. You: That's probably why he was ranked on the same level as ISIS in terms of causing global economy instability by Economist Intelligence Analysts. Stranger: You're just a brainwashed Hillary Zombie Stranger has disconnected. You're now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi! You both like conservative. Stranger: Hi Stranger: 29 F Black usa You: Who are you voting for? Stranger: Trump Stranger: You? You: Why? You: Why would anyone vote for a lying criminal like Trump? Stranger: He's an alpha male. You: What does that even mean? You: Is this like an Alpha predator since all those women accused him of rape? Stranger: Rape is a concept the feminists made up. Stranger: Attractive women like me would be lucky to get raped by a high value white man like trump. You: What? Stranger has disconnected. You're now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi! You both like Trump. You: Who are you voting for? Stranger: TRUMP Stranger: YOU? You: Why? Stranger: HE WILL MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! You: Why would anyone want to vote for a lying criminal like him? You: When did America stop being great stranger? Stranger: WE NEED TO TAKE OUR COUNTRY BACK AND TRUMP WILL DO JUST THAT You: Take it back from who? Stranger: THE OBAMAS AND CLINTONS OF THIS COUNTRY Stranger: LIBERALS WHO WANT TO DESTROY US You: How do Liberals want to destroy you? You: Why are you talking in all caps? You: Is your keyboard broken? You: Or are you just filled with rage? Stranger: THEY KEEP DESTROYING WHAT AMERICA IS IN ITS CORE, A NATION OF THE FREE You: How? Stranger: THEY WANT TO ABOLISH THE SECOND AMENDMENT You: They do? Stranger: HIPPOCRATES You: Obama does? You: And Hillary? Stranger: THEY HAVE ARMED PROTECTION BUT WOULDNT LET WORKING PEOPLE OF THIS COUNTRY HAVE THE SAME PROTECTION AS THEY HAVE You: You mean Secret Service details? You: Why would everyone in this country need that? You: I mean you can hire your own body guards. You: But that's just a waste of tax payer money having the secret service protect everyone. Stranger: THEY WOULD HAVE DONE IT IF THERE ISNT A RESISTANT FROM THE PEOPLE WHO KNOW WHAT AMERICA TRULY IS You: Would have done what? You: I'm confused here. You: Your incoherent ranting is hard to follow. Stranger: ABOLISH THE 2ND AMENDMENT You: How do you know they would do that? Stranger: JUST LISTEN TO THEM, GUN CONTROL HERE, GUN CONTROL THERE Stranger: LET THE PEOPLE PROTECT THEMSELVES, THE FOUNDING FATHERS WANTED THAT You: Why is not wanting criminals or the mentally ill to own guns meaning they want to get rid of the second amendment? You: Do you support violent criminals owning guns? Stranger: THEY WILL GET THE GUNS ANYWAY, ITS THE LAW ABIDING CITIZENS OF THIS COUNTRY THAT WILL SUFFER THE MUST IF THEY GET THEIR WAY You: Why would making it so Felons can't buy guns make law abiding citizens suffer? You: How exactly would they get guns anyway? Stranger: NO LAW ABIDING CITIZEN SHOULD EVER BE PUNISHED, BE DENIED HIS CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT Stranger: WHAT WE NEED IS MORE GUNS Stranger: LESS GUN FREE ZONES Stranger: AND LESS REGULATIONS Stranger: SO WE CAN DEFEND OURSELVES You: Defend yourself from who? Stranger: FROM WHOEVER WANTS TO HARM ME You: Who wants to harm you? Stranger: THATS A STUPID QUESTION You: You are being very paranoid stranger. You: You don't have an answer do you? Stranger: I DONT SEE THE FUTURE, SO I CAN KNOW WHO WILL WANT TO HARM ME Stranger: SO I GUESS I DONT HAVE AN ANSWER Stranger: YOU LIBERALS LIKE DEMOCRACY, LAWS, BUT ONLY WHEN THEY WORK IN YOUR FAVOR BUT YOU ARE TO PUSSY TO STOP US FROM BREAKING YOUR LAWS You: What laws are you breaking exactly? Stranger: YOU ARE OBVIOUSLY RUNNING OUT OF ARGUMENTS AND ARE GRASPING FOR STRAWS You: I mean it’s a simple question, you kind of implied you were violating some type of law. Stranger: YES, KEEP GRASPING FOR THOSE STRAWS, AINT GONNA DO YOU A LOT OF HELP WHEN TRUMP WINS IN NOVEMBER You: Except he's not. You: Have you seen the polls? Stranger: AND IF YOU ARE OUT OF ARGUMENTS, I WILL KINDLY SAY GOODBYE You: Because he is losing in every single one. You: By double digits. Stranger: I AM NOT FALLING FOR YOUR TAUNTS You: It's not a taunt it's a fact Trump is losing every single poll. You: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_clinton-5491.html You: Even the polls with Fox news. You: Even fox news... Stranger: HE WILL WIN IT BY GETTING THE VOTES OF THE WORKING CLASS PEOPLE OF THIS COUNTRY You: Why would the working class people vote for a billionaire who hires Illegal immigrants over them and makes his products in China? Stranger: WHEN PEOPLE SEE HE HAS IDENTIFIED EVERY PROBLEM AMERICA HAS, AND WHEN HE GETS ELECTED, HE WILL FIX EVERY ONE OF THEM Stranger: WE NEED TO BRING BACK JOBS TO THIS COUNTRY Stranger: JOBS LIBERALS AND REPUBLICANS ALIKE OUTSOURCED TO CHINA You: How would he do that? Stranger: LOWERING TAXES Stranger: ALL THINGS HILLARY WONT DO Stranger: SHE WANTS TO RAISE TAXES You: When did she say that? Stranger: SHE WANTS MORE REGULATIONS You: I thought it was she wanted to raise taxes? You: Can I get a citation for when Hillary said she was going to raise taxes? Stranger: MORE GOVERNMENT You: You aren't really answering my question at all. You: When did Hillary say she wanted to raise taxes? Stranger: OF COURSE SHE DIDNT SAY THAT, CAUSE NOBODY WANTS IT, BUT SHE WILL DO IT, ALL HER PLANS NEED THE TAXES TO BE RAISED You: What plans? Stranger: SHE WANTS TO DESTROY MY JOB You: Your job? Stranger: WORKING ON AN OIL RIG HER LITTLE FRIEND OBAMA HAS ALREADY DESTROYED IT SINCE AFTER THE BP SPILL THEY PUT THESE POINTLESS REGULATIONS THAT WASTE EVERYONES TIME IN THE NAME OF SAFTEY NO ONE CARES ABOUT IF WE WANTED SAFTEY WE WOULD OF BECAME LIBERALS HE WONT LET US LIVES OUR LIVES You: So you are voting against Hillary because she supports oil rigs being safe? Stranger: AS I SAID, I BE LEAVING YOU, ALONG WITH YOUR POOR ARGUMENTS, SEE YOU ON JANUAR 20 2017 WHEN TRUMP GETS INAUGURATED AND YOUR LIBERAL ASS GETS THROWN OVER THE WALL FACE FIRST Stranger has disconnected. You're now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi! You both like Donald Trump. Stranger: hey You: Who are you voting for? Stranger: Trump train all day baby You: Why? Stranger: not a criminal like shillary You: I think you have Trump and Hillary confused. Stranger: hillary is a damn criminal what did trump do Stranger: that is illegal You: Well he committed felony Obstruction of justice by destroying thousands of emails subpoenaed by a federal judge during legal hearings against Trump. You:http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/06/13/trump-accused-destroying-email-evidence-lawsuit-10-years-ago-republican-hillary-president/85795082/ You: He used bribery and secret financing to circumvent state law and stop competitors. You: http://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/06/nyregion/trump-and-others-accept-fines-for-ads-in-opposition-to-casinos.html http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/news/trump-250g-fine-lobbying-article-1.885295 You: He raped a bunch of women. You: Like his ex-wife You: http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/638063/Donald-Trump-rape-ex-wife-Ivana-plastic-surgery-operation-documentary http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/donald-trump-ex-wife-claim-he-raped-her-resurfaces-in-new-documentary-a6836151.html http://gawker.com/the-time-donald-trumps-ex-wife-accused-him-of-brutally-1721129617 https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/he-raped-me-when-donald-trump-was-accused-of-sexual-assault?utm_source=vnfbus You: And a 13 year old girl. Stranger: usa today smh that shit is fake press hates trump You: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3578088/Dark-tales-molesting-beauty-queens-raping-ex-wife-Claims-racism-cosying-mafia-gets-closer-White-House-TRUMP-stripped-bare.html http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/donald-trump-accused-rape-woman-7858242#rJUj9YEHx7x9Hf8m.97 http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/donald-trump-denies-rape-teenage-7857357 https://www.mrconservative.com/2016/04/72311-breaking-trump-accused-of-raping-13-year-old-girl/ http://www.inquisitr.com/3044556/donald-trump-rape-lawsuit-claims-trump-forced-12-and-13-year-old-girls-to-peform-oral-sex-on-him/ http://www.redstate.com/sweetie15/2016/04/29/donald-trump-named-lawsuit-alleging-rape-teen-girl/ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3546047/Beauty-pageant-organizer-accused-Trump-unwanted-fondling-contestant-claimed-said-women-bimbos.html http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/gossip/harassment-suit-trumped-article-1.764918 You: He tried tries to violate Antitrust regulations through purgery and identity theft to steal two separate companies. You: http://articles.philly.com/1986-12-06/news/26071103_1_bally-stock-bally-manufacturing-marvin-roffman http://www.apnewsarchive.com/1988/Trump-Agrees-To-Pay-$750-000-Penalty-To-Settle-Antitrust-Lawsuit/id-54ea0dc590fc97d9e9e86c65336649a1 You: He commited fraud, money-laundering, conspiracy, perjury and the theft of trade secrets. You: http://articles.philly.com/2000-03-12/news/25604405_1_donald-trump-trump-hotel-private-investigator You: Tax evasion. You: That's a big one You:http://www.investopedia.com/articles/markets/061516/new-evidence-trump-didnt-pay-taxes.asp Stranger: shits fake like i said, press hates trump You: But a lot of these links aren’t from the press they are direct photocopies of FBI reports or court documents. You: Which thing exactly is fake? You: The rape allegations? You: Or the Tax evasion? You: Because a lot of these things are from before Trump ran for president. You: So why would the press of made up a story about a woman claiming Donald Trump tried to rape her back in 1991? You: And how would they of faked police reports and court papers? You: When something happens like Trump being 200,000$ in 1992 by the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement for not allowing blacks or women onto his casino floor while racist Mafia leader is gambling. Do you think that didn't really happen? You: And that the media just lied back then about him being fined? You: Why didn't he ever openly say that wasn't true and that the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement never investigated him. You: Why did no one from the State's Attorney Office say the reports were false? Stranger: stfu your a waste of space Stranger: and o my time You: You don't have an answer do you? Stranger: bye loser Stranger has disconnected. You're now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi! You both like Hillary Clinton. Stranger: Hello. You: Who are you voting for? Stranger: Hillary of course You: Why? Stranger: She has more experience than Donald Trump, You: But at least Trump isn't a lying criminal. You: And he is going to make america great again Stranger: Oh, Are you a Bernie fan? You: Of course not Stranger: Oh god I love this. Stranger: I'm not trying to be offensive, but what about Donald do you like? You: He is going to make America great again You: and he isn't afraid to say his mind. Stranger: How will saying his mind and not being politically correct make America great? You: Because he will finally solve our problems Stranger: I was just on his website, and his proposed policies make absolutely no sense to me. Do you agree with his stance on immigration and climate change? You: Of course. Plus he is an actual American unlike Obama. Stranger: The constitution says the president must be a Naturalized citizen. Being born in Hawaii, a U.S state makes him eligible to be president. Stranger has disconnected. You're now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi! You both like Hillary Clinton. You: Who are you voting for? Stranger: I am voting for Secretary Clinton in November. Thank you for asking. You: Why? Stranger: Cause Trump suck Stranger has disconnected. You're now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi! You both like Donald Trump. You: Who are you voting for? Stranger: Donald Trum Stranger: Trump* Stranger: lol jk You: Why? Stranger: Just messing with you Stranger: Hilary all the way Stranger has disconnected. You're now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi! You both like clinton. You: Who are you voting for? Stranger: Clinton Stranger: #anyonebuttrump You: Why? Stranger: Bernie lost Stranger has disconnected. You're now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi! You both like Donald Trump, Trump, Clinton and Hillary Clinton. Stranger: Ask a Hillary supporter anything. You: Why are you voting for Hillary? Stranger: https://www.hillaryclinton.com/feed/112-reasons-and-counting-hillary-clinton-should-be-our-next-president/ Stranger: I could give you one or two reasons but here is 112. You have disconnected. You're now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi! You both like hillary clinton and clinton. You: Who are you voting for? Stranger: Hilldog all the way lol you? You: Trump Stranger: Oh so are you a racist or just stupid? You: Neither. Stranger has disconnected. You're now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi! You both like clinton. You: Who are you voting for? Stranger: it says right there Stranger: I don’t wanna talk politics though. You: Why? Stranger: just got off work You: Oh Stranger has disconnected. You're now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi! You both like Hillary. Stranger: Hi You: Who are you voting for? Stranger: Hillary Clinton. You: Why? Stranger: I just remember how much better this country was when her husband was in office and hoping it can go back to that. Stranger: Who are you voting for? You: Trump Stranger: Oh. Sorry to hear. You: Why? Stranger: No reason Stranger: How is your day going? You: Alright. Stranger: That’s good to hear. Any plans? You: Not really, you? Stranger: Husband and I are probably going out. You have disconnected. You're now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi! You both like clinton. You: Who are you voting for? Stranger: Hilary You: Why? Stranger: She’s better than Trump Stranger has disconnected.After making its name in watches, Shinola moved into bikes, journals, bags, gloves, wallets, jewelry, phone cases, and more in just the past six years. Last year, the company began moving into audio gear with its first turntable, and today Shinola is announcing its very first headphones. It’s starting with four pairs: a wired over-ear and a wired on-ear, both of which go on sale right away, and two wired in-ear pairs expected to launch next month.
Like Shinola’s watches, final assembly on the headphones is done in Detroit. And like Shinola’s watches, its headphones are first and foremost something nice to look at and hold, prioritizing style and build quality over remarkable technology.
The two pairs launching today, the Canfield Over-Ear and the Canfield On-Ear, have a similar look and a similar sound. Both are a stylish mixture of stainless steel and leather, and they each have a trustworthy heft to them — not so heavy as to be uncomfortable, but heavy enough to feel well-made. I particularly like the thick pieces of metal that attach the earpieces to the headband; they look sturdy and functional and evoke the style of older audio gear that was made with metal parts by necessity. My one gripe: the headphones are a little small; even at full extension, they barely fit my head, and I don’t think I’m all that big.
Shinola left a pair of the On-Ears with me for the last few days, and I’ve been using them to listen to the new St. Vincent album and some of my other favorites. The headphones sound good: instruments sound close by, but still distinct; there’s a nice little bass kick that lets you feel it without overdoing things; and the tone feels accurate to the recordings coming through them.
If the best headphones you’ve heard are something like a pair of entry-level Beats, these will definitely overtake them. But if you’ve tried other higher-end headphones before, I don’t think either Canfield will be much of a standout. It seemed to me that both were lacking a certain sharpness that would have punctuated their sound; and while they seemed accurate, neither felt truly lively and fun.
I haven’t spent a ton of time with these headphones (and in fact, I only listened to the over-ear model for about two minutes), so take these as initial impressions only. But I’m not particularly surprised by what I’m finding, as it shows Shinola using the same formula that it’s found great success with when it comes to watches: Shinola’s watches are stylish and well-made — they look like high-end mechanical watches. But the reality is that they’re quartz watches (which get as cheap as, say, a Swatch) inside a really nice package. Shinola’s bet is that the style and story of something matters as much or more to many customers than the function.
That bet really comes into focus when you see the price on these headphones. The Over-Ears sell for $595 and the On-Ears sell for $495. There’s also a glossy black model of each, which looks very nice, available for a $55 premium. Those aren’t outrageous prices for headphones, but you can find models that sound great and look just as good for far less.
Like its other products, Shinola is pitching these headphones as a high-quality item you can buy and have last a lifetime — except, that seems unlikely given the shift that’s going on in the headphone world right now. Both Canfield models terminate in 3.5mm connectors, which aren’t supported on many of today’s top phones, including the iPhone. The cable can be replaced (a Lightning version is planned), but alternatives aren’t available yet. A wireless model is also planned for next year.
Neither of Shinola’s in-ear headphones were ready for testing yet, so I wasn’t able to see them in person. They both have a similar look, but one is supposed to provide much better sound. The Canfield In-Ear Monitors are the entry level model, selling for $195, and the Canfield Pro In-Ear Monitors are the high-end model, selling for $495. Both were made in collaboration with Campfire Audio, an in-ear headphones startup that’s only been shipping products for a little over a year now but has earned a glowing reputation among audiophiles. Both are supposed to be available starting in mid-December.
Correction November 14th, 12:08PM ET: The Canfield Over-Ear headphones start at $595, not $650. Only their glossy black model costs $650.Mobile API Security Techniques
Part 1 — App and User API Keys
Skip Hovsmith Blocked Unblock Follow Following Jan 24, 2017
Mobile apps commonly use APIs to interact with back end services and information. In 2016, time spent in mobile apps grew an impressive 69% year to year, reinforcing most companies mobile-first strategies, while also providing fresh and attractive targets for cybercriminals. As an API provider, protecting your business assets against information |
to your TV with either the Joy-Con Grip or Pro Controller;
Out of the dock with either the Joy-Con Grip or Pro Controller;
As a handheld
In table-top format with a single Joy-Con side-on
In a group of up to eight Switches connected via Ad-Hoc
…and probably more that Nintendo hasn’t revealed as yet. These are all things we’ve seen before, but never via one console. Switch aims to cater for any and every possible gaming scenario and while the lack of games (more on this later) initially might put a damper on it, in the long-run it could be a powerhouse.
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Controllers and buttons for all
Nintendo’s controllers have always complimented its new console hardware. A new console has always meant a new controller and Switch is no exception. Except Switch doesn’t have one new controller; it has half a dozen.
Ok, not really, but Nintendo has made the Joy-Cons so versatile that they’re basically three controllers in one. When attached to the Joy-Con Grip they mimic a Pro Controller, as they do when attached to the sides of the Switch. Each Joy-Con can be used vertically by one player like a Wii Remote, but it seem like this is only going to be used for mini-game waggling.
Each individual Joy-Con can also be turned on its side — like a Wii Remote — and used in games like Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. An advantage the Joy-Con has over the Wii Remote is that each has an analogue stick and four face buttons in addition to two shoulder buttons (SL an SR) making it much more versatile.
Each Joy-Con includes an accelerometer and HD Rumble, which has to be experienced to be believed. One of the Joy-Cons also includes an IR sensor which, judging by 1, 2 Switch isn’t going to be used very often.
During the Switch event, I did find that playing with a single Joy-Con horizontally was a bit small for my fully grown, adult hands. Like with the 3DS, it felt fine at first, but after a few minutes of play my hands and fingers started to cramp up. The flip side to this is that you’re unlikely to use the Joy-Con in that way very often or for very long.
You’ll also definitely want to turn off the accelerometer, if you can. While playing Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, I found that Mario kept pulling to the right even when my thumb was off the control stick. I couldn’t work out why. Another guest was also having the same problem until we realised that we were both holding the Joy-Con on an angle and this was steering our characters to the right.
At first glance, I thought that the left hand Joy-Con would be far superior to the right. When turned horizontally, the right hand Joy-Con has the analogue stick in the centre. I was sure this would be much more uncomfortable; the controller reserved for your second cousin, but in reality, both Joy-Cons are much of a muchness.
Unfortunately, I didn’t get any time with the Joy-Con Grip, but I did get to use the Pro Controller. Emphasis on the Pro. And with it Nintendo has finally made a controller to rival its best; the GameCube’s.
The Pro Controller is light, but sturdy and has the feel and finish of quality. The analogue sticks snap back with rigidity suitable for modern gaming. The face and shoulder buttons give a satisfying click and are easy to find thanks to the redesign. The in-built accelerometer was only used for aiming in Splatoon 2, as far as I could tell and while I expected the worst, it was excellent.
Motion-control aiming is and always has been very hit and miss, but in Splatoon 2, with the Pro Controller, Nintendo nails it. It’s so much more sensitive than I was expecting that at first I was looking all over the place. Once I realised just how subtle the gestures I needed to make were, it was a whole new experience. Aiming with analogue sticks is often slow and clumsy, but not so with the Pro Controller.
I’ll be very interested to see how other games — namely shooters — make use of this in the future.
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Play Zelda on the go, but not much else…yet
As far as launch line-ups are concerned, Switch’s may be the weakest ever. Sure, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is a massive title, but it’s also coming out for Wii U, for $10 less.
On launch day you’ll also be able to play Super Bomberman R, Just Dance 2017, Skylanders: Imaginators and 1, 2 Switch. None of these titles are system sellers, nor are they must haves. There’s nothing wrong with any of them and they are solid titles, but I hardly think anyone’s running out to buy a Switch for them.
1, 2 Switch is a perfect example. During the Switch presentation, I wrote it off immediately, but assumed it would be at least something to play. Until I found out that it’s not bundled in with Switch. This marks the first console since Wii that hasn’t had a bundled title.
It’s a stretch to call 1, 2 Switch, Switch’s Wii Sports, because it’s not in the same league. It does however provide some interesting mini-games that would work well within a party setting. I won’t go too much into the launch titles as they’ll be covered on their own, but suffice it to say that 1, 2 Switch while generating some laughs really isn’t worth the $70 AUD admission.
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe will come nearly two months after launch and despite being a remaster is shaping up to be a must-have title. Mario Kart 8 is a phenomenal title and the addition of more tracks, characters, battle mode and 1080p display, it’s worth the price tag.
Other than that though, we know that titles are coming (including the insane Super Mario Odyssey) but most have no firm date or are so far away that they barely matter right now. Nintendo simply can’t afford to do what it always has and leave players languishing between releases. Hopefully this isn’t the case.
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What’s in the box?
We don’t really know much about what’s going on inside Switch. Some of what we know and have seen is promising, while some is disheartening.
Bad news first shall we? Switch comes with only 32GB of memory. This is utterly appalling and ridiculous. Especially when you consider that Breath of the Wild will take up 40% of that, lots of gamers buy titles digitally and that it’s supposed to be taken with you on the go.
It’s not a huge undertaking to carry cartridges with you — and this is obviously what Nintendo is aiming for — but I’ve personally become accustomed to digital libraries and much prefer it. To make matters worse, according to Fenix Bazaar MixroSDXC cards will be compatible, but will be hideously expensive.
Even in console mode, there’s no way to plug in a USB hard-drive at launch. The Xbox One also launched without this functionality, but it included a 500GB drive. The Switch seems to be starting behind the eight-ball with regards to storage and as more titles are released it’s only going to become more of a problem.
One of Switch’s biggest question marks is its processing power. We know it’s running on a modified Nvidia Tegra chip, but beyond that…it’s a mystery. The titles I played all looked decent, but none were eye-popping. For a title that’s due at launch, Zelda in particular displayed a worrying number of dropped frames, screen tearing and ugly textures.
In reality, Switch doesn’t need to keep up with PS4 or Xbox One, but it needs to close the gap. Especially considering that Microsoft and Sony’s consoles are approaching their fourth birthdays.
For a console/handheld hybrid, Nintendo’s own assertions that Switch can last between 2.5 and 6.5 hours (and only 3 hours for Zelda) isn’t particularly impressive. Especially given the cost. While they are vastly different devices, the iPhone 7 will support up to 8-hours of video streaming.
We’ve become accustomed to our devices having extended battery life and Switch’s is underwhelming. It may even deter some players from using it in its handheld configuration; rendering simply an under-powered home console.
At launch, for $469.95 AUD you’ll get the Switch, Dock, Joy-Con Grip (non-charging version), two Joy-Con controllers, A/C adaptor, wrist straps and HDMI cable. You’ll need to spend another $99 AUD for a Pro Controller, $39 for a Charging Grip, $119 for additional Joy-Cons ($69 for a single Joy-Con), and $89 AUD for a game. Plus an SD card if you’d like more storage.
Obviously, not all of the above is necessary, but you’re still looking at at least $560 for Switch and Zelda. All of a sudden, blowing the dust off your Wii U is starting to look appealing.
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Is it worth Switching?
For me, the answer is yes. The Switch is an expensive purchase, but it’s an investment in Nintendo, its games and the future.
I know that Super Mario Odyssey is coming. I know that Nintendo will support Switch with quality titles that make use of its hardware better than anyone. I know that I will play the absolute arse off of Zelda on the tram and train.
I know that Switch is worth it, but at the same time, I understand that for many it’s too steep a price for too little reward at first. If you’re hesitant, it’s probably best to wait. Breath of the Wild isn’t going anywhere and neither is Switch.
As more titles and features are announced it’ll become more clear whether or not it’s worth it for you. For some Zelda and Mario are all it takes. I’m one of those.
I already know I’ll be lining up come midnight and racing home to get it set up. See you there.
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PowerUp! attended a preview event for Nintendo Switch in Melbourne as guests of Nintendo.Deep Reinforcement Learning Demysitifed (Episode 2) — Policy Iteration, Value Iteration and Q-learning
Moustafa Alzantot Blocked Unblock Follow Following Jul 8, 2017
In previous two articles, we introduced reinforcement learning definition, examples, and simple solving strategies using random policy search and genetic algorithms.
In practice, random search does not work well for complex problems where the search space (that depends on the number of possible states and actions) is large. Also, genetic algorithm is a meta-heuristic optimization so it does not provide a guarantee to find an optimal solution. In this article, we are going to introduce fundamental reinforcement learning algorithms.
We start by reviewing the Markov Decision Process formulation, then we describe the value-iteration and policy iteration which are algorithms for finding the optimal policy when the agent knows sufficient details about the environment model. We then, describe the Q-learning is a model-free learning that can be used when the agent does not know the environment model but has to discover the policy by trial and error making use of its history of interaction with the environment. We also provide demonstration examples of the three methods by using the FrozenLake8x8 and MountainCar problems from OpenAI gym.
Markov Decision Process (MDP)
We briefly introduced Markov Decision Process MDP in our first article. To recall, in reinforcement learning problems we have an agent interacting with an environment. At each time step, the agent performs an action which leads to two things: changing the environment state and the agent (possibly) receiving a reward (or penalty) from the environment. The goal of the agent is to discover an optimal policy (i.e. what actions to do in each state) such that it maximizes the total value of rewards received from the environment in response to its actions. MDP is used to describe the agent/ environment interaction settings in a formal way.
MDP consists of a tuple of 5 elements:
S : Set of states. At each time step the state of the environment is an element s ∈ S.
: Set of states. At each time step the state of the environment is an element. A : Set of actions. At each time step the agent choses an action a ∈ A to perform.
: Set of actions. At each time step the agent choses an action to perform. p(s_{t+1} | s_t, a_t) : State transition model that describes how the environment state changes when the user performs an action a depending on the action a and the current state s.
: State transition model that describes how the environment state changes when the user performs an action depending on the action and the current state. p(r_{t+1} | s_t, a_t) : Reward model that describes the real-valued reward value that the agent receives from the environment after performing an action. In MDP the the reward value depends on the current state and the action performed.
: Reward model that describes the real-valued reward value that the agent receives from the environment after performing an action. In MDP the the reward value depends on the current state and the action performed. 𝛾 : discount factor that controls the importance of future rewards. We will describe it in more details later.
The way by which the agent chooses which action to perform is named the agent policy which is a function that takes the current environment state to return an action. The policy is often denoted by the symbol 𝛑.
Let’s now differentiate between two types environments.
Deterministic environment: deterministic environment means that both state transition model and reward model are deterministic functions. If the agent while in a given state repeats a given action, it will always go the same next state and receive the same reward value.
Stochastic environment: In a stochastic environment there is uncertainty about the actions effect. When the agent repeats doing the same action in a given state, the new state and received reward may not be the same each time. For example, a robot which tries to move forward but because of the imperfection in the robot operation or other factors in the environment (e.g. slippery floor), sometimes the action forward will make it move forward but in sometimes, it will move to left or right.
Deterministic environments are easier to solve, because the agent knows how to plan its actions with no-uncertainty given the environment MDP. Possibly, the environment can be modeled in as a graph where each state is a node and edges represent transition actions from one state to another and edge weights are received rewards. Then, the agent can use a graph search algorithm such as A* to find the path with maximum total reward form the initial state.
Total reward
Remember, that the goal of the agent is to pick the best policy that will maximize the total rewards received from the environment.
Assume that environment is initially at state s_0
At time 0 : Agent observes the environment state s_0 and picks an action a_0, then upon performing its action, environment state becomes s_1 and the agent receives a reward r_1.
At time 1 : Agent observes current state s_1 and picks an action a_1, then upon acting its action, environment state becomes s_2 and it receives a reward r_2.
At time 2 : Agent observes current state s_2 and picks an action a_2, then upon acting its action, environment state becomes s_3 and it receives a reward r_3.
So the total reward received by the agent in response to the actions selected by its policy is going to be:
Total reward = r_1 + r_2 + r_3 + r_4 + r_5 +..
However, it is common to use a discount factor to give higher weight to near rewards received near than rewards received further in the future.
Total discounted reward = r_1 + 𝛾 r_2 + 𝛾² r_3 + 𝛾³ r_4 + 𝛾⁴ r_5+ …
so,
where T is the horizon (episode length) which can be infinity if there is maximum length for the episode.
The reason for using discount factor is to prevent the total reward from going to infinity (because 0 ≤ 𝛾 ≤ 1 ), it also models the agent behavior when the agent prefers immediate rewards than rewards that are potentially received far away in the future. (If I give you 1000 dollars today and If I give you 1000 days after 10 years which one would you prefer? ). Imagine a robot that is trying to solve a maze and there are two paths to the goal state one of them is longer but gives higher reward while there is a shorter path with smaller reward. By adjusting the 𝛾 value, you can control which the path the agent should prefer.
Now, we are ready to introduce the value-iteration and policy-iteration algorithms. These are two fundamental methods for solving MDPs. Both value-iteration and policy-iteration assume that the agent knows the MDP model of the world (i.e. the agent knows the state-transition and reward probability functions). Therefore, they can be used by the agent to (offline) plan its actions given knowledge about the environment before interacting with it. Later, we will discuss Q-learning which is a model-free learning environment that can be used in situation where the agent initially knows only that are the possible states and actions but doesn't know the state-transition and reward probability functions. In Q-learning the agent improves its behavior (online) through learning from the history of interactions with the environment.
Value function
Many reinforcement learning introduce the notion of `value-function` which often denoted as V(s). The value function represent how good is a state for an agent to be in. It is equal to expected total reward for an agent starting from state s. The value function depends on the policy by which the agent picks actions to perform. So, if the agent uses a given policy 𝛑 to select actions, the corresponding value function is given by:
Among all possible value-functions, there exist an optimal value function that has higher value than other functions for all states.
The optimal policy 𝛑* is the policy that corresponds to optimal value function.
In addition to the state value-function, for convenience RL algorithms introduce another function which is the state-action pair Q function. Q is a function of a state-action pair and returns a real value.
The optimal Q-function Q*(s, a) means the expected total reward received by an agent starting in s and picks action a, then will behave optimally afterwards. There, Q*(s, a) is an indication for how good it is for an agent to pick action a while being in state s.
Since V*(s) is the maximum expected total reward when starting from state s, it will be the maximum of Q*(s, a) over all possible actions.
Therefore, the relationship between Q*(s, a) and V*(s) is easily obtained as:
and If we know the optimal Q-function Q*(s, a), the optimal policy can be easily extracted by choosing the action a that gives maximum Q*(s, a) for state s.
Now, lets introduce an important equation called the Bellman equation which is a super-important equation optimization and have applications in many fields such as reinforcement learning, economics and control theory. Bellman equation using dynamic programming paradigm provides a recursive definition for the optimal Q-function.
The Q*(s, a) is equal to the summation of immediate reward after performing action a while in state s and the discounted expected future reward after transition to a next state s'.
Value-iteration and policy iteration rely on these equations to compute the optimal value-function.
Value Iteration
Value iteration computes the optimal state value function by iteratively improving the estimate of V(s). The algorithm initialize V(s) to arbitrary random values. It repeatedly updates the Q(s, a) and V(s) values until they converges. Value iteration is guaranteed to converge to the optimal values. This algorithm is shown in the following pseudo-code:
Pseudo code for value-iteration algorithm. Credit: Alpaydin Introduction to Machine Learning, 3rd edition.
Example : FrozenLake8x8 (Using Value-Iteration)
Now lets implement it in python to solve the FrozenLake8x8 openAI gym. compared to the FrozenLake-v0 environment we solved earlier using genetic algorithm, the FrozenLake8x8 has 64 possible states (grid size is 8x8) instead of 16. Therefore, the problem becomes harder and genetic algorithm will struggle to find the optimal solution.
Solution of the FrozenLake8x8 environment using Value-Iteration
Policy Iteration
While value-iteration algorithm keeps improving the value function at each iteration until the value-function converges. Since the agent only cares about the finding the optimal policy, sometimes the optimal policy will converge before the value function. Therefore, another algorithm called policy-iteration instead of repeated improving the value-function estimate, it will re-define the policy at each step and compute the value according to this new policy until the policy converges. Policy iteration is also guaranteed to converge to the optimal policy and it often takes less iterations to converge than the value-iteration algorithm.
The pseudo code for Policy Iteration is shown below.
Pseudo code for policy-iteration algorithm. Credit: Alpaydin Introduction to Machine Learning, 3rd edition.
Example : FrozenLake8x8 (Using Policy-Iteration)
Solution of the FrozenLake8x8 environment using Policy Iteration
Value-Iteration vs Policy-Iteration
Both value-iteration and policy-iteration algorithms can be used for offline planning where the agent is assumed to have prior knowledge about the effects of its actions on the environment (they assume the MDP model is known). Comparing to each other, policy-iteration is computationally efficient as it often takes considerably fewer number of iterations to converge although each iteration is more computationally expensive.
Q-Learning
Now, lets consider the case where the agent does not know apriori what are the effects of its actions on the environment (state transition and reward models are not known). The agent only knows what are the set of possible states and actions, and can observe the environment current state. In this case, the agent has to actively learn through the experience of interactions with the environment. There are two categories of learning algorithms:
model-based learning: In model-based learning, the agent will interact to the environment and from the history of its interactions, the agent will try to approximate the environment state transition and reward models. Afterwards, given the models it learnt, the agent can use value-iteration or policy-iteration to find an optimal policy.
model-free learning: in model-free learning, the agent will not try to learn explicit models of the environment state transition and reward functions. However, it directly derives an optimal policy from the interactions with the environment.
Q-Learning is an example of model-free learning algorithm. It does not assume that agent knows anything about the state-transition and reward models. However, the agent will discover what are the good and bad actions by trial and error.
The basic idea of Q-Learning is to approximate the state-action pairs Q-function from the samples of Q(s, a) that we observe during interaction with the enviornment. This approach is known as Time-Difference Learning.
Q-Learning algorithm
where 𝛂 is the learning rate. The Q(s,a) table is initialized randomly. Then the agent starts to interact with the environment, and upon each interaction the agent will observe the reward of its action r(s,a) and the state transition (new state s' ). The agent compute the observed Q-value Q_obs(s, a) and then use the above equation to update its own estimate of Q(s,a).
Exploration vs exploitation
An important question is how does the agent select actions during learning. Should the agent trust the learnt values of Q(s, a) enough to select actions based on it? or try other actions hoping this may give it a better reward. This is known as the exploration vs exploitation dilemma.
A simple approach is known as the 𝛆-greedy approach where at each step. With small probability 𝛜, the agent will pick a random action (explore) or with probability (1-𝛜) the agent will select an action according to the current estimate of Q-values. 𝛜 value can be decreased overtime as the agent becomes more confident with its estimate of Q-values.
MountainCar Problem (using Q-Learning)
Solution of MountainCar Problem using Q-Learning
Now, lets demonstrate how Q-Learning can be used to solve an interesting problem from OpenAI gym, the mountin-car problem. In the mountain car problem, there is a car on 1-dimensional track between two mountains. The goal of the car is to climb the mountain on its right. However, its engine is not strong to climb the mountain without having to go back to gain some momentum by climbing the mountain on the left.
Here, the agent is the car, and possible actions are drive left, do nothing, or drive right. At every time step, the agent receives a penalty of -1 which means that the goal of the agent is to climb the right mountain as fast as possible to minimize the sum of -1 penalties it receives.
The observation is two continuous variables representing the velocity and position of the car. Since, the observation variables are continuous, for our algorithm we discretize the observed values in order to use Q-Learning.
While initially, the car is unable to climb the mountain and it will take forever, if you select a random action. After learning, it learns how to climb the mountain within less than 100 time-steps.
Solution of OpenAI Gym MountainCar Problem using Q-Learning.
ReferencesRs1.5b BS extension programme launched
PESHAWAR: Accusing the previous government of using the education sector for job creation for own party workers, Chief Minister Pervez Khattak said that provision of uniform education opportunities was the primary factor of development.
Speaking at the launching of the Rs1.5 billion BS extension and best teachers’ award ceremony here on Thursday, he said that nowhere in the world poor had been wronged the way they faced hardships in Pakistan. “Nobody cared about the future of the children of poor. PTI took the initiative to provide opportunities to all segments of society,” he claimed.
The chief minister said his government felt the need of rewarding the teachers for improving their efficiency. He said that the awards were being distributed on merit to introduce a culture of competition at the public sector colleges.
Pervez Khattak said that his government had introduced a numbers of reforms, claiming that no previous government had initiated such a large scale reforms.
He said his government had faced hurdles for introducing these reforms. However, he added that he was determined for bringing about a positive change and his determination helped him handled the situation.
The chief minister said that politicians had developed a culture of making promises but doing nothing on the ground, adding that Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) changed that culture.
He claimed that every sector was lacking facilities and added that the objectives could not be achieved till provision of facilities in all sectors, including education.
The chief minister feared that the downward spiral would continue unless we prioritise education. “Education plays a major role in the reducing wealth gap and expansion of the middle class of a country which is the main indicator of development,” he remarked.
However, he lamented that previous government had destroyed institution as they had used education sector as a tool for achieving political goals.
They had distributed jobs among their political workers, he claimed.
He believed that violation of merit was responsible for the brain drain. “Our best minds have either moved to other parts of the country or left the country in search of opportunities as they could not get jobs here,” he maintained.
The chief minister said that Pakistan would have been in far better position had merit been followed in the past. “I have seen real development in Ayub Khan’s era,” he recalled while praising the military dictator.
He criticized provision of elementary education in Urdu, saying that elementary education must be provided in English when the medium of higher education was English.
Pervez Khattak said that the class-based education system was implemented to pave the way for the growth of the children of elites.
Earlier, Pervez Khattak distributed awards among best teachers, students and principals. Assistant Professor Government City Girls College Peshawar Atia Rehman was the stage secretary.
Minister for Higher Education Mushtaq Ghani said most of the projects that had been initiated in 2013 had started yielding results. He praised the leadership of Pervez Khattak for implementing the reform agenda of the PTI.
Mushtaq Ghani claimed that the entire Pakistan admitted that the reforms in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa were proof of good governance.
He said that previous government had established universities to provide jobs to own blue-eyed.
Mushtaq Ghani announced that the government would establish Pak-Austria Institute of Applied Sciences in Haripur.
Earlier, Secretary Higher Education Syed Zafar Ali Shah enumerated the achievements of his department and highlighted the objectives of the extension of Bachelor of Science programme to colleges.With the excitement of the NHL Draft fresh in many people’s minds, it’s time to turn the page and focus on July 1st, when a number of free agents will hit the open market. While the crop of players available may be thin in both top-end talent and depth, there are a number who could be game-changers for shrewd general managers.
There might not be a true number one available in this year’s crop of UFA defensemen (though that’s no surprise), but there are a number top-four types that could thrive with new teams and some depth additions that could prove valuable for contending clubs. There is likewise a mix of players in their prime, veterans, offensive types, and stay-at-home guys – something for everybody. Here’s a look at the top 10 NHL UFA defensemen available on July 1st.
Check out our Top 10 UFA Goaltender 2015 here.
Top 10 NHL UFA Defensemen 2015
1) Mike Green
Age: 29
2014-15 Cap Hit: $6 million
Green is probably the highest risk-reward player on this list, which means he’s likely going to see a good payday.
The career Washington Capital (he was drafted by the club 29th overall back in 2004) was once one of the centerpieces of the high-octane Caps attack. Back in 2008-09, Green became just the 8th defenseman in NHL history to score 30 goals in a season (including 18 on the power play), adding 42 assists to total 73 points. He would finish second in Norris trophy voting that year, and again in 2009-10 when he set a career high 76 points. He would also be voted into the NHL’s First All-Star Team both years. Unfortunately, injuries, which had always been a problem in Green’s career (he’s played just one full NHL season) began to take a toll on the offensive d-man.
The nadir of Green’s career came in 2011-12, when he managed just 7 points in 32 games. However, Green has quietly put together two very solid offensive seasons since being pushed down the depth chart (he averaged just 19:06 in ice time in 2014-15), playing 70+ games in consecutive seasons for just the second time in his career, while posting 38 and 45 points and a Corsi For% of 52.2 and 53.
You know what you’re getting in Green when he’s in the lineup. He can run a power play and, despite his reputation as being weak defensively, has posted positive possession numbers in all but one season. The only question is if his current (relatively) healthy streak will last.
2) Christian Ehrhoff
Age: 32 2014-15
Cap Hit: $4 million
Ehrhoff is in the same position as Green, a once great offensive defenseman that has fallen on hard times recently. After developing his game in San Jose, Ehrhoff exploded once landing in Vancouver in 2009, scoring 94 points in just two seasons with the Canucks, which he eventually parlayed into a monster 10-year, $40 million contract with the Buffalo Sabres.
Ehrhoff’s offensive numbers immediately took a dip (not playing on the power play with the Sedins tends to have that effect on a player) while his possession numbers went into the toilet in Buffalo, and the Sabres eventually bought out the remaining seven years on his contract. Ehrhoff was able to find new life in Pittsburgh, with the hopes of regaining his position as one of the most dangerous defensemen in the league.
Unfortunately for Ehrhoff and the Pens, the skilled German dealt with concussion issues for a large part of the season, and he managed to get into just 49 games, recording 14 points (only two of which came on the power play).
A healthy Ehrhoff (it appears as though his concussion issues should be cleared up by the time training camp begins) in the right situation could be able to recapture his form – at least that’s what some NHL general managers will be hoping.
3) Barret Jackman
Age: 34
2014-15 Cap Hit: $3.16 million
Unlike the first two players on this list, whichever team signs Jackman won’t be expecting the 1999 17th overall pick to make any kind of impact on the scoresheet. He will, however, provide a steady defensive game, hitting, blocking shots, and a huge helping of veteran leadership to boot.
Jackman has played the entirety of his 803-game career with the St. Louis Blues, winning the Calder trophy back in 2002-03. Offensively, he hit a career high back in 2006-07, when he scored 27 points, but lately he’s gotten into a comfortable rhythm of a 15 points and a couple of goals a year. That said, there are a number of positives to Jackman’s game that are incredibly valuable to most NHL teams. He’s averaged more than 100 blocked shots (141) and hits (113) per season, as well as logging big minutes on the penalty kill (2:16 per game last year). Throw in a Corsi For% that hovered between 52-53 percent the last two seasons, and it’s clear Jackman is a quality shut-down defender.
His age may scare some general managers off, as will his declining ice time as he approaches the end of his career, but it’s not unreasonable to expect he can still play a solid top-four, complimentary role.
4) Johnny Oduya
Age: 33 2014-15 Cap Hit: $3.38 million
Oduya is a good candidate to get the most inflated contract of any player on this list, but that’s bound to happen when you’ve played a key role in winning two Stanley Cups in the last three years.
Oduya started his career promisingly in New Jersey, scoring 26 points as a sophomore and setting a career high in points (29) the following season, before he was jettisoned to the purgatory of Atlanta as part of the Ilya Kovalchuk deal. The Swede contributed little of note as a Thrasher, playing 20:19 a night on a team featuring a young and emerging d-corps (which included a young Zach Bogosian and Tobias Enstrom).
However, in February 2012, fate smiled on Oduya, when he was sent to the Blackhawks for two draft picks, and the rest is history. Through Oduya never quite managed to regain his offensive form, he didn’t really have to – all he had to do was be a steady presence on a blueline that featured Duncan Keith and Brent Seabrook, a role he played with aplomb.
There are, however, some worries about Oduya’s performance in the post-season that might make someone regret signing the two-time champion for too much money. Despite logging huge minutes (24:45) this past playoff run, Oduya posted a 48% Corsi For%, and a -6.4 Corsi For% relative. He’s still a great complimentary piece, but general managers shouldn’t be deceived and thrust him into a primary role, especially when he’ll be 34 before the season begins.
5) Cody Franson
Age: 27
2014-15 Cap Hit: $3.3 million
Teams looking to upgrade their offense from the blueline will likely target Franson if Green and/or Ehrhoff are off the board, as he makes a great secondary option in that regard, though he has struggled with consistency over his career.
After a great junior career with the Vancouver Giants in the WHL, which included a Memorial Cup championship and IIHF World Junior Gold in 2007, the 2005 Predators pick was thought to be yet another in a long line of excellent defenders coming out of Nashville. After two years percolating in Milwaukee with the Admirals, Franson finally made the jump to the big club in 2009. Despite solid offensive play and good possession numbers, he wasn’t able to move up the depth chart in Nashville and was dealt to the Toronto Maple Leafs in July 2011.
He would take more of a central role in Toronto, producing well on the power play and keeping a positive Corsi For% relative in increased ice time, despite the team around him dragging down his overall Corsi For%. Last season, with the Predators near the the top of the league and hoping to make a run, they brought Franson (along with forward Mike Santorelli) back into the fold, hoping he could bolster their already impressive blueline.
Unfortunately, it was a tale of two seasons for the big-bodied defenseman, as the solid offensive season he had been having in Toronto went the reverse direction, and he managed only 4 points in 28 combined regular and post-season contests for the Preds and saw his average ice time drop five minutes a night. At 27, Franson still has lots to give and, like most players on this list, could thrive if he gets into the right situation on the right team.
6) Andrej Sekera
Age: 29 2014-15
Cap Hit: $2.75 million
Sekera is a good skater and quality puck-mover, but he lacks size for a modern NHL defender. He also, unfortunately, had a bit of a down year, which may hurt his stock on July 1st.
The Slovak got his NHL start in Buffalo, where he showed signs of developing into a top-four d-man who could produce on the power play, though he managed to eclipse the 20-point mark only once (2010-11, when he had 29 points). With Bufflao already bottoming out, he was sent to the Hurricanes in 2013, where his offensive game exploded. He posted 11 goals and 44 points, both career highs, and looked like he had finally reached his potential.
However, with Carolina likewise settling into the bottom of the league, Sekera became part of the sell-off, heading to Los Angeles this past February, as the Kings were gearing up for a run to the post-season. Despite quality ice time and outstanding possession numbers (59.6 Corsi For%, 7.6 Corsi For% relative), the production just wasn’t there, as he managed only |
his own eyes but he was permitted no tears” and a woman “who was forced to watch another woman drown her newborn baby.”
He also pointed out the execution last year of the uncle of young North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, saying: “If one of the most powerful people in the state can so quickly fall from grace and be killed, imagine the fate of lesser people.”
In a statement, Human Rights Watch executive director Kenneth Roth repeated the call for a council referral to the International Criminal Court. “Given this extraordinarily severe repression, it would be unconscionable for the Council to continue limiting its work on North Korea to the nuclear issue,” he said.
Speaking at a separate event Wednesday on the report, Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights Ivan Simonovic said: “The international community is rarely presented with a challenge of this magnitude and importance. There is a window of opportunity to make a difference. Let us seize it.”In the end it was a bridge that gave away the militants.
An investigative journalist says he or she has identified the location used by members of the Islamic State to train a new batch of recruits, all based off clues left in a series of photographs.
See also: How the Islamic State Lures Child Recruits to Fight in Syria and Iraq
The photos, which show about 80 men, dressed head to toe in combat gear in some kind of training camp, were posted by a terrorist-affiliated media Twitter account in July. On Friday, the citizen journalist, who wrote at Bellingcat — a collaborative website founded by the blogger Eliot Higgins earlier this year — published a post that concluded the IS recruits were operating on a stretch of road along the Tigris River in Mosul, Iraq.
An undated photograph posted by a pro-ISIS Twitter account a class of recruits posing after completing a training program with the Islamic State. Image: Bellingcat/Militant website
"Have you ever wondered what it would be like to go through training as an ISIS terrorist? Or better yet, where you would go to find such advanced training?" the contributor, who wrote it under an anonymous byline, asked in the post.
"All you have to do to find the answer to these questions is turn to the nearest ISIS media twitter account and click on that bright blue Justpaste.it link," the writer says, referring to the website of choice for militants looking to share photos of their latest exploits.
The journalist did that by using a variety of online tools — Google Earth, FlashEarth and Panoramio — to pinpoint landmarks in the photographs that could be used to identify the location where militants practiced martial arts, marched with guns or posed for the end-of-camp group picture seen above.
There was a bridge that spanned the Tigris River. There was a series of billboards on the side of a road. And there was an unmistakable tower.
By triangulating those locations on a map, the journalist determined it was on the stretch of road in the image below where the fighters learned their murderous tradecraft sometime earlier this summer.
A map Image: Google Earth/Bellingcat
Iraqi and Kurdish forces recaptured Iraq's largest dam from Islamic militants Monday following dozens of U.S. airstrikes, President Barack Obama said, in the first major defeat for the extremists since they swept across the country this summer.
Militants from the Islamic State group had seized a dam near Mosul on Aug. 7, giving them access and control of enormous power and water reserves and threatening to deny those resources to much of Iraq.
Iraqi forces suffered a string of humiliating defeats at the hands of the Islamic State as the extremists took over large parts of northern and western Iraq and sent religious minorities fleeing.
The militants' battlefield victories brought U.S. forces back into the conflict for the first time since it withdrew its troops in 2011 and reflected the growing international concern about the Sunni extremist group. Washington launched attacks from its warplanes and drones on Aug. 8.
Since then, U.S. Central Command says it has conducted a total of 93 airstrikes across Iraq. Of that total, 60 airstrikes were conducted in support of Iraqi forces near Mosul's Dam, CENTCOM said on Friday.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.The Scottish Green Party is looking forward to its biggest conference ever following "an extraordinary flood of new members" in the wake of the independence referendum.
The pro-independence party's membership more than tripled from about 1,700 to over 6,000 in the wake of the No vote in the referendum and about 450 members are registered to attend the sold-out conference in Edinburgh this weekend.
The Greens now have around half as many members of Scottish Labour or the Scottish Conservatives.
The Greens' co-convenors will also take part in the Smith Commission, looking at further devolution to Scotland, and will lodge submissions to the commission in advance of the party's conference.
Councillor Maggie Chapman, co-convenor of the Scottish Green Party, said: "The Scottish Greens ran a positive and forward-looking campaign in the run-up to the referendum.
"Although many of us were disappointed by the result, we were proud of the vision of Scotland based on hope and creativity that we presented.
"This has been followed by an extraordinary flood of new members, beyond anything we could have imagined.
"For the first time in our history we have Green members in every corner of Scotland, many of whom are experienced campaigners who worked hard on the doorsteps during the referendum.
"With them on board, we are now in an excellent position to contest the forthcoming UK general election as a springboard to elect many more Greens to Holyrood in 2016, and to local councils across the country the year after that.
"This conference will also be the best-attended in our history, with speakers including former Labour first minister Henry McLeish and representatives from Oxfam, Business for Scotland, Cosla, Unison, the Church of Scotland and others.
"We will also decide on policy positions for the party, including opposition to the war in Iraq, raising the minimum wage to £10 and public ownership of our transport systems.
"It's fair to say there's never been more interest in the Scottish Greens' agenda and we are expecting a weekend of vigorous debates on policy and strategy, as well as looking forward to starting the process of getting to know our new members."
Sally Foster Fulton, convener of the Church and Society Council of The Church of Scotland, who will address conference on Saturday, said: "The political energy unleashed by the referendum is unprecedented and offers civic Scotland a renewed opportunity to work towards the Scotland imagined during this time of discernment.
"I look forward to sharing time at the Green Party conference, exploring ways to bring a fairer future forward for those who find themselves trapped in an unequal economic system.
"A Scotland within the United Kingdom is the vision we have chosen for ourselves.
"As we walk into that future, we must do all we can to ensure the future includes our most vulnerable citizens."His key recommendation is likely to be an emissions intensity scheme, as advocated by business, industry, the energy market regulators and Labor, to bring down emissions over time and create investment certainty for the energy sector.
But in the Coalition party room on Tuesday, Malcolm Turnbull ruled it out, saying there would neither be an emissions trading scheme nor an EIS.
On Tuesday, The Australian Financial Review revealed Glencore was threatening to cease its copper smelting and refinery operations in Queensland due to volatile power prices and the investment climate.
The federal government blamed state Labor's 50 per cent renewable energy target for the Glencore threat while federal Labor said it underscored the need for the Turnbull government to adopt an EIS.
"Industry as well as experts are crying out for an emissions intensity scheme for the electricity sector, to end uncertainty and fuel new investment, but Turnbull and Frydenberg have made it clear they will continue to put the interests of the hard right of their party above what is best for the country," said shadow energy minister Mark Butler.
"This isn't good enough. Not just Glencore, but thousands of other jobs and whole industries are at stake."
It's 'not the renewable energy finance corporation'
Mr Frydenberg said coal had a future, more so if emissions could be reduced using CCS technology. He said CCS was a proven technology with two large-scale projects either in operation or under construction overseas.
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"Given that CCS technology has received such strong support from the likes of the International Panel on Climate Change and the International Energy Agency internationally as well as the Chief Scientist and the CSIRO here at home, it is now only appropriate that we unshackle the CEFC and allow it to support this low emissions technology," he has told The Australian Financial Review.
"The CEFC is after all not the renewable energy finance corporation, but one that is explicitly encouraged under part six of the Act to also invest in energy efficiency and low emission alternatives.
"It's time Labor put aside their mistakes of the past and joined the Coalition government to support this important legislative change.
"Labor's 2016 election plan after all did say: 'Labor will restore flexibility to the CEFC by broadening the investment mandate to make it technology neutral'."
The Greens ruled out immediately supportng the change, describing it as "utter lunacy".
Originally, the Coalition tried to abolish the CEFC, saying taxpayers should not be underwriting investments the private sector will not touch
On Tuesday, Trade Minister and Queenslander Steven Ciobo blamed the Glencore threat on the "crazy" policy of the state Labor government "which are forcing up the costs of electricity much higher".
Mr Frydenberg also said he had asked the Australian Energy Regulator to investigate claims that the two state government owned coal generators in Queensland were price gouging by holding back production.Something different is going on in the Republican Party in the runup to the 2014 midterm elections. Candidates and voters alike are demonstrating a renewed understanding of the danger of the self-inflicted political wound and the need to avoid it.
On Tuesday in North Carolina, the first important GOP Senate primary race of the year ended with frontrunner Thom Tillis securing 46 percent of the vote, significantly more than he needed to avoid a costly and difficult runoff.
This was notable because Tillis had three candidates running to his right on the grounds that this gun-loving, pro-life state legislator wasn’t an authentic conservative.
Their argument seemed based largely in the fact that Tillis was getting support from the so-called Republican “establishment,” while several of his rivals got backing from self-appointed Tea Party groups.
When it came to experience and fluency and a proven electoral record, Tillis had it all over his rivals. But that might not have been sufficient unto the day in 2010 or 2012. In those years, in Senate race after Senate race, Republican primary voters chose unpolished and highly problematic candidates who showed a lamentable tendency to shoot themselves in the foot they’d just put in their own mouths.
Thanks to those candidates, Republicans lost races they likely would’ve won (had more established types not lost the primary) in Indiana, Colorado, Missouri, Nevada, Alaska, North Dakota and Montana. Those victories would have given the GOP control of the Senate in 2010 and extended the party’s domination in 2012. Instead, the party fell short of victory in ’10 and lost a net two seats in ’12.
Tillis’ Republican rivals in North Carolina would have been a gift to the embattled Democratic incumbent, Kay Hagan. They were unpolished, uncomfortable with issues and consumed with parochial interests. In those earlier years, their rough-hewn qualities might’ve offered a perverse incentive to primary voters to cast ballots for them on the grounds of authenticity and ideological purity.
But this year, the results on Tuesday suggest, Republican voters will go to the primary polls sadder and wiser. They’ve seen how a bad candidate can single-handedly destroy himself, especially with a mainstream media hungry to turn any GOP pothole into a sinkhole.
And so they may be subsuming William F. Buckley’s 1967 dictum that conservatives should vote “for the most right, viable candidate who could win.”
Tillis’ victory comes six weeks after the Colorado Republican Party pulled a switcheroo, getting a Tea Party candidate who’d lost a winnable race in 2010 to drop out of the Senate primary in favor of the state’s rising GOP star, Rep. Cory Gardner. He’s now running neck-and-neck with the incumbent first-term Democrat, Mark Udall.
The distinction between the good and bad candidates in these races doesn’t have much to do with their views. A Sen. Tillis will be on the rightward edge of the Republican caucus in 2015 if he wins in November, just as one of his rivals would’ve been.
It’s more a question of comportment and the ability to talk about issues in a way that is not in itself needlessly divisive and off-putting. Basically, Tillis seemed like he was ready to play in the big leagues and the others didn’t, which is true as well of Gardner in Colorado.
And the key to playing in the big leagues these days is, first and foremost, not to blow up your own campaign.
Over the coming months, primary voters face more challenges of this sort in Georgia, Louisiana, Kansas and Mississippi. Given the clear advantage Republicans are going to enjoy going into November, the job of GOP primary voters is, pretty much, not to mess things up. It will be instructive to see whether they avoid the self-inflicted wounds that have done so much damage to their party over the past few years.UPDATE (2 p.m. on Feb. 21) — The man who disappeared from Gwynn Oak earlier this month has been found, police said.
Two weeks after he went missing, officials said that Kevin Servance had been located. The 29-year-old was unharmed, authorities said in a statement on Tuesday.
BALTIMORE COUNTY, MD — A 29-year-old Gwynn Oak man has vanished, and the Baltimore County Police Department is asking for help finding him.
Kevin Irvin Servance left his home in the 1400 block of Barrett Road at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 7, police said.
Authorities said he was traveling by foot and frequents the Laurel area, where he used to live.
Since Servance went missing, family members have been unable to get in touch with him.
He is described as 5'10" tall and 170 pounds with shoulder-length brown hair, a thin mustache and brown eyes.
Anyone with information about Kevin Irvin Servance may contact the Baltimore County Police Department at 410-307-2020.
Photo courtesy of the Baltimore County Police Department.It wasn't always about the grilling and Slip'N Slide.
In fact, that last glorious slice of summertime that Labor Day has come to represent masks the overlooked turbulent history that led to its establishment in the first place.
Nineteenth Century America was a time of rapid industrialization. Many of the nation's urban centers were bursting at the seams, attracting a flood of poor immigrants desperate for work, but vulnerable to exploitation. Growing labor unrest led to a string of major strikes and protests, with workers demanding higher pay, safer working conditions and the right to unionize. The demonstrations often sparked violent clashes with police and private company security forces.
The unrest, though, proved fruitful. It ultimately led to major improvements for millions of workers, ushering in an era of new labor regulations that included the establishment of an 8-hour workday and laws prohibiting child labor. The reforms also gave rise to a prolonged period of burgeoning union membership, increased wages and a notable rise in the ranks of America's middle class.The main finding of this study was that of reduced SICI in cannabis users with no differences seen in CSP or LICI measures. The SICI finding was significant at the 2 ms interval, with a trend for a similar result at 3 ms. Interestingly, there was also a significant correlation between SICI at the 2 ms ISI and THC plasma levels among heavy cannabis users. On measures of cortical excitability, this study found no differences in the MEP size, RMTs or AMTs or CF of cannabis users and non-users. There were no differences between the groups in psychomotor performance. Of note, although we recruited groups with deliberately divergent plasma levels of cannabis, reduced SICI was seen in both groups.
In regards to our finding of reduced SICI, evidence has been progressively accumulating that SICI is a reflection of cortical activity and activity at the GABA A synapse. For example, GABA A involvement in SICI is supported by the time course of its effect. Stimulation of the neocortex produces disynaptic fast and slow inhibitory postsynaptic potentials (IPSPs) with a distinctly different time course (Davies et al, 1990). Fast IPSPs are mediated by GABA A receptors and are coupled to chloride channels, lasting approximately 20 ms, whereas slow IPSPs are mediated by GABA B receptors that activate potassium channels and peak around 150–200 ms. This difference in time course roughly corresponds to the different ISIs of SICI (1–6 ms) and LICI (50–150 ms) (Sanger et al, 2001). Further support has come from pharmacological studies that have found that stimulation of GABA A receptors with benzodiazepines (eg Lorazepam) enhances SICI (Di Lazzaro et al, 2008).
This study is the first demonstration of the direct effects of cannabis in the human cortex. Given the dependence of SICI on GABAergic activity, it is possible that this effect directly relates to GABAergic modulation by cannabis, especially as a sizeable proportion of subjects had measurable plasma THC levels. This finding is at least in part consistent with a number of studies that support an interaction between cannabis and the GABAergic neurotransmission. These motor cortical findings could arise from effects at a cortical level or potentially in other areas of the pyramidal and extrapyramidal systems. For example, some studies have suggested that activation of the cannabinoid CB1 receptor exerts a presynaptic modulatory increase of GABA transmission at the level of the output nuclei of the basal ganglia (Pertwee and Greentree, 1988; Pertwee et al, 1988). Other studies have suggested an inhibitory rather than a stimulatory effect of GABA neurons by cannabinoids in the basal ganglia (Chan et al, 1998) and striatum (Szabo et al, 1998). It is notable that despite the clear SICI finding, there were no differences in either paradigm assessing GABA B activity (CSP and LICI) or in any measure of cortical excitability. Some studies at a pharmacological level have demonstrated specific effects of cannabinoids on GABA A. For example, whole-cell voltage clamp recordings of hippocampal CA1 pyramidal neurons in rat brain slices revealed that the activation of cannabinoid receptors reduced GABA A but not GABA B receptor mediated synaptic inhibition (Hoffman and Lupica, 2000). However, effects of cannabinoids on GABA have also been shown at GABA B receptors, for example in behavior studies in rats (Romero et al, 1996). Given the apparent complexity of the interaction between cannabinoids and GABA, it is quite possible that the GABA A but not GABA B effects in the study could be explained by variation in cannabis effects across brain regions.
Another, and perhaps more likely possibility, is that the reduced SICI relates not directly to the effect of cannabis on GABA A receptors but is more related to neurobiological changes in patients who use cannabis regularly. Strong support for this conclusion is found in the observation that reduced SICI was found in patients who were both heavy and light cannabis users with the latter group predominantly having quite low or non-detectable plasma levels of cannabis. The main distinguishing factors between heavy and light cannabis users was the former group's frequency and quantity of use, the fact that the majority of the heavy users met DSM-IV criteria for cannabis dependence, and the time period from recent use to TMS testing. Despite these differences, reduced SICI was seen in both groups and to a similar degree. However, the observation that reduced SICI could be independent of current use is somewhat contradicted by the correlation between SICI and plasma THC in the heavy use group.
If we do presume that reduced SICI is a characteristic of cannabis users rather than an effect directly of the drug itself, it is possible that this results from long-term cannabis use. That is, long-term cannabis use results in a down regulation of activity within cortical inhibitory circuitry. The users in the two groups did not differ substantially in the duration of their lifetime cannabis use, although they differed substantially in the degree of current use. This finding is in line with some of the cannabis and cognition research, which suggests that the duration of cannabis use is a more prominent contributor to the development of cognitive impairment than frequency or quantity of use (Solowij et al, 2002). Interestingly, cannabis users in this study demonstrated normal motor performance; motor deficits have been reported earlier when cannabis users are drug free (eg (Bolla et al, 2002)). Speculatively, this suggests that chronic cannabis may result in brain changes such that performance is substantially impaired, as supported by much research, but partially maintained during the presence of the drug itself. A study of information processing speed in cannabis users also found normal performance in an acute use state with impaired performance in a non-acute state although this could be confounded by withdrawal effects (Kelleher et al, 2004).
Another alternative is that individuals who are vulnerable to becoming long-term users of illicit substances such as cannabis may have underlying pre-existing deficits in SICI. In contrast, lighter, irregular users may also exhibit this decrease in SICI but have a number of protective factors that lead to a less chronic pattern of use. It is possible that this physiological deficit may result in reduced behavioral inhibition affecting an individual's capacity not respond to drug cues. Deficits of inhibition have been found in other substance-dependent populations (Fillmore and Rush, 2002), there is evidence of impairment of other frontal executive functions in cannabis users (Pope and Yurgelun-Todd, 1996), and cannabis users have been shown to use different brain networks during inhibitory tasks (Gruber and Yurgelun-Todd, 2005). Several studies have also shown abnormalities in cortical excitability in cocaine users that are not related directly to current cocaine consumption (Boutros et al, 2001, 2005; Sundaresan et al, 2007). These studies have demonstrated changes in motor thresholds with no change in CSP or LICI. Unfortunately to date, SICI has not been investigated in cocaine users. It is possible that changes in cortical excitability and inhibition represent a more general vulnerability to becoming substance dependent.
There were several methodological issues in this study that must be considered. For instance, we assessed cannabis users in association with their ongoing use (rather than following controlled exposure) and did not test at a uniform time point. An alternative may have been to test cannabis users following a similar period of abstinence. We deliberately recruited the subjects to allow us to explore the relationship of TMS measures to the likely presence in the brain of high and low (or absent) levels of cannabis metabolites, rather than the groups as equal clinical entities studied under identical conditions. The resultant undetectable cannabis levels in most of the light users allowed us to make this comparison but due to the sensitivity of the assay also prevented us from conducting correlations with plasma level across the entire sample. The undetectable levels in the light users most likely reflected a combination of their lighter overall use and the greater duration from most recent use compared with the heavy group. Because of the undetectable cannabis levels in most of the light users, we were not able to confirm the nature of the use in these subjects other than by self-report. However, there is no reason to assume they would have systematically under or over estimated their use in a manner that would have influenced our capacity to interpret the results of the study. A complementary approach would involve a placebo—active THC drug challenge in light users with SICI measured pre and post drug. In addition, despite efforts to match participants, there was a significant difference in education level between heavy users and controls, highlighting some degree of heterogeneity within the sample. We did match the sample on WTAR levels although a slightly higher proportion of subjects received this measure in the control group. The incomplete data on the WTAR should not have biased the overall results as the missing data were related to the time of recruitment in the study, not a systematic variable likely to influence cortical inhibition. However, although this study attempted to control for a number of possible confounding variables, we did not match the groups based on the actual amount of current or past consumption of licit drugs including alcohol.
Of some note is that our finding of reduced cortical inhibition, reflecting abnormalities of GABA A neurotransmission, is similar to that seen in several TMS studies of schizophrenia (for example Daskalakis et al, 2002; Fitzgerald et al, 2002b; Wobrock et al, 2008). A range of other studies have also implicated deficits of GABA A in schizophrenia (Lewis and Hashimoto, 2007). This is particularly relevant as cannabis can precipitate a psychotic episode in individuals who are predisposed to develop schizophrenia (Andreasson et al, 1987; Hambrecht and Hafner, 2000). Additionally, there are also extremely high rates of cannabis abuse among patients with schizophrenia, and this abuse often worsens outcomes (Hall and Degenhardt, 2000; Bersani et al, 2002; Rehman and Farooq, 2007). It is possible to speculate that if chronic cannabis use results in a down regulation of GABAergic function, this could have a role in the development of schizophrenia.Preparations for the Aug. 21 eclipse show just how important solar power has become to California, as power grid overseers decide how to replace energy lost when the sun's rays are blocked by the moon.
Solar panels generate 20 to 40 percent of our electricity on a typical sunny morning and sometimes as much as 47 percent. But the day of the eclipse, much of that power will be turned off over a period of three hours. While Oregon gets a total eclipse, in LA about 62 percent of the sun will blocked by the moon.
California power officials estimate utilities will need to generate 6,000 additional megawatts to make up for the solar shortfall, enough to power 6 million homes.
Skies will start to darken in Southern California shortly after 9 a.m. on the day of the eclipse. The region will reach the maximum darkness at about 10:19 before returning to full sun about 11:44.
The big issue is how quickly solar power will ramp down and how quickly it can be replaced by other sources.
“What makes this more unique is how quickly this is going to happen,” said Steven Greenlee, spokesman for the California Independent System Operator, which oversees much of the power distribution in the state.
"The ramp-down and then ramp-up of solar, synched with the ramp-up and then down of non-solar resources to cover the gap will be a challenge," Greenlee said.
An eclipse causes a much steeper drop-off in power than a sunset or sudden cloud cover, Greenlee said. A monsoon cloud that comes on suddenly could cause a ramp-down of about 29 megawatts a minute. The eclipse comes on even more rapidly, ramping down at about 70 megawatts a minute.
As the state loses sunlight, people will be turning on lights as if it were night, and homes with rooftop solar will start drawing power from traditional sources, adding more demand to the power grid.
The challenge is like trying to keep the same level of water in a swimming pool while it is draining out on one end and being refilled at the other end, he said.
Utilities will coordinate how to replace the lost solar energy through other sources like wind and natural gas without causing surges or outages.
Power distribution from the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power is not managed by the California ISO. However DWP officials are also preparing for the drop in sunlight, said spokesman Joseph Ramallo.
The other risk is that something unexpected happens to interrupt the flow of power from one of the CA ISO sources of power. An example is a brush fire taking out a transmission line, something that happened last August during the Blue Cut Fire in San Bernardino County. The eclipse is happening in August, which is in the middle of brush fire season in Southern California.
California gets it solar power from plants in the San Joaquin Valley, Mojave Desert, the Coachella and Imperial valleys and Las Vegas. The eclipse will make it darker near the northern solar plants like in the Northern San Joaquin Valley, which will have a 76 percent eclipse, and Las Vegas, where it will be a 72 percent eclipse. To the south, the plants lose less sun.Competing cryptocurrencies have been in the news lately. This VICE Motherboardroundupis a good list of some of bitcoin’s most promising challengers. But it makes a comparison which reveals a view often expressed but is probably misguided about the nature of cryptocurrency competition. “Is there room for more than one sheriff in town?” writer Alec Liu asks. “In the case of Facebook, competitors with similar functionality never made it, regardless of apparently advantageous tweaks to the original formula.”
The comparison makes sense at first. Most people use only one kind of money, and Facebook has no obvious remaining competitors, besides the much-less-used and very different Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat. But here’s why a better analogy for the battle between bitcoin and altcoins might be Netflix and Hulu.
Competition is pretty powerful. People don’t take risks with their time, money and reputation, with the possibility of losing all and failing publicly, if they’re secure in their domination of a market. The possibility of getting trounced is what motivates people to try to generate value in new ways. Competition, then, spurs the kinds of risks necessary to innovate. Innovation is the only way to create new wealth. Resources are finite. Innovation is infinite. The wealth created through innovation leads to longer lives, greater levels of prosperity and more free time, allowing people to learn about themselves and the world around them.
But, competition is also costly. Many powerful firms have been crippled or taken under by their inability to compete with upstarts. IBM, Xerox, Circuit City, all once-powerful tech behemoths, have all been taken out or scaled back considerably since their heydays.
Competition is also costly for consumers. Consider VHS versus Betamax. Or Nintendo versus Sega. Or the iPhone versus Android. Or Mac versus PC. What they all have in common is this: Most people will use only one. It’s simply too expensive, relative to the benefits, to use both competitors. Few people want to buy, and learn to use, two different systems.
But one thing that technological innovation does is move people away from expensive hardware. According to the Chicago Tribune, when the VCR was introduced in 1975, the average cost for one was between $1,000 and $1,400. In 1975 Sears was selling their cheapest (black and white) television for $500 in today’s dollars. Their best color TV would set you back about $2,600.
Today your laptop, which does much more, but will also play movies from the internet, likely costs less than Sears’ crappiest black-and-white television, even with a Netflix subscription included.
Netflix and Hulu are the VHS and Betamax of today, competing for watching-stuff-at-home customer dollars. But one huge difference is that low investment costs mean that they can both compete with each other for a long time. Betamax and VHS knew that one of them would need to become standard, because few people were going to buy both kinds of players. Legend is that when the porn industry took up VHS, its fate as the default video format was sealed.
Not so with Netflix and Hulu. Investment cost, and therefore the cost to switch, is minimal. In fact, both services are so cheap and their services different enough that many, many people pay for both. Or, they do what I do and pay for Netflix and share with their sisters, who pay for Hulu Plus and share with them. Hulu Plus and Netflix are still very much competing. Most people do not pay for both. When Netflix found success in creating an original series, House of Cards, which begot another incredibly successful series, Orange Is The New Black, Hulu also got in on the game, creating several lower-budget original series which non-subscribers can watch for free.
People are still talking about competition between bitcoin and altcoins such as Dogecoin or NXT like they are VHS and Betamax. But they are much more like Netflix and Hulu. Netflix and Hulu have opened up a new world of original content creation without middlemen and have helped normalize the internet as a source for television and movie watching. Similarly bitcoin and altcoins are opening up new worlds of payment options without middlemen and normalizing the internet as a source for banking services.
In addition, crypto is following this competitive innovation model; only instead of both branching into original content shows, Florincoin is the first cryptocoin to introduce messages in transactions, and bitcoin will be introducing this feature as well.
Yet in some ways, even the Hulu/Netflix analogy is inapt. In several dimensions, cryptocurrencies transcend competition. After all, all moderately successful ones are based on open source code. All attempts at cryptocurrency based on closed-source code (I only know of one) have failed miserably. Active altcoin development with open-source coding means a diverse set of developers fix problems, and this problem-solving ends up helping all cryptocurrencies run smoothly.
In addition, unlike traditional competitors, crypto developers actually work together for each other’s mutual benefit. For instance, Litecoin and Bitcoin developers joined forces to create a large bounty for the person who found a fix for a bug affecting both currencies, and the fix was found. Another great example of mature cross-community communication can be see in JR willet’s post on the Mastercoin Blog, where he asks Vitalik (lead developer of Ethereum) for advice. Vitalik has written two features for Mastercoin.
It is because currencies have been so dreadfully difficult to exchange that we have previously taken for granted the need for one dominant currency, just as there was a need for one dominant video format. But exchanging cryptocurrencies is actually even easier than switching from Netflix to Hulu.
No one can look at the carcasses of once-successful companies, or their VHS (or DVD) cabinet and deny the destruction aspect of creative destruction. And the thought of people competing brings to mind the opposite of cooperation. Backstabbing and wanting people to fail are horrible things to contemplate. Yet cryptocurrencies are harnessing the creative aspects of creative destruction, namely innovation and its natural result, prosperity, while discarding some of the nastier aspects.
It would be surprising, and actually a little sad, for one cryptocurrency to dominate. Whereas Netflix and Hulu are constantly innovating, there were basically no changes to the VHS format until the DVD arrived and made it obsolete. Similarly, fiat money hasn’t seen any innovation in the last hundred years. The greatest benefit and promise of bitcoin the currency is the potential to innovate our currencies. Competition enables and incentivizes innovation. Long live bitcoin. Long live altcoins. Long live competition, and the prosperity it creates.When I saw that picture with the desk from that specific perspective, I was immediately reminded of Phoenix Wright, and then everything fell into place: This is a perfect Pinkie Pie style objection."THIS cake is no lie, buddy!", she said to the prosecutor.I looked for a better background than the original game's one, but everything else looked odd when I adjusted the perspective. I don't mind, though. It's just a background, and I kinda like it actually, including the cutoff half-way. Looks more artistic.Pinkie vector: iocainepower.deviantart.com/ar… Objection vector: adamenvelope.deviantart.com/ar… I want her as my lawyer.P.S.: This could also work with a "Take That!", but I couldn't find a vector. It then could be the result of the judge saying: "Please present that evidence that shows the prosecutor sucks..."New Jersey Transit’s board voted on Wednesday to allow the agency to lead the environmental study for a project to build a new train tunnel under the Hudson River, an important early step as officials move forward on the plans.
The environmental review could take two to three years and will be coordinated by New Jersey Transit but paid for by Amtrak, officials said. As part of a joint effort, Amtrak will soon begin preliminary engineering work for the tunnel project.
The move came five years after Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey canceled an earlier project by New Jersey Transit to build a tunnel under the river. The new plan, which is part of an Amtrak proposal known as the Gateway project, gained momentum this summer and public support from Mr. Christie and Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York.
At the New Jersey Transit board meeting on Wednesday in Newark, the board’s vice chairman, Bruce Meisel, called the vote “a step in the right direction.” He urged others at the meeting to continue to talk to local leaders from both parties about the importance of building a new tunnel.CLOSE Bufalo hired Kathryn Smith to be a special teams quality control coach. USA TODAY Sports
In this photo provided by the Buffalo Bills, Bills assistant football coach Kathryn Smith poses, Thursday, Jan. 21, 2016, in Orchard Park, N.Y. Smith is the first, full time, female assistant coach in the National Football League. (Photo11: AP)
Kathryn Smith began roaming the sidelines in high school.
It was there, as she kept stats alongside her father during Christian Brothers Academy (Syracuse, N.Y.) football games that Smith began the path toward her barrier-shattering hire by the Buffalo Bills as an assistant coach on Wednesday.
“I think it said something about her that during Friday night games - instead of hanging out with her friends in the stands - she was on the sidelines getting stats for the football team,” Christian Brothers athletics director Buddy Wleklinski told USA TODAY Sports. “That showed how passionate she was about working in sports.”
Smith, 30, was hired by the Bills as their special teams quality control coach, making her the first female full-time assistant coach in NFL history. Wleklinski described Smith, who was on the school’s lacrosse, swimming and bowling teams, as “outgoing and confident.”
“She wasn’t the best player on those teams, but she worked as hard as anybody and was respected as much as anybody,” Wleklinski said. “It’s great to see she continued to work hard while at St. John’s and with the Jets and, now, the Bills.”
Smith’s mother, Ann, declined to comment when contacted by USA TODAY Sports on Thursday, citing that the Bills have asked the family to refrain from speaking to reporters.
Smith worked as a team manager during her four years at St. John's, where she graduated in 2007 with a degree in sports management.
“I remember her coming in the first time as a freshman and you could just tell that she was headed in the right direction,” said Ron |
ever forget I was on parole, which means no black hoodies in wrong neighborhoods, no jogging at night, hands in plain sight at all times in public, no intimate relationships with white women, never driving over the speed limit or doing those rolling stops at stop signs, always speaking the king's English in the presence of white folks, never being outperformed in school or in public by white students and most importantly, always remembering that no matter what, white folks will do anything to get you.
Mama's antidote to being born a black boy on parole in Central Mississippi is not for us to seek freedom; it's to insist on excellence at all times. Mama takes it personal when she realizes that I realize she is wrong. There ain't no antidote to life, I tell her. How free can you be if you really accept that white folks are the traffic cops of your life? Mama tells me that she is not talking about freedom. She says that she is talking about survival.
One blue night my mother tells me that I need to type the rest of my application to Oberlin College after I've already hand-written the personal essay. I tell her that it doesn't matter whether I type it or not since Millsaps is sending a Dean's report attached to my transcript. I say some other truthful things I should never say to my mother. Mama goes into her room, lifts up her pillow and comes out with her gun.
It's raggedy, small, heavy and black. I always imagine the gun as an old dead crow. I'd held it a few times before with Mama hiding behind me.
Mama points the gun at me and tells me to get the fuck out of her house. I look right at the muzzle pointed at my face and smile the same way I did at the library camera at Millsaps. I don't know what's wrong with me.
"You gonna pull a gun on me over some college application?" I ask her.
"You don't listen until it's too late," she tells me. "Get out of my house and don't ever come back."
I leave the house, chuckling, shaking my head, cussing under my breath. I go sit in a shallow ditch. Outside, I wander in the topsy turvy understanding that Mama's life does not revolve around me and I'm not doing anything to make her life more joyful, spacious or happy. I'm an ungrateful burden, an obese weight on her already terrifying life. I sit there in the ditch, knowing that other things are happening in my mother's life but I also know that Mama never imagined needing to pull a gun on the child she carried on her back as a sophomore at Jackson State University. I'm playing with pine needles, wishing I had headphones—but I'm mostly regretting throwing my gun into the reservoir.
When Mama leaves for work in the morning, I break back in her house, go under her pillow and get her gun. Mama and I haven't paid the phone or the light bill so it's dark, hot and lonely in that house, even in the morning. I lie in a bathtub of cold water, still sweating and singing love songs to myself. I put the gun to my head and cock it.
I think of my Grandma and remember that old feeling of being so in love that nothing matters except seeing and being seen by her. I drop the gun to my chest. I'm so sad and I can't really see a way out of what I'm feeling but I'm leaning on memory for help. Faster. Slower. I think I want to hurt myself more than I'm already hurting. I'm not the smartest boy in the world by a long shot, but even in my funk I know that easy remedies like eating your way out of sad, or fucking your way out of sad, or lying your way out of sad, or slanging your way out of sad, or robbing your way out of sad, or gambling your way out of sad, or shooting your way out of sad, are just slower, more acceptable ways for desperate folks, and especially paroled black boys in our country, to kill ourselves and others close to us in America.
I start to spend more time at home over the next few weeks since Mama is out of town with her boyfriend. Mama and I still haven't paid the phone bill so I'm running down to the pay phone everyday, calling one of the admissions counselors at Oberlin College. He won't tell me whether they'll accept me or not, but he does say that Oberlin might want me because of, not in spite of, what happened at Millsaps.
I drop the gun to my chest. I'm so sad and I can't really see a way out of what I'm feeling but I'm leaning on memory for help.
A month passes and I haven't heard from Oberlin. I'm eating too much and dry humping a woman just as desperate as me and lying like its my first job and daring people to fuck with me more than I have in a long time. I'm writing lots of words, too, but I'm not reckoning. I'm wasting ink on bullshit political analysis and short stories and vacant poems that I never imagine being read or felt by anyone like me. I'm a waste of writing's time.
The only really joyful times in life come from playing basketball and talking shit with O.G. Raymond "Gunn" Murph, my best friend. Gunn is trying to stop himself from slowly killing himself and others, after a smoldering break up with V., his girlfriend of eight years. Some days, Gunn and I save each other's lives just by telling and listening to each other's odd-shaped truth.
One black night, Ray is destroying me in Madden and talking all that shit when we hear a woman moaning for help outside of his apartment on Capitol Street. We go downstairs and find a naked woman with open wounds, blood and bruises all over her black body. She can barely walk or talk through shivering teeth but we ask her if she wants to come upstairs while we call the ambulance. Gunn and I have taken no Sexual Assault classes and we listen to way too much The Diary and Ready to Die, but right there, we know not to get too close to the woman and just let her know we're there to do whatever she needs.
She slowly makes her way into the apartment because she's afraid the men might come back. Blood is gushing down the back of her thighs and her scalp. She tells us the three men had one gun. When she makes it up to the apartment, we give the woman a towel to sit on and something to wrap herself in. Blood seeps through both and even though she looks so scared and hurt, she also looks so embarrassed. Gunn keeps saying things like, "It's gonna be okay, sweetheart," and I just sit there weakly nodding my head, running from her eyes and getting her more glasses of water. When Gunn goes in his room to take his gun in his waistband, I look at her and know that no one man could have done this much damage to another human being. That's what I need to tell myself.
Eventually, the ambulance and police arrive. They ask her a lot of questions and keep looking at us. She tells them that we helped her after she was beaten and raped by a three black men in a Monte Carlo. One of the men, she tells the police, was her boyfriend. She refuses to say his name to the police. Gunn looks at me and drops his head. Without saying anything, we know that whatever is in the boys in that car, has to also be in us. We know that whatever is encouraging them to kill themselves slowly by knowingly mangling the body and spirit of this shivering black girl, is probably the most powerful thing in our lives. We also know that whatever is in us that has been slowly encouraging us to kill ourselves and those around us slowly, is also in the heart and mind of this black girl on the couch.
A few weeks later, I get a letter saying I've been accepted to Oberlin College and they're giving me a boatload of financial aid. Gunn agrees to drive me up to Oberlin and I feel like the luckiest boy on earth, not because I got into Oberlin, but because I survived long enough to remember saying yes to life and "no" or at least "slow down" to a slow death.
My saying yes to life meant accepting the beauty of growing up black, on parole, in Mississippi. It also meant accepting that George Harmon, parts of Millsaps College, parts of my state, much of my country, my heart and mostly my own reflection, had beaten the dog shit out of me. I still don't know what all this means but I know it's true.
This isn't an essay or simply a woe-is-we narrative about how hard it is to be a black boy in America. This is a lame attempt at remembering the contours of slow death and life in America for one black American teenager under Central Mississippi skies. I wish I could get my Yoda on right now and surmise all this shit into a clean sociopolitical pull-quote that shows supreme knowledge and absolute emotional transformation, but I don't want to lie.
I want to say and mean that remembering starts not with predictable punditry, or bullshit blogs, or slick art that really ask nothing of us; I want to say that it starts with all of us willing ourselves to remember, tell and accept those complicated, muffled truths of our lives and deaths and the lives and deaths of folks all around us over and over again.
Then I want to say and mean that I am who my Grandma thinks I am.
I am not.
I'm a walking regret, a truth-teller, a liar, a survivor, a frowning ellipsis, a witness, a dreamer, a teacher, a student, a joker, a writer whose eyes stay red, and I'm a child of this nation.
I know that as I've gotten deeper into my late twenties and thirties, I have managed to continue killing myself and other folks who loved me in spite of me. I know that I've been slowly killed by folks who were as feverishly in need of life and death as I am. The really confusing part is that a few of those folk who have nudged me closer to slow death have also helped me say yes to life when I most needed it. Usually, I didn't accept it. Lots of times, we've taken turns killing ourselves slowly, before trying to bring each other back to life. Maybe that's the necessary stank of love, or maybe — like Frank Ocean says — it's all just bad religion, just tasty watered down cyanide in a styrofoam cup.
I don't even know.
I know that by the time I left Mississippi, I was 20 years old, three years older than Trayvon Martin will be when he is murdered for wearing a hoodie and swinging back in the wrong American neighborhood. Four months after I leave Mississippi, San Berry, a 20-year-old partner of mine who went to Millsaps College with Gunn and me, would be convicted for taking Pam McGill, a social worker, in the woods and shooting her in the head.
San confessed to kidnapping Ms. McGill, driving her to some woods, making her fall to her knees and pulling the trigger while a 17-year-old black boy named Azikiwe waited for him in the car. San says Azikiwe encouraged him to do it. Even today, journalists, activists and folks in Mississippi wonder what really happen with San, Azikiwe and Pam McGill that day. Was San trying to swing back? Were there mental health issues left unattended? Had Ms. McGill, San and Azikiwe talked to each other before the day? Why was Azikiwe left in the car when the murder took place?
I can't front, though. I don't wonder about any of that shit, not today.
I wonder what all three of those children of our nation really remember about how to slowly kill themselves and other folks in America the day before parts of them definitely died under the blue-black sky in Central Mississippi.
Contributing editor Kiese Laymon is the author of the essay collection How To Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America, of which this is an excerpt, and the novel, Long Division. He is an Associate Professor of English and Africana Studies at Vassar College.
Illustration by Jim Cooke.(CNN) -- The arrest of a suspect in the Grim Sleeper serial killings ends a quarter-century of "terror" for Los Angeles, the city's mayor said Thursday.
Lonnie David Franklin Jr., 57, made his first appearance Thursday in Los Angeles Superior Court on murder and attempted murder charges. He was ordered held without bail pending an arraignment scheduled for August 9.
"For the last 25 years, one man preyed on the innocent and stole the lives of women living in some of our toughest neighborhoods," Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa told reporters Thursday.
"Today, I'm proud to announce that this terror has finally come to an end," he added.
Nicknamed for taking long breaks between attacks, the Grim Sleeper is believed responsible for at least 11 deaths since 1985 in south Los Angeles. The killer targeted black women, some working as prostitutes, using the same small caliber weapon. The police had DNA of the killer for years, but no one to match it.
Villaraigosa, Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck and California Attorney General Jerry Brown praised police for the arrest at a news conference Thursday. Authorities said a DNA match from a database Brown championed tied Franklin to the killings, and the attorney general said the case demonstrates the value of the sometimes-controversial tool.
Brown said California's familial DNA search program led to the identification and arrest of Franklin.
The program -- which was enacted in 2008 against opposition from civil rights groups -- uses the DNA of family members to find suspects in cases of great risk to the public, Brown's office said in a press release.
"We're going to fight to protect this technology, and next week my office will be in court defending another form of DNA technology," said Brown, a former governor now running for the office again.
Using the DNA of one of Franklin's family members, who had been convicted of a felony weapons charge, investigators established a familial connection between the family member and DNA collected at the murder scenes, the statement said. That connection was used to identify and arrest Franklin after his DNA was obtained.
"This arrest provides proof positive that familial DNA searches must be a part of law enforcement's crime-fighting arsenal. Although the adoption of this new state policy was unprecedented and controversial, in certain cases, it is the only way to bring a dangerous killer to justice," Brown said.
Los Angeles District Attorney Steve Cooley said detectives then used a piece of discarded pizza with Franklin's DNA to make the link, according to CNN affiliate KTLA.
Examine CNN's interactive evidence case file on the Grim Sleeper
One of the Grim Sleeper's victims was Alicia Alexander, 18, who was killed in September 1988. She left her home in South Central Los Angeles to run to a nearby store and disappeared. Her body was found four days later. Police said she was sexually assaulted and shot once in the chest.
Overcome with emotion, Alexander's father Porter Alexander reacted on Wednesday.
"It just -- it was such a good relief," he said.
Franklin is a former city trash collector who at one time worked as a garage attendant at an LAPD station. His arrest came as a shock to neighbors, KTLA reported.
Margaret Prescod, who founded the Black Coalition Fighting Back Serial Murders and worked with the families of victims in the case, said the Grim Sleeper Task Force informed her of the arrest Wednesday.
Prescod said Det. Dennis Kilcoyne, head of the task force, told her that unlike a previous arrest in the case that turned out to be wrong, he was sure they had gotten their man this time.
"He told me that what they have is very solid," Prescod said.
Prescod said she is "cautiously optimistic" because an arrest years ago in the case, which police touted as solidly based on ballistics evidence, turned out to be false.
If Franklin turns out to be the Grim Sleeper, "It would be a huge relief, not only for the [victims' families], but for the entire community that remained at threat," Prescod said.
"We are mortified that it has taken this long to make an arrest, but nevertheless, one is always glad when there is a breakthrough and we can only hope right now that it is a solid breakthrough."
Prescod met with victims' family members, who had many questions, but were asked by officials not to speak to the media until the news conference Thursday, she said.
She said some relatives of the victims screamed and shouted on the phone when she told them the news.
Aerial footage on Wednesday showed police searching cars in the garage of the suspect's home in south Los Angeles -- not far from the corridor where the victims' bodies were dumped.
Prescod said much of her organization's efforts focused on the area near Franklin's home.
"We went around there, going door-to-door to make sure people knew about the murders. At the time that we did that, most of the people hadn't even heard about the murders and people were concerned because they felt -- this is happening and we frankly don't know anything about it."
The LAPD confirmed that they are also searching a second home in the area listed under Franklin's name.
A 911 call made in 1987, reporting one of the murders, led police to a van they believed was involved. But the trail went cold.
In recent years, officials struggled to find new leads partially because the changing makeup of the neighborhood where the crimes were committed made it difficult to find witnesses, police said.
In May, new composite sketches of a suspect went up on billboards across Los Angeles as police intensified their hunt for the serial killer.Frequency Weekly during the Rochester Institute of Technology school year. Publisher Hell's Kitchen Founder Sean T. Hammond, Kelly K. Gunter, Marc Trzepla Year founded 1994 First issue January 1995 ( ) Final issue Spring 2005 Company Hell's Kitchen Country United States Based in Rochester, New York Language English Website www.hellskitchen.org/gdt
Gracies Dinnertime Theatre (GDT) was a publication written by a group of Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) students that was in production from 1995 to 2005. In its 257 issues, it was notorious for its political incorrectness regarding topics such as race relations, bizarre end-time prophecies, baseless conspiracy theories, provocation of the established student magazine, Reporter, the Clinton and Bush administrations and in particular, RIT President Al Simone.
Perhaps GDT's greatest single contribution was the article "The Politics of High Tech Damnation," which examined the close, covert links between the CIA and RIT in the early and mid 1990s.[1]
Less controversial content included a weekly chess puzzle[2] and frank sexual discussion.[3]
GDT's presence on the internet initially began as a text-only finger plan.[4] By the fall of 1995, GDT had a web site hosted by one of its creators,[5] making it one of the first student satire publications to have a web presence. In time, the hosting of the web site migrated to servers owned by RIT Computer Science House.[6] Its final resting place came to be on the Hell's Kitchen server.
GDT spawned five sister publications which all published under the combined title of Hell's Kitchen. This was distributed for free on four universities in Rochester, NY and Rutgers University. Under this combined title, GDT received notable attention from the Independent Press Association, Rochester's daily newspaper The Democrat and Chronicle,[7] and had a few articles reproduced via UWIRE.[8]
History [ edit ]
Publication's logo [ edit ]
The logo for GDT was created before GDT existed. The shape of the logo was derived from what it looked like when the three founders of the publication stood shoulder-to-shoulder--in order of increasing height--and placed a meter stick on their heads.[9][10]
Rumors Regarding the "Unity" Sculpture [ edit ]
Unity (2008), and the GDT logo (upper right corner), 2000 to 2005. The sculpture has been masked out to comply with rules related to Gracies Dinnertime Theatre logo and the Unity sculpture. Masked out sculpture(2008), and thelogo (upper right corner), 2000 to 2005. The sculpture has been masked out to comply with rules related to Freedom of panorama in the United States. It is a coincidence that the masking increases the similarities between thelogo and thesculpture.
A sculpture entitled "Unity" was installed in the quad between the College of Imaging Arts and Sciences, the College of Applied Science and Technology, and the College of Engineering in 2008.[11] Designed as a collaboration between the RIT faculty members Juan Carlos Caballero-Perez and Leonard Urso,[12] the sculpture is visually similar to the logo used by GDT from 2000 to 2005[13] and has led to speculation that it was inspired by GDT.[14][15]
Juan Carlos Caballero-Perez taught at RIT as an adjunct professor in the School of American Crafts within the College of Imaging Arts and Sciences(CIAS) starting in 1994[16]--the year GDT began publishing on the RIT campus. At the time of its founding, two of the original three co-editors were in programs within CIAS, and GDT was involved in protests related to proposed budget cuts to the School of American Crafts and School of Art and Design in April 1996.[17][18] GDT would later go on to publish a piece that examined the close connections between CIAS and the actual CIA.[19][20]
Intentional misspellings in title [ edit ]
"Gracies" would appear to be a possessive pronoun referring to RIT's Grace Watson Dining Hall (colloquially "Gracie's"). Used without the apostrophe, "Gracies" may be read as plural, suggesting a multiverse of parallel dining halls.
"Dinnertime Theatre" may recall a formal Dinner theater production, or it may simply denote theatre that occurs coincidental to meal without the willing participation of the diners. Socialization based around the sharing of "food" (not only physical nutrition, but also information) was a recurring theme in GDT production culture.
"Theatre" uses the British English spelling; another frequently used affectation in GDT articles.The Curious Case of FORG1VEN.
Charlie Braum Blocked Unblock Follow Following Oct 6, 2016
It doesn’t seem like that long ago that the word “LCS” meant nothing to me. It doesn’t seem that long ago that me and the friends I started playing League with were sitting in front of my computer screen, watching the finals of the Season 2 World Championship, after only a couple of months after we started playing the game. It felt grandiose, fascinating even that such a large number of people would gather to watch these adolescents play a video game. Soon enough, we were no different.
So we started watching, and it didn’t take a long time for us to adopt to the LCS time schedule, giving up both the weekend and the two days that preceded it to both EU & NA LCS. It was fun and exhilarating, watching these kids play, albeit at a much higher level.
Relatively soon, one man stood out from the crowd. He wasn’t just a trash talker, he was mechanically skilled beyond reason. What he did, we had never seen before. The speed in which he reacts, and the way he positions in team fights was mindblowing. Always outplaying his opponents, always outpositioning them. It became impossible not to tune in each game just to see Konstantinos “FORG1VEN” Tzortziou play.
FORG1VEN during his Gambit Gaming days.
And we were hooked. What had previously been a wait until the EU LCS started, had now become a wait for SK Gaming and the matches they played. The meta suited him perfectly — mobile AD carries were all the rage at the time.
Everyone is amazed when a true master of the game displays a high mastery of a champion. It’s the moments that make all the highlight reels, and the moments that make us want to open up the client and queue up.
Of course, this wasn’t for the whole entirety of the games they played. The majority of the game was just focused on farming and objective control as it always is, but it was all worth it — enduring those strategic map movements, rotations and sieging for a few moments of absolute glory.
We were astonished, after realizing that we only scratched the surface levels of the carries he championed, merely imitating this great player. It didn’t matter to us if he was the first in CS at 10, or if he dealt the most damage. (he mostly always does, something he often showcases on his Twitter account) Heck, we didn’t even cheer that much for SK Gaming, even though they were a likeable team. We just tuned in to see what will this guy do next.
However in a relatively short amount of time, FORG1vEN changed a lot of teams. And that wasn’t a rare occurrence, he changed four teams in the span of two years. SK Gaming, Gambit Gaming, H2K, Origen. That can’t occur if everything is going according to plan. Teams started banning his champions, realizing he has a relatively small champion pool. We never really found out what happened. You could say he was just a toxic teammate, being selfish both in and out of the game, or you could say he always cared the most about winning but rarely found a way to vent those frustrations. Maybe it’s a bit of both? No matter what the reasons were, those following FORG1VEN’s odyssey through the LCS didn’t have a good time. After a couple of years filled with various successes and failures, the fact that FORG1VEN got to go to the World Championships put a smile on a lot of people’s faces. His fans finally got a chance to see him on the stage against the world’s best, and his haters got the same chance wanting to see him fail.
It’s a weird feeling to be honest, getting granted a wish after so long. The meta changed. New teams and superstar players appeared, and what had previously been looked at as the “old guard” has slowly but surely gotten into retirement and (for some) obscurity.
The world of League of Legends moves on, whether he plays or not. Those are facts. But for that single moment in time, we were glued to our seats for longer than we thought was possible, watching in complete awe this young man, displaying mechanical skill as we hadn’t seen prior, defying all the odds.
The current H2K lineup.
Right now, League is more of a team game than it has ever been. Being extraordinary as an individual, as a laner or playmaker can only take you so far but no matter how well you play, you will almost always lose to the team with better communication, with a better macro game. For FORG1VEN this is good news in a way, because he (arguably) never had such good teammates in Ryu, Odoamne, Vander and Jankos — the first blood king. Some questionable drafts aside, they have what it takes to advance further, they have what it takes to make Europe proud.
So now, four seasons later, the same group of friends who watched the Season 2 finals will gather once more, waiting to see if FORG1VEN can muster what is left of his energy and will, to perhaps shine like he once did, and this time — he doesn’t have to do it alone. And if it’s for the last time, then it was a pleasure and a privilege to watch.The three-year-old is implementing a period of industrial action. She doesn’t want to brush her hair. She doesn’t like her socks. They’re melty, she says, with disgust. They’re bumpy.
Also on the list of things she objects to this morning is brushing her teeth, the radio, crunchy toast, labels, her winter coat.
And me.
Can it be a mummy and daddy day, she asks.
No baby, I say. I’m sorry. We have to go to work.
I hate you, she says.
Then she dissolves into tears. Don’t think I’m a rude girl, she cries, her hot little head burrowing into my chest.
I know what this is about. I’ve been working too many hours. Far too many times lately, I have crept out of the house when the day is still just a crimson slash in an inky sky, and crept back in when everything is silent again, and lunchboxes have been washed out and homework signed off, and stories about playground antics and incidents in the classroom already spilled out in a torrent of happy words, and the bedtime stories told and sleepy heads kissed. And I wasn’t there.
Blur of deadlines For what feels like weeks, our life has been a blur of deadlines and packing for a house move and too many events that feel more important, in that particular moment, than taking small girls to parks. At weekends, I’ve been spending long hours hunched over my laptop. By the time you read this, we’ll have moved house again. The older children understand it is temporary, it will pass, and I’ll be back dropping them to school and picking them up and nagging them about homework and making plans for birthday parties that are still six months away. But that kind of reasoning is beyond her.
So I understand. I do. I have been here before. She doesn’t hate me; she wants more of me. And that makes it worse. She sobs into my chest, and I cry into her curls.
Mother guilt never gets better. Dads feel guilt too, but I don’t know if it is the bruising, eviscerating guilt mothers feel. Figures were published recently which showed that growing numbers of Irish women are deciding not to return to work after their third child. After their second child, two thirds of women work outside the home. But only 56 per remain in the workforce after their third child; the rest decide to stay home.
‘Deciding’ makes it sound like a positive, empowered initiative, like they’re leaning out to lean into their families. And for some it is. But the reality is often messier. They’re choosing to not return to work because they can’t afford childcare, or because they have finally given into the law of physics that means they can’t be in three places at once, or because they can no longer bear the tears at drop off, or because they can’t stand all the things they’re missing, or because of all of these things have collided at once, and they can’t see a way through, and the track they worked so hard to get on doesn’t seem to be leading anywhere they actually want to go anymore.
When I worked part-time, I was guilty about everything – I wasn’t showing up enough at work or for my children or for myself It doesn’t have to be like this: in Sweden, 85 per cent of mothers of three work, and in Denmark the figure is 83 per cent. So the laws of physics can be tilted in our favour with decent, affordable childcare and flexible working hours.
I did it in reverse. It was after my third child that I returned to work full time, after a decade of working part-time, in the evenings, on weekends, when they slept, or went to school. It was time – financially, mostly. Buying a house in Dublin on the eve of the property crash, like many of our generation, means we don’t have the luxury of thinking too much about these things. But there was a part of me, a part I’m slightly ashamed of, that leapt at the opportunity. I love work.
When I worked part-time, I was guilty about everything – I wasn’t showing up enough at work or for my children or for myself. Now my guilt is concentrated on my children. Is that progress? It doesn’t feel like it. Somebody forgot their violin again. We didn’t make it to the school book sale. I wasn’t home when my son got sick. I haven’t managed to pick the small girl up from Montessori in too many days.
Doing your best Don’t beat yourself up, my friends say. You’re doing your best.
I think I’ll do something less stressful when I grow up, the 11-year-old says.
This is supposed to be our ‘downstressed’ life, my husband says.
I hate you, the three-year-old says.
Later in the day, her childminder texts me. She doesn’t want you to pick her up too early, she says.
I pick her up early anyway. We go home and make Play Doh ice cream and climb into her bed and read a book. Say nice things, she says, as she gets sleepy. So I do.Sehwag's ability to use skills seemingly made for ODIs in the long game, and his instinct and fearlessness make him one of cricket's most compelling sights
The great gamble of 2002: Sehwag gets off to a flier in his first innings as a Test opener, at Lord's © Getty Images
Less than a year ago, I woke up on the morning of the second Test between Australia and New Zealand in Hobart with the news that Viru had become only the second man to a double-hundred in ODIs.
My first thought was, "About time."
To me, Virender Sehwag has been the most exciting player I've watched, bar none. Yes, I know I belong to the generation that played against Viv, but having seen more of Viru than Viv, that's where I come from.
With Viru, you never know what's going to happen. Sometimes his batting doesn't work, sometimes it can be frustrating. When it works, though, he shakes up a game and turns it on its head. In Hobart that day, I thought that had Viru batted in ODI cricket the way he did in Tests, he could have got five double-hundreds. Or more.
But it is in Test cricket that Viru has shown us his genius. He has revolutionised Test batting, changed the way people look at openers, and made such an impact on the game that the rafters shake when he gets going.
Viru's 99 Tests, like his batting, seem to have gone by at top speed. A hundred Tests is a telling number, but then so are two triple-centuries, a strike rate of above 80 in Tests, 8400 Test runs, and the aforementioned double-hundred (off 149 balls).
It is always hard to judge a player in his first Test, but by the time Viru had played about a dozen, I did think that he had it in him to become something. For his first 30-odd Tests, I worked with Viru as his coach and it was a sheer delight to see him grow.
He came into the team in the guise of this middle-order batsman who had grown up on Indian wickets who could smash it everywhere. In about two years and a bit, he became a world-class Test opener with powers feared by all opposition. Over the rest of his career, he has become one of the greatest openers in the history of the game. People don't normally ever do that - go from being a middle-order batsman in India to opening in Test match cricket and producing outstanding performances all over the world.
What Viru was able to do was play tricks on cricket's very framework. If middle-order batsmen are asked to open the innings, they go into existential dilemmas, modify their game, work on technique. Many fail, a few cope. You will have heard all those stories.
Viru was different; he had no such crisis. He opened in Tests the way he had batted in the middle order - still smashing it. He didn't redefine his game because of his batting position. He redefined the position with his batting. I do not use the word genius casually.
I first met Viru in 2000, when he joined the squad to play the one-dayers against Zimbabwe, my first full series as coach of India. He looked a lovely kid - shy, with a mischievous smile, still innocent and wide-eyed, like many of the young Indians coming into the side.
Three months later, he made me sit up when he scored 58 against Australia in the Bangalore ODI. It was an innings of timing and confidence against bowlers like McGrath and Warne. We moved him into the opening slot in ODIs in a tri-series in Sri Lanka for two reasons: we had opening problems, and Viru kept getting out trying to slog the spinners in the middle overs. He nailed opening the batting beautifully - with it, he solved our problems and found he could play his game at its fullest. It should have been a different matter in Tests.
In Test matches he had a reasonable start as a No. 6, with a century on debut in South Africa and two fifties. We were struggling with Test openers and Sourav and I decided to gamble by sticking him in at the top of the order at Lord's, in only his sixth Test.
When we talked to him about the job, he didn't look like he was too worried about opening. He certainly didn't express it to me (and we had begun to speak very freely to each other by then). In his first innings as a Test opener, Viru was the team's top scorer, with 84. Then, when I saw him on a green wicket in Trent Bridge, in the second Test, I thought, "This guy is serious." He got a century and didn't look back.
Viru's coach in Delhi taught him to have a beautiful, straight backlift, so when he defends he is nicely straight and late. His attacking game wasn't too bad either. He could play so late and generate such bat speed that if you were a few inches off target on the off side, the ball was gone. Anything a bit straight was whipped through midwicket. He could also use the pace of the ball to score more effectively than most in the area between point and third man.
Early on, we widened his stance a little, and I used to encourage him to keep his head very still and not let it move sideways. When his head is perfectly still, like with any batsman, it allows him to play his late options and makes the most of his sublime balance. He is a great opener, though, because, along with everything else, he is fearless.
One of the things that I think helped him find his feet in cricket and stay grounded was that he accepted his fate. If he nicked something, he accepted it and wouldn't worry about it
Maybe he enjoys opening because he goes out to a clean slate. There are no wickets down, there's no responsibility like there would be coming in at six with four down. He goes in without any numbers and can do |
steps forward in the treatment of mental illness for decades.”In Lincoln, the Steven Spielberg movie opening this month, President Abraham Lincoln has a talk with U.S. Representative Thaddeus Stevens that should be studied in civics classes today. The scene goes down easy, thanks to the moviemakers’ art, but the point Lincoln makes is tough.
Related Content PHOTOS: The History of Abraham Lincoln on Film
Stevens, as Tommy Lee Jones plays him, is the meanest man in Congress, but also that body’s fiercest opponent of slavery. Because Lincoln’s primary purpose has been to hold the Union together, and he has been approaching abolition in a roundabout, politic way, Stevens by 1865 has come to regard him as “the capitulating compromiser, the dawdler.”
The congressman wore with aplomb, and wears in the movie, a ridiculous black hairpiece—it’s round, so he doesn’t have to worry about which part goes in front. A contemporary said of Stevens and Lincoln that “no two men, perhaps, so entirely different in character, ever threw off more spontaneous jokes.”
Stevens’ wit, however, was biting. “He could convulse the House,” wrote biographer Fawn M. Brodie, “by saying, ‘I yield to the gentleman for a few feeble remarks.’” Many of his declarations were too funky for the Congressional Globe (predecessor of the Congressional Record), which did, however, preserve this one: “There was a gentleman from the far West sitting next to me, but he went away and the seat seems just as clean as it was before.”
Lincoln’s wit was indirect, friendly—Doris Kearns Goodwin quotes him as describing laughter as “the joyous, universal evergreen of life” in her book Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, on which the movie is partly based. But it was also purposeful. Stevens was a man of unmitigated principle. Lincoln got some great things done. What Lincoln, played most convincingly by Daniel Day-Lewis, says to Stevens in the movie, in effect, is this: A compass will point you true north. But it won’t show you the swamps between you and there. If you don’t avoid the swamps, what’s the use of knowing true north?
That’s a key moment in the movie. It is also something that I wish more people would take to heart—people I talk with about politics, especially people I agree with. Today, as in 1865, people tend to be sure they are right, and maybe they are—Stevens was, courageously. What people don’t always want to take on board is that people who disagree with them may be just as resolutely sure they are right. That’s one reason the road to progress, or regression, in a democracy is seldom straight, entirely open or, strictly speaking, democratic. If Lincoln’s truth is marching on, it should inspire people to acknowledge that doing right is a tricky proposition. “I did not want to make a movie about a monument,” Spielberg told me. “I wanted the audience to get into the working process of the president.”
Lincoln came out against slavery in a speech in 1854, but in that same speech he declared that denouncing slaveholders wouldn’t convert them. He compared them to drunkards, writes Goodwin:
Though the cause be “naked truth itself, transformed to the heaviest lance, harder than steel” [Lincoln said], the sanctimonious reformer could no more pierce the heart of the drinker or the slaveowner than “penetrate the hard shell of a tortoise with a rye straw. Such is man, and so must he be understood by those who would lead him.” In order to “win a man to your cause,” Lincoln explained, you must first reach his heart, “the great high road to his reason.”
As it happened, the fight for and against slave-owning would take the lowest of roads: four years of insanely wasteful war, which killed (by the most recent reliable estimate) some 750,000 people, almost 2.5 percent of the U.S. population at the time, or the equivalent of 7.5 million people today. But winning the war wasn’t enough to end slavery. Lincoln, the movie, shows how Lincoln went about avoiding swamps and reaching people’s hearts, or anyway their interests, so all the bloodshed would not be in vain.
***
When Goodwin saw the movie, she says, “I felt like I was watching Lincoln!” She speaks with authority, because for eight years, “I awakened with Lincoln every morning and thought about him every night,” while working on Team of Rivals. “I still miss him,” she adds. “He’s the most interesting person I know.”
Goodwin points to a whole 20-foot-long wall of books about Lincoln, in one of the four book-lined libraries in her home in Concord, Massachusetts, which she shares with husband Richard Goodwin, and his mementos from his days as speechwriter and adviser to Presidents Kennedy and Johnson—he wrote the “We Shall Overcome” speech that Johnson delivered on national television, in 1965, in heartfelt support of the Voting Rights Act. She worked with Johnson, too, and wrote a book about him. “Lincoln’s ethical and human side still outranks all the other presidents,” she says. “I had always thought of him as a statesman—but I came to realize he was our greatest politician.”
The movie project began with Goodwin’s book, before she had written much of it. When she and Spielberg met, in 1999, he asked her what she was working on, and she said Lincoln. “At that moment,” says Spielberg, “I was impulsively seized with the chutzpah to ask her to let me reserve the motion-picture rights.” To which effrontery she responded, in so many words: Cool. Her original plan had been to write about Mary and Abe Lincoln, as she had about Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt. “But I realized that he spent more time with members of his cabinet,” she says.
And so Goodwin’s book became an infectiously loving portrait of Lincoln’s empathy, his magnanimity and his shrewdness, as shown in his bringing together a cabinet of political enemies, some more conservative than he, others more radical, and maneuvering them into doing what needed to be done.
Prominent among those worthies was Secretary of the Treasury Salmon Chase. Goodwin notes that when that august-looking widower and his daughter Kate, the willowy belle of Washington society, “made an entrance, a hush invariably fell over the room, as if a king and his queen stood in the doorway.” And yet, wrote Navy Secretary Gideon Welles, Chase was “destitute of wit.” He could be funny inadvertently. Goodwin cites his confiding to a friend that he “was tormented by his own name. He fervently wished to change its ‘awkward, fishy’ sound to something more elegant. ‘How wd. this name do (Spencer de Cheyce or Spencer Payne Cheyce,)’ he inquired.”
Not only was Chase fatuous, but like Stevens he regarded Lincoln as too conservative, too sympathetic to the South, too cautious about pressing abolition. But Chase was capable, so Lincoln gave him the dead-serious job of keeping the Union and its war effort financially afloat. Chase did so, earnestly and admirably. He also put his own picture on the upper left-hand corner of the first federally issued paper money. Chase was so sure he should have been president, he kept trying—even though Lincoln bypassed loyal supporters to appoint him chief justice of the United States—to undermine Lincoln politically so he could succeed him after one term.
Lincoln was aware of Chase’s treachery, but he didn’t take it personally, because the country needed Chase where he was.
Lincoln’s lack of self-importance extended even further with that pluperfect horse’s ass Gen. George B. McClellan. In 1861, McClellan was using his command of the Army of the Potomac to enhance his self-esteem (“You have no idea how the men brighten up now, when I go among them”) rather than to engage the enemy. In letters home he was mocking Lincoln as “the original gorilla.” Lincoln kept urging McClellan to fight. In reading Goodwin’s book, I tried to identify which of its many lively scenes would be in the movie. Of a night when Lincoln, Secretary of State William Seward and Lincoln’s secretary John Hay went to McClellan’s house, she writes:
Told that the general was at a wedding, the three waited in the parlor for an hour. When McClellan arrived home, the porter told him the president was waiting, but McClellan passed by the parlor room and climbed the stairs to his private quarters. After another half hour, Lincoln again sent word that he was waiting, only to be informed that the general had gone to sleep. Young John Hay was enraged....To Hay’s surprise, Lincoln “seemed not to have noticed it specially, saying it was better at this time not to be making points of etiquette & personal dignity.” He would hold McClellan’s horse, he once said, if a victory could be achieved.
Finally relieved of his command in November 1862, McClellan ran against Lincoln in the 1864 election, on a platform of ending the war on terms congenial to the Confederacy, and lost handily.
It’s too bad Lincoln could not have snatched McClellan’s horse from under him, so to speak. But after the election, notes Tony Kushner, who wrote the screenplay, “Lincoln knew that unless slavery was gone, the war wasn’t really going to end.” So although the movie is based in part on Goodwin’s book, Kushner says, Lincoln didn’t begin to coalesce until Spielberg said, “Why don’t we make a movie about passing the 13th Amendment?”
***
Kushner’s own most prominent work is the greatly acclaimed play Angels in America: angels, Mormons, Valium, Roy Cohn, people dying of AIDS. So it’s not as though he sticks to the tried and true. But he says his first reaction to Spielberg’s amendment notion was: This is the first serious movie about Lincoln in seventy-odd years! We can’t base it on that!
In January 1865, Lincoln has just been re-elected and the war is nearly won. The Emancipation Proclamation, laid down by the president under what he claimed to be special wartime powers, abolishes slavery only within areas “in rebellion” against the Union and perhaps not permanently even there. So while Lincoln’s administration has got a harpoon into slavery, the monster could still, “with one ‘flop’ of his tail, send us all into eternity.”
That turn of metaphor is quoted in Goodwin’s book. But the battle for the 13th Amendment, which outlawed slavery nationwide and permanently, is confined to 5 of her 754 pages. “I don't like biopics that trot you through years and years of a very rich and complicated life,” Kushner says. “I had thought I would go from September 1863 to the assassination, focusing on the relationship of Lincoln and Salmon Chase. Three times I started, got to a hundred or so pages, and never got farther than January 1864. You could make a very long miniseries out of any week Lincoln occupied the White House.”
He sent Goodwin draft after draft of the script, which at one point was up to 500 pages. “Tony originally had Kate in,” says Goodwin, “and if the film had been 25 hours long....” Then Spielberg brought up the 13th Amendment, which the Chases had nothing to do with.
In the course of six years working on the script, Kushner did a great deal of original research, which kept spreading. For example: “I was looking for a play Lincoln might have seen in early March of ’65...[and] I found a Romeo and Juliet starring Avonia Jones, from Richmond, who was rumored to be a Confederate sympathizer—she left the country immediately after the war, went to England and became an acting teacher, and one of her pupils was Belle Boyd, a famous Confederate spy. And the guy who was supposed to be in Romeo and Juliet with her was replaced at the last moment by John Wilkes Booth—who was plotting then to kidnap Lincoln. I thought, ‘I’ve discovered another member of the conspiracy!’”
Avonia didn’t fit in Lincoln, so she too had to go—but the Nashville lawyer W.N. Bilbo, another one of the obscure figures Kushner found, survived. And as played by James Spader, Bilbo, who appears nowhere in Team of Rivals, nearly steals the show as a political operative who helps round up votes for the amendment, offering jobs and flashing greenbacks to conceivably swayable Democrats and border-state Republicans.
If another director went to a major studio with a drama of legislation, he’d be told to run it over to PBS. Even there, it might be greeted with tight smiles. But although “people accuse Steven of going for the lowest common denominator and that kind of thing,” says Kushner, “he is willing to take big chances.” And nobody has ever accused Spielberg of not knowing where the story is, or how to move it along.
Spielberg had talked to Liam Neeson, who starred in his Schindler’s List, about playing Lincoln. Neeson had the height. “But this is Daniel’s role,” Spielberg says. “This is not one of my absent-father movies. But Lincoln could be in the same room with you, and he would go absent on you, he would not be there, he would be in process, working something out. I don’t know anybody who could have shown that except Daniel.”
On the set everyone addressed Day-Lewis as “Mr. Lincoln” or “Mr. President.” “That was my idea,” Spielberg says. “I addressed all the actors pretty much by the roles they were playing. When actors stepped off the set they could be whoever they felt they needed to be, but physically on the set I wanted everybody to be in an authentic mood.” He never did that in any of his 49 other directorial efforts. (“I couldn’t address Daniel at all,” says Kushner. “I would send him texts. I called myself ‘Your metaphysical conundrum,’ because as the writer of the movie, I shouldn’t exist.”)
Henry Fonda in Young Mister Lincoln (1939) might as well be a youngish Henry Fonda, or perhaps Mister Roberts, with nose enhancement. Walter Huston in Abraham Lincoln (1930) wears a startling amount of lipstick in the early scenes, and later when waxing either witty or profound he sounds a little like W.C. Fields. Day-Lewis is made to resemble Lincoln more than enough for a good poster shot, but the character’s consistency is beyond verisimilitude.
Lincoln, 6-foot-4, was taller than everyone around him by a greater degree than is Day-Lewis, who is 6-foot-1 1/2. I can’t help thinking that Lincoln’s voice was even less mellow (it was described as high-pitched and thin, and his singing was more recitational than melodious) than the workable, vaguely accented tenor that Day-Lewis has devised. At first acquaintance Lincoln came off gawkier, goofier, uglier than Day-Lewis could very well emulate. If we could reconstitute Lincoln himself, like the T. Rex in Jurassic Park, his looks and carriage might put us off.
Day-Lewis gives us a Lincoln with layers, angles, depths and sparks. He tosses in some authentic-looking flat-footed strides, and at one point stretches unpresidentially across the floor he’s lying on to stoke the fire. More crucially, he conveys Lincoln’s ability to lead not by logic or force but by such devices as timing (knowing when a time is ripe), amusement (he not only got away with laughing at his own stories, sometimes for reasons unclear, but also improved his hold on the audience thereby) and at least making people think he was getting into where they were coming from.
We know that Lincoln was a great writer and highly quotable in conversation, but Lincoln captures him as a verbal tactician. Seward (ably played by David Straithairn) is outraged. He’s yelling at Lincoln for doing something he swore he wouldn’t, something Seward is convinced will be disastrous. Lincoln, unruffled, muses about looking into the seeds of time and seeing which grains will grow, and then says something else that I, and quite possibly Seward, didn’t catch, and then something about time being a great thickener of things. There’s a beat. Seward says he supposes. Another beat. Then he says he has no idea what Lincoln’s talking about.
Here’s a more complicated and masterly example. The whole cabinet is yelling at Lincoln. The Confederacy is about to fall, he’s already proclaimed emancipation, why risk his popularity now by pushing for this amendment? Well, he says affably, he’s not so sure the Emancipation Proclamation will still be binding after the war. He doesn’t recall his attorney general at the time being too excited about it being legal, only that it wasn’t criminal. His tone becomes subtly more backwoodsy, and he makes a squeezy motion with his hands. Then his eyes light up as he recalls defending, back in Illinois, a Mrs. Goings, charged with murdering her violent husband in a heated moment.
Melissa Goings is another figure who doesn’t appear in Team of Rivals, but her case is on the record. In 1857, the newly widowed 70-year-old stood accused of bludgeoning her 77-year-old husband with a piece of firewood. In the most common version of the story, Lincoln, sensing hostility in the judge but sympathy among the townspeople, called for a recess, during which his client disappeared. Back in court, the bailiff accused Lincoln of encouraging her to bolt, and he professed his innocence: “I did not run her off. She wanted to know where she could get a good drink of water, and I told her there was mighty good water in Tennessee.” She was never found, and her bail—$1,000—was forgiven.
In the movie, the cabinet members start laughing as Lincoln reminisces, even though they may be trying to parse precisely what the story has to do with the 13th Amendment. Then he shifts into a crisp, logical explication of the proclamation’s insufficiency. In summary he strikes a personal note; he felt the war demanded it, therefore his oath demanded it, and he hoped it was legal. Shifting gears without a hitch, he tells them what he wants from them: to stand behind him. He gives them another laugh—he compares himself to the windy preacher who, once embarked on a sermon, is too lazy to stop—then he puts his foot down: He’s going to sign the 13th Amendment. His lips press so firmly together they tremble just slightly.
Lincoln’s telling of the Goings case varies slightly from the historical record, but in fact there is an account of Lincoln departing from the record himself, in telling the story differently from the way he does in the movie. “The rule was,” says Kushner, “that we wouldn’t alter anything in a meaningful way from what happened.” Conversations are clearly invented, but I haven’t found anything in the movie that is contradicted by history, except that Grant looks too dressy at Appomattox. (Lee does, for a change, look authentically corpulent at that point in his life.)
Lincoln provides no golden interracial glow. The n-word crops up often enough to help establish the crudeness, acceptedness and breadth of anti-black sentiment in those days. A couple of incidental pop-ups aside, there are three African-American characters, all of them based reliably on history. One is a White House servant and another one, in a nice twist involving Stevens, comes in almost at the end. The third is Elizabeth Keckley, Mary Lincoln’s dressmaker and confidante. Before the amendment comes to a vote, after much lobbying and palm-greasing, there’s an astringent little scene in which she asks Lincoln whether he will accept her people as equals. He doesn’t know her, or her people, he replies. But since they are presumably “bare, forked animals” like everyone else, he says, he will get used to them.
Lincoln was certainly acquainted with Keckley (and presumably with King Lear, whence “bare, forked animals” comes), but in the context of the times, he may have thought of black people as unknowable. At any rate the climate of opinion in 1865, even among progressive people in the North, was not such as to make racial equality an easy sell.
In fact, if the public got the notion the 13th Amendment was a step toward establishing black people as social equals, or even toward giving them the vote, the measure would have been doomed. That’s where Lincoln’s scene with Thaddeus Stevens comes in.
***
Stevens is the only white character in the movie who expressly holds it self-evident that every man is created equal. In debate, he vituperates with relish—You fatuous nincompoop, you unnatural noise!—at foes of the amendment. But one of those, Rep. Fernando Wood of New York, thinks he has outslicked Stevens. He has pressed him to state whether he believes the amendment’s true purpose is to establish black people as just as good as whites in all respects.
You can see Stevens itching to say, “Why yes, of course,” and then to snicker at the anti-amendment forces’ unrighteous outrage. But that would be playing into their hands; borderline yea-votes would be scared off. Instead he says, well, the purpose of the amendment—
And looks up into the gallery, where Mrs. Lincoln sits with Mrs. Keckley. The first lady has become a fan of the amendment, but not of literal equality, nor certainly of Stevens, whom she sees as a demented radical.
The purpose of the amendment, he says again, is—equality before the law. And nowhere else.
Mary is delighted; Keckley stiffens and goes outside. (She may be Mary’s confidante, but that doesn’t mean Mary is hers.) Stevens looks up and sees Mary alone. Mary smiles down at him. He smiles back, thinly. No “joyous, universal evergreen” in that exchange, but it will have to do.
Stevens has evidently taken Lincoln’s point about avoiding swamps. His radical allies are appalled. One asks whether he’s lost his soul; Stevens replies, mildly, that he just wants the amendment to pass. And to the accusation that there’s nothing he won’t say toward that end, he says: Seems not.
Later, after the amendment passes, Stevens pays semi-sardonic tribute to Lincoln, along the lines of something the congressman actually once said: that the greatest measure of the century “was passed by corruption, aided and abetted by the purest man in America.”
That is the kind of purity we “bare, forked animals” can demand of political leaders today, assuming they’re good enough at it.
Of course, Lincoln got shot for it (I won’t spoil for you the movie’s masterstroke, its handling of the assassination), and with that erasure of Lincoln’s genuine adherence to “malice toward none,” Stevens and the other radical Republicans helped make Reconstruction as humiliating as possible for the white South. For instance, Kushner notes, a true-north Congress declined to give Southern burial societies any assistance in finding or identifying remains of the Confederate dead, thereby contributing to a swamp in which equality even before the law bogged down for a century, until nonviolent tricksters worthy of Lincoln provoked President Johnson, nearly as good a politician as Lincoln, to push through the civil rights acts of the 1960s.
How about the present? Goodwin points out that the 13th Amendment was passed during a post-election rump session of Congress, when a number of representatives, knowing they weren't coming back anyway, could be prevailed upon to vote their consciences. "We have a rump session coming up now," she observes.Time to debunk a myth that’s been turning up more and more when we talk about relationships: the idea that two people of the opposite gender can be “just passengers on the same bus.” That a man and a woman can share a bus ride for multiple stops and, so the story goes, still harbor no feelings for each other beyond those of two people platonically aboard the same mass transit vehicle.
Sure, it sounds fine in theory. In practice, though, two people of different genders on the same bus is dicey territory.
As anyone who’s been in one of these situations knows, awkward tension with co-passengers of the opposite sex is unavoidable. Even if neither person said anything when he or she got on, the subtext was there, and biology will kick in soon enough. Put a man and a woman on a bus for long enough and sparks are bound to fly.
You might think it makes sense to say, “This person and I have been on this bus together for five stops. We’re both attractive people, but we relate to each other purely as passengers. It doesn’t go any further than that.” Trouble is, it inevitably does go further than that, whether you want to admit it or not. Even if one of you views your interaction as limited to standing a few feet apart from the other without making eye contact, chances are the other one sees it as something more intimate than that.
Put a man and a woman on a bus for long enough and sparks are bound to fly.
Unfortunately, there’s no clean line to draw between being passengers on the same bus and being in a romantic relationship. For example, what does it mean if two people are sitting in seats that are facing each other, but aren’t directly across from each other? What if a woman asks a man whether the bus has already passed a certain stop? How about the sexual ambiguity of two people holding onto different parts of the same suspended handrail?
Since satisfying answers to these questions are impossible, the best course of action is clear communication. If you’re not interested in a fellow bus passenger, tell him or her so directly, as soon as you get on the bus. Approach him or her. Say, “Listen, I’m on this bus with you, but I don’t see this as a sex thing, or even as an acquaintanceship. It’s nothing against you. I think you’re awesome, and I really hope my saying this doesn’t cause you to get off this bus any sooner than you intended to.” This way, you reduce the risk of leading your fellow passengers on and hurting their feelings.
Of course, none of this is to say you should dismiss pursuing a passenger-passenger relationship out of hand—sometimes they can blossom into a mutually satisfying friendship, or even love. As a full disclosure: My wife and I met on a bus in Salt Lake City when we were both in grad school, and remained married for nearly 15 years prior to an acrimonious, very painful divorce in 2011.A Palestinian man who sneaked into Israel from the Gaza Strip evaded capture for nearly 24 hours before he was picked up by security forces on Wednesday morning, the army said.
On Tuesday afternoon, soldiers monitoring the closed-circuit cameras along the southern border with Gaza noticed the man cross into Israeli territory in the Eshkol region, an army spokesperson said.
“Forces located the unarmed suspect earlier today,” the spokesperson said on Wednesday afternoon.
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Though troops were called to the area soon after the man crossed into Israel, they were unable to locate him. It was not immediately clear how he eluded them, the spokesperson said.
The man was found by Border Police officers over six miles (10 kilometers) inside Israeli territory, hiding near some greenhouses outside the town of Netivot, Channel 2 news reported.
In light of the infiltration, residents of nearby communities were told to remain in their homes on Tuesday night, as it was not known at the time whether the suspect was armed.
An unmanned aerial vehicle was also brought into the area to assist in the search, according to the television report.
Once the man was caught, he was handed over to the Shin Bet security service for an interrogation, which should help shed light on the incident, the army said.
While it is not uncommon for residents of the Gaza Strip to attempt to sneak into Israel, the amount of time it took for security forces to locate the man is unusual.
The Gaza border fence contains a bevy of sensors and cameras, along with a large number of soldiers who regularly patrol the area. Infiltrators are typically caught within hours, if not sooner.
The Gaza Division was to open an investigation into the incident.Edinburgh-based Campervan brewery are set to officially launch a new taproom at their brewery in Leith this month.
Paul Gibson moved the Campervan brewery into a bespoke unit in Leith at the start of the year and, in a bid to give his visitors a more complete experience, decided to launch a brand new taproom on site in August.
Now the brewer and his team are officially launching the taproom on the 10th of November with a dedicated party that will showcase several new beers and allow guests to see what the new venue has to offer.
Paul said: “We got the keys for the brewery in Leith back in January and the first beers went out in April. When choosing the location the idea was always to apply for a licence for offsales and to allow us to conduct brewery tours.
“There’s a real desire for people to come along and see where small producers are producing their goods, particularly in the Craft beer sector. So we decided to launch the Tap Room as part of the whole experience.
“People can now come along and sit amongst our shiny fermenters and try our beers direct from the source. We have a rotation of at least 8 beers and also regularly test out our pilot brews, which is a great way for us to get instant feedback, before replicating them on the big kit.”
The new brewery is also offering tours, which can be pre-booked and will allow residents and visitors alike to see the brew experience first hand and to sample some of their beers.
Paul has been delighted with the response to the tap room so far and is now looking forward to the official launch.
He said: “The feedback has been great so far and we are certain the demand is there for our Tap Room.
“We are licenced for 7 days a week but so far we have just opened on Fridays and Saturdays. If the demand continues then we will roll our opening hours out further.
“The launch on 10th Novembers is a mix of trade and the public and the idea is to shout out that we are here in Leith. We will have a number of new beers to showcase including our winter Morello Cherry Stout, Peach infused pale ale and also a range of sour beers we have been experimenting with.”
• You can find out more about the event on their official page here.
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commentsSynopsis
Filmworks presents the darkly comedic adventure fable “Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter,” an American independent film starring Rinko Kikuchi. The inspiration: In 2001, an urban legend circulated online about a lonely Japanese woman who discovered a hidden copy of “Fargo” on VHS, leaving her life in Tokyo for the American Upper Midwest in a hunt for the movie’s buried treasure. The film tells the imagined story of Kumiko, a frustrated secretary whose imagination transcends the confines of her mundane life. She becomes obsessed with a mysterious, battered copy of the Coen brothers classic—a fictional movie she mistakes for a documentary—fixating on one scene where a suitcase of stolen cash is buried in the desolate landscape of rural North Dakota. Believing the treasure to be real, Kumiko plunges herself into a wild and dangerous odyssey unlike anything she has seen in the movies. The visually stunning and strangely touching underdog story is written and directed by indie filmmaker brothers David and Nathan Zellner, stars of numerous award-winning shorts and the 2012 Sundance hit “Kid-Thing,” with a surreal lead performance from Kikuchi, a 2006 Oscar nominee for Best Supporting Actress in “Babel.” Featuring an electronic score from The Octopus Project. In English and Japanese, with English subtitles.
Directors: David and Nathan Zellner
USA • 105 minutes • Not Rated
Discussion Circle
After the 5:30 show, join visiting filmmaker David Zellner to talk about the film. Based in Austin, Texas, Zellner often writes, directs, and co-stars with his brother Nathan in feature films, short films, and music videos. Their previous features include “Kid-Thing” and “Goliath,” both Sundance favorites. Discussion moderated by Filmworks board member Mary Husain.
SCREENING SPONSORS:
Earth Day Fresno
The mission of Earth Day Fresno is to inspire people to make change in their daily lives to help restore the ecological health of our San Joaquin Valley and the world. The first Earth Day took place in 1970, activating 20 million Americans from all walks of life and launching the modern environmental movement. Now, more than 1 billion people worldwide participate in Earth Day activities each year. Earth Day Fresno 2015 is scheduled for Saturday, April 25 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. in Radio Park, at the southwest corner of First and Clinton.
CineCulture
CineCulture is a free film series at Fresno State offered as a service to the community. Also a student club, as well as an academic course offered by the Department of Mass Communication and Journalism, CineCulture promotes cultural awareness and understanding through movies and post-screening discussions that are facilitated by a diverse cast of speakers with relevant expertise, including filmmakers, scholars, and more. Screenings are Fridays at 5:30 p.m. during the spring and fall semesters, except on the second Friday of each month when CineCulture joins Fresno Filmworks.
Filmworks thanks Jewel FM 99.3, The Fresno Bee, Vida en el Valle, and Stella Artois for their ongoing support.Image copyright PA Image caption The RAF Typhoons, similar to the one pictured. were scrambled from RAF Coningsby
Loud bangs heard in parts of Yorkshire were sonic booms from Typhoon jets scrambled to identify "an unresponsive civilian aircraft", the RAF has said.
The aircraft were launched from RAF Coningsby, in Lincolnshire, on Monday and helped guide an Air France plane to a safe landing in Newcastle.
People reported their houses shaking at about 21:50 BST after hearing what sounded like two loud explosions.
These were later confirmed to have been sonic booms.
More on this and other West Yorkshire stories
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Footage courtesy of Paul Griffiths @GriffoRadio
An RAF spokesman said on Monday night: "Quick reaction alert Typhoon aircraft were launched today from RAF Coningsby to identify an unresponsive civilian aircraft.
"Communications were re-established and the aircraft has been safely landed."
Radio problem
Reports suggested the jets had escorted the plane after it went off course.
Air France confirmed that the unresponsive civilian aircraft was one of its planes.
Sonic booms in numbers 768 mph 1,236 km/h speed of sound 17 sonic booms recorded in the UK between 2009 and 2014
15 claims for damages, including 6 for broken or cracked windows
7 claims repudiated
£1,844.53 compensation paid over 5 years Getty Images
The airline tweeted from its official UK Twitter account: "Air France confirms that due to a radio communication problem AF 1558 had to be accompanied by two British fighter aircrafts according to the procedure.
"The aircraft landed in Newcastle at 22:20 (LT). Safety of clients & crew is an absolute priority."
Image caption The two sonic booms, heard in Doncaster, Leeds, York and several other areas across Yorkshire, were heard at 21:51 BST on Monday
North Yorkshire Police had tweeted to reassure people there was no danger, later writing: "Confirmation from RAF that loud bangs heard across the county were sonic booms from RAF Typhoon jets. No cause for concern."
One woman wrote: "house shook & whole street was out, car & house alarms gone off. Apparently was a sonic boom".
What is a sonic boom?
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption "It's just like a thunderclap" - Dr Jim Wild on how and why a sonic boom happens
A sonic boom is created as an aircraft breaks the sound barrier, causing a high-energy shockwave.
When an aircraft approaches the speed of sound, the air in front of the nose builds up a pressure front because it has "nowhere to escape", Dr Jim Wild of Lancaster University said.
It can be heard over a large area because "it moves with the plane", similar to the wake on the bow of a ship spreading out behind the vessel, Dr Wild added.
Reacting on social media, initial concern moved to light-hearted responses after the cause of the loud bangs became clear.
Former Leeds United goalkeeper Nigel Martyn tweeted: "Huge bangs that shook the doors at our house, must have been the Leicester fans celebrating the Premier league!!"
Another Twitter user posted: "I like to think this is a test run for how Yorkshire would react to a nuclear war. My neighbour made everyone Ovaltine."The Obama administration is actively discussing the creation of a regulatory commission that would have broad authority to protect consumers who use financial products as varied as mortgages, credit cards and mutual funds, according to several sources familiar with the matter.
The proposed commission would be one of the administration's most significant steps yet to overhaul the financial regulatory system. It would also be one of its first proposals to address causes of the financial crisis such as predatory mortgage lending.
Plans for a new body remain fluid, but it could be granted broad powers to make sure the terms and marketing of a wide range of loans and other financial products are in the interests of ordinary consumers, sources said.
Sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because discussions are ongoing, said talks have begun with industry officials, lawmakers and other financial experts about the proposal, which would require legislation. Last night, senior policymakers, including Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner and National Economic Council Director Lawrence H. Summers, were to discuss the idea at a dinner held at the Treasury Department.
Responsibility for regulation of consumer financial products is currently distributed among a patchwork of federal agencies. Some of these regulators regard consumer protection as a low priority. And some financial products are not regulated at all.
The proposal could centralize enforcement of |
Americans. They would elicit information and learn the ways of the Americans. They would then return to their rural areas where they would disrupt American combat operations. They would solicit sexual advances from Allied troops and, where successful, clutch the man tightly; call for help and this expose the American rapist to the people. I should point out that there are all kinds of pornographic and sexual leaflets offered on auction sites on the Internet. Looking at those auction sites, one would think that the entire war was fought with sexual leaflets. As I have shown above, with the exception of a few very rare "black" unauthorized items by some American troops, there really was no use of sexual leaflets in Vietnam. I asked retired Colonel Charles V. Nahlik who spent several years during the war holding down important PSYOP positions what he recalled of sex leaflets. His answer: I never heard of that being done anywhere at any time during the Vietnam War. When I asked Bob Turner who worked in the Joint U.S. Public Affairs Office during the Vietnam War if he ever heard of sex leaflets he could only remember one case: The only suggestion I heard in regard to sex propaganda was a new officer assigned to PSYOP who thought we should drop Make Love, Not War leaflets on the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Official U.S. Army Pornographer Patch Let me end this story of American sexual propaganda with a funny anecdote from Vietnam. Former Captain Roger B. Hawkins of the 221st Signal Company (Pictorial) told me: A major topic of discussion at a weekly staff meeting was whether or not the men of the 221st Signal Company could have a patch on their uniform to represent their function. My job was to decide whether or not to have the patch say "U.S. Army Official Photographer" or "Official U.S. Army Photographer." I made a decision, ordered the patches and a week later, handed them out. Hearing laughter from the rear of the room, I asked "Whats so funny?" The answer came, "Sir, we wondered if you would like one of our special patches?" The custom patches said "Official U.S. Army Pornographer." Apparently the Vietnamese did not translate the term well. I stuffed my patches in my pocket and promptly forgot about it. A short while later I had an appointment to see the commanding general, Major General Hugh Foster. I got a haircut, put on my best uniform and polished boots and headed up to see the Big Man. As he was looking at my paperwork, he looked up at me and gazed at my shoulder, saying "Captain Bird, that doesnt say what I think it says, does it?" My hootch maid had sewed on the patch that read "Pornographer." Looking the general straight in the eye and swallowing, I said "No sir, it doesnt say that." I left the office quickly. SEXUAL WAR STORIES In the military you hear a lot of war stories about the enemy using sex in various campaigns. Certainly 98% of these stories are myths, but since it is interesting propaganda, and sometimes used by one side or another (especially to discourage fraternization), perhaps we should mention them. A number of the stories come from WWII. One that almost sounds like it could be true was told to me by a Panzer major of the SS Viking Division on the Eastern Front. He said that along a distant tree line his men saw a group of naked Russian women. His men gathered to look at the women with binoculars and were suddenly hit by a Russian artillery barrage, killing several of them. It sounds like a fake story, but he was an SS Major so I have to think that it could be true. There are similar German stories from the USSR. Wehrmacht troops stated on several occasions that they saw Russian girls taking baths naked in lakes and streams. It may have been sexual PSYOP to concentrate the Germans, or it may just have been that the women were unable to wash themselves properly wearing underwear. According to Hitler's Arctic War: The German Campaigns in Norway, Finland, and the USSR 1940-1945, Chris Mann and Christer Joergensen, St. Martins Press, N.Y., 2003, something similar occurred along the Finnish-Russian front. Allegedly the Russians had some of their female soldiers bathe in streams in front of the Finnish lines. When the Finnish troops in the trenches stood up to get a better view, they were shot. The Finns then resorted to building covers and blinds and using trench periscopes to identify the location of the Soviet snipers and had their own snipers eliminate them. We actually have a similar story from the battle of Okinawa found in the diary of an Army engineer. He says that on 26 July 1945, two women emerged from a Japanese cave stark naked and beckoned to one of the patrols. The soldiers were seasoned fighters who had seen numerous ambushes and traps and immediately opened fire killing both women. As they fell to the ground both had hand grenades hidden beneath their armpits. A different sort of story is told by the Vietnamese coming down the Ho Chi Minh Trail during the Vietnam War. Both Vietnamese and Chinese women helped carry the supplies and often had to pass through deep streams or rivers. Vietnamese men have proudly told me that their women would cross fully dressed and get their clothes soaked, while the Chinese women would strip naked to keep their clothes dry. The Vietnamese believed that showed the superior modesty of their women. In one case, the sexual propaganda backfired. A German soldier told of finding a very insulting Russian sexual leaflet on the Eastern Front in 1941 that discussed how German women were stretching their vaginas with all the sex they had while their men were at the front. The soldier took personal offense at the insult to his wife and German women in general, and said that afterwards, no pardon was given to any Russian soldier that he came across. Two interesting stories come out of Vietnam. The first claims that when the French were surrounded while fighting the Viet Minh, they would send a soldier out each night to the local stream to fetch water. Allegedly, the guerrillas would let the French succeed three or four nights in a row and even have sex with local girls at the stream, but about every fourth or fifth Frenchman would have his throat cut. According to the myth, the French were horny enough to play the odds each night. That story sounds more anti-French than pro-sex. The best and most horrible story from the soldiers standpoint is the myth about Vietnamese women that would fight for their cause by placing razor blades in their vagina. They would entice service members for sex with the expected result. That story makes you shiver just thinking about it, but it probably did a lot to discourage fraternization between American troops and Vietnamese women. Although I would have bet my life that it was a hoax, I have found one veteran who claims that it happened to a man in his unit. He told me that he was with the 3rd squadron of the 4th Cavalry, 25th Infantry Division, during the summer of 1968. We were posting road security for a convoy during daylight hours. We would space our vehicles out on either sidwhy you should go easy on the soda pop
While you probably shouldn't over-indulge in sugary beverages anyway, going overboard on soda might be especially bad for you...
Do you drink more than two liters of soft drinks a day? While that might sound like a lot, it’s actually a big gulp sized drink and a few cans here and there for a total of 67.6 fluid oz. And if you keep drinking that much cola or more long enough, you may increase your risk of hypokalemia, a muscle condition in which potassium levels in the bloodstream are diluted so much, vital muscle functions are affected.
The research, done by a trio of Greek medical experts, shows that consuming between 2 and 9 liters of soda on a regular basis interferes with the way our body retains potassium. Seems that a combination of glucose, fructose and caffeine contained in soft drinks may be to blame, although how is yet to be determined. Caffeine seems to be the worst offender according to previous studies on caffeine intoxication, but the effects and their severity may vary from person to person. So take note of how much soda you drink. You can always have too much of a good thing…
See: Tsimihodimos, V., et. al. (2009). Cola-induced hypokalaemia International Journal of Clinical Practice, 63 (6), 900–902 DOI: 10.1111/j.1742–1241.2009.02051.xWarner Bros. Pictures
If you were unsure whether The Conjuring 2 would be scary enough to live up to the original’s expectation, than this story might be able to persuade you that it really is.
A man’s body has disappeared after he died of a heart attack during a screening of the horror film in India.
The 65-year-old man was watching The Conjuring 2 with a friend when the blockbuster reached one of its scariest scenes.
Warner Bros. Pictures
He then began to complain of chest pains and fainted during the showing at the Sri Balasubramaniar Cinemas in Tiruvannamalai, in India’s south on Thursday.
The Times of India reported that he was then rushed to the Old Government Hospital, but was sadly declared dead on arrival.
But this is only the beginning of this bizarre story, as the man’s body has since disappeared after hospital staff asked his friend to take the body to the Tiruvannamalai Government Medical College Hospital for post-mortem.
The man’s friend was seen rushing to take the body to their accommodation with the help of an auto rickshaw, The Hindu reported, but he is now also missing.
Police are now investigating the case and speaking to local drivers and lodges to determine the dead man’s identity.
The Conjuring 2 has already grossed $104 million (£724 million) since its release earlier this month and, if anything, this mystery may just encourage more horror fans to watch the film – just out of curiosity.Get our daily newsletter Upgrade your inbox and get our Daily Dispatch and Editor's Picks.
IN THEORY, the ownership of a business in a capitalist economy is irrelevant. In practice, it is often controversial. From Japanese firms' wave of purchases in America in the 1980s and Vodafone's takeover of Germany's Mannesmann in 2000 to the more recent antics of private-equity firms, acquisitions have often prompted bouts of national angst.
Such concerns are likely to intensify over the next few years, for China's state-owned firms are on a shopping spree. Chinese buyers—mostly opaque, often run by the Communist Party and sometimes driven by politics as well as profit—have accounted for a tenth of cross-border deals by value this year, bidding for everything from American gas and Brazilian electricity grids to a Swedish car company, Volvo.
There is, understandably, rising opposition to this trend. The notion that capitalists should allow communists to buy their companies is, some argue, taking economic liberalism to an absurd extreme. But that is just what they should do, for the spread of Chinese capital should bring benefits to its recipients, and the world as a whole.
Not so long ago, government-controlled companies were regarded as half-formed creatures destined for full privatisation. But a combination of factors—huge savings in the emerging world, oil wealth and a loss of confidence in the free-market model—has led to a resurgence of state capitalism. About a fifth of global stockmarket value now sits in such firms, more than twice the level ten years ago.
The rich world has tolerated the rise of mercantilist economies before: think of South Korea's state-led development or Singapore's state-controlled firms, which are active acquirers abroad. Yet China is different. It is already the world's second-biggest economy, and in time is likely to overtake America. Its firms are giants that until now have been inward-looking but are starting to use their vast resources abroad.
Chinese firms own just 6% of global investment in international business. Historically, top dogs have had a far bigger share than that. Both Britain and America peaked with a share of about 50%, in 1914 and 1967 respectively. China's natural rise could be turbocharged by its vast pool of savings. Today this is largely invested in rich countries' government bonds; tomorrow it could be used to buy companies and protect China against rich countries' devaluations and possible defaults.
Chinese firms are going global for the usual reasons: to acquire raw materials, get technical know-how and gain access to foreign markets. But they are under the guidance of a state that many countries consider a strategic competitor, not an ally. As our briefing explains (see article), it often appoints executives, directs deals and finances them through state banks. Once bought, natural-resource firms can become captive suppliers of the Middle Kingdom. Some believe China Inc can be more sinister than that: for example, America thinks that Chinese telecoms-equipment firms pose a threat to its national security.
Private companies have played a big part in delivering the benefits of globalisation. They span the planet, allocating resources as they see fit and competing to win customers. The idea that an opaque government might come to dominate global capitalism is unappealing. Resources would be allocated by officials, not the market. Politics, not profit, might drive decisions. Such concerns are being voiced with increasing fervour. Australia and Canada, once open markets for takeovers, are creating hurdles for China's state-backed firms, particularly in natural resources, and it is easy to see other countries becoming less welcoming too.
That would be a mistake. China is miles away from posing this kind of threat: most of its firms are only just finding their feet abroad. Even in natural resources, where it has been most active in dealmaking, it is not close to controlling enough supply to rig the market for most commodities.
Nor is China's system as monolithic as foreigners often assume. State companies compete at home and their decision-making is consensual rather than dictatorial. When abroad they may have mixed motives, and some sectors—defence and strategic infrastructure, for instance—are too sensitive to allow them in. But such areas are relatively few.
What if Chinese state-owned companies run their acquisitions for politics, not profit? So long as other firms could satisfy consumers' needs, it would not matter. Chinese companies could safely be allowed to own energy firms, for instance, in a competitive market where customers could turn to other suppliers. And if Chinese firms throw subsidised capital around the world, that's fine. America and Europe could use the money. The danger that cheap Chinese capital might undermine rivals can be better dealt with by beefing up competition law than by keeping investment out.
Not all Chinese companies are state-directed. Some are largely independent and mainly interested in profits. Often these firms are making the running abroad. Take Volvo's new owner, Geely. Volvo should now be able to sell more cars in China; without the deal its future was bleak.
Chinese firms can bring new energy and capital to flagging companies around the world; but influence will not just flow one way. To succeed abroad, Chinese companies will have to adapt. That means hiring local managers, investing in local research and placating local concerns—for example by listing subsidiaries locally. Indian and Brazilian firms have an advantage abroad thanks to their private-sector DNA and more open cultures. That has not been lost on Chinese managers.
China's advance may bring benefits beyond the narrowly commercial. As it invests in the global economy, so its interests will become increasingly aligned with the rest of the world's; and as that happens its enthusiasm for international co-operation may grow. To reject China's advances would thus be a disservice to future generations, as well as a deeply pessimistic statement about capitalism's confidence in itself.TOKYO (Reuters) - The junior partner in Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s coalition government called on Monday for fresh steps to stimulate the sputtering economy and to soften the pain of rising costs caused by the weak yen.
A picture illustration shows Japanese 10,000 yen notes featuring a portrait of Yukichi Fukuzawa, the founding father of modern Japan, taken in Tokyo August 2, 2011. REUTERS/Yuriko Nakao
Keiichi Ishii, policy chief of the Komeito party, said the government needs to craft an extra budget given the economy’s weakness, regardless of Abe’s decision on whether to go ahead with a second sales tax hike in 2015 following one in April.
“Negative factors are emerging in the economy such as higher electricity bills and rising prices of imported goods,” Ishii told Reuters in an interview, referring to the impact of the weak yen, which hit a six year-low against the dollar this month.
“If Abe decides to raise the sales tax, there’s no doubt that he would compile an extra budget (to offset the expected blow to the economy), but apart from the decision, an extra budget is necessary given the current economic situation.”
The resignation of two cabinet ministers on Monday could complicate the tough decision on the sales tax, but Ishii said the two issues are “totally unrelated” and that Abe is due to make a decision by examining the economy at the time.
Ishii said hurdles were not getting higher for the planned tax rise to 10 percent next year, but added the economy has been “disappointing” since April’s tax hike to 8 percent from 5 percent. The move triggered the deepest quarterly economic slump since the 2009 global financial crisis.
Ishii shrugged off some calls within Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party for correcting the Bank of Japan’s massive monetary stimulus, which they blame for driving the yen down.
“The current exchange market and economic situation reflect diverging monetary policies between Japan, the U.S. and Europe. We should not try to control it artificially, although steps are needed to deal with harmful effects of a weak yen,” Ishii said.
The government should take fiscal measures to help people in agriculture, small firms and cold rural areas, who suffer from higher fuel costs due to the weak yen, he said, adding that it is expected to steer clear of currency manipulation.
“The BOJ has agreed with the government to steer monetary policy aiming for conquering deflation and achieving a 2 percent inflation target. We should not criticize the BOJ for acting on that commitment.”
Asked whether fresh monetary stimulus would be needed to meet the price goal, which investors see as a tall order, Ishii said monetary policy should be left up to the BOJ to decide.
The BOJ has left policy unchanged since it announced an intense burst of monetary stimulus in April 2013, pledging to hit 2 percent inflation in roughly two years via aggressive asset purchases.
While the bank is in no mood to ease policy again anytime soon, annual core inflation - which excludes the effects of a sales tax hike in April - eased to 1.1 percent in August from 1.3 percent in July.Re: AKA_Sketch's Custom units. Quote: Ixe Originally Posted by I'm glad you mustered your courage because these are some cool designs! I don't often comment on adaptations so I'll focus on your personal creations.
Quote: Ixe Originally Posted by Twisting Illusions
These guys are really cool! They don't do much (except get killed quickly) on their own but Spacial Trickery gives you some powerful options for mobilizing a deadly hero. You may want to keep that power to only small or medium heroes since it can be a little complicated to suddenly place a double-based hero. Thematically, I don't quite see them for Utgar (Vydar?), as Ghosts (Illusions?), or even Marauders (Servants?), although they definitely are tricky. I see that they are a common squad but I have trouble seeing myself ever drafting any more than 1 squad of them so maybe consider making them unique. Otherwise these guys are ripe with potential of cool combos to set up and leave your opponent guessing. I like how they can choose to ignore the illusions or potentially waste attacks against them out of fear that a deadly hero may appear. In that vein, I'd consider having them lose the ability to make leaving engagement attacks themselves. Technically, if an opponent moves through one, they will take a leaving engagement attack (you can't be engaged with a figure in your own space) and then another if they then move away from it normally.
Quote: Ixe Originally Posted by
Idol of the Mind
This is another impressive design. I really like how his life is low enough that you may just have a chance to take him out even if you are forced to do it in melee. Presuming he can be moved (as opposed to the Marro Hive), he is part of a deadly combination with the Illusions since they can teleport him right next to his next unwilling slave. He'll be vulnerable to commons but at least he can serve as an order marker sync and give you a lot of flexibility with a unique hero army. Very cool!
Quote: Ixe Originally Posted by Vorex
This guy is speedy and potentially very deadly. He is more ranged limited than Deathwalker 8000 but the extra attack die means he can have some devastating turns and win a battle on his own. Your opponent will definitely have to be careful with placement around him! I like that his life is low enough that it is a little bit of a risk to put him in range for the special attack. Should he miss, your opponent may just have the chance to kill him before he tries again. Do you intend that his breath can arc back to a hero that it had wounded earlier, or should it chain only to new targets?
Quote: Ixe Originally Posted by Drake Pests
This is a very powerful build. Did you mean for them to have 3 range or is that a typo? While the range is low enough that they won't exactly be kiting (staying out of the threat range of the opponent while continuing to shoot them), they are still a fast and deadly force. Stealth dodge gives them some nice defense against range and the fact that they are so fact means they can easily close the distance. If the range is intentional, then they will likely be able to hold high ground in the process and make them an ever tougher challenge. I don't have much reference for points but I'd peg these guys to be well over 100 (possibly closer to 200) per squad.
Quote: Ixe Originally Posted by Heinstrum Cousins
I like the gamble to these guys. More often than not it will blow up in your face but, if you can work out a deal in a multiplayer game, you can potentially have it work in both of your favors even if you "lose" the roll. I think designs for multiplayer Heroscape is an open area, especially since it's one of my favorite ways to play the game.
Quote: Ixe Originally Posted by Aesier Evenwood
If he's a bard, why is he a battle mage instead of a bard? I think your wording is a little off on Bardic Inspiration, but I take it he can inspire someone in range before they make an attack roll or roll the 20-sided die. It's more powerful (although quite powerful to begin with) if he can do it after the fact. Cutting Words and Dissonant Whispers are both cool adaptations of the D&D powers, although the range on Dissonant Whispers is a little further than I'd expect. He's otherwise a very tough and strong bard, but I guess that was the character you were playing.
Quote: Ixe Originally Posted by Very cool designs overall. Thank you for sharing!
TL;DR:
Thanks for the input and kind words. Will post an update of Twisting Illusions, Drake Pests, Vorex and both Aesier the Bard and Aesier the Demigod tomorrow.
Quote: Marro_Warlord Originally Posted by As someone who used to play 5e bards almost exclusively, I think you nailed the design on him. Aesier Evenwood is reeking of flavor and fun. Great job!
In the meantime, I'm making custom Heroscape Christmas presents again, and here's one of them so far. Thoughts?
Jesse McCree, from Overwatch:
Spoiler Alert!
Thanks for the kind words!Alright, OK. I got you. I thought I had too many in Utgar too. All comments noted and will be put into play tomorrow, especially the engagement one; I totally missed that. Thanks for the encouragement.Huh! I had thought of using the summoning glyph to move it around, but not the illusions. That's a deadly combo. In answer to the implicit question of "Is its placement permanent?" No, it is not, but the errata would be that it can't move on its own. As far as the combo goes, that's awesome, and until someone can tell me how that's a tremendous game-breaker with no possible strategy to get away from, it's staying (I'm SO using it against my little brother! lol.).No, his breath chain can only hit a figure once. That shall be clarified in-ability tomorrow along with the fixes to the Illusions. Again, Thanks for the compliments.Yes, the 3 range is meant to be indicative of a minor breath weapon; it is not a typo. I will change their pricing to reflect that imbalance. Or, I guess I could change their range to 1, hampering their abilities. Actually, both might be necessary. I'll let you all know tomorrow when I post the updates for Illusions, Vorex, and these guys. I'm actually surprised they're the OP ones here!Heh, Thanks. It was kind of a joke card, but it's definitely become something I'd actually want to play. Thanks again!This one is a first draft. I tried to go for as much in-program stuff as I could, and for some reason I just didn't want to put Bard. As far as Dissonant Whispers goes, I was trying my hardest to convert 5e ranges (which would be crazy OP in Heroscape, 120 ft when a hex is 5ft across) to something more fitting to the Heroscape meta. He actually just got a stupid buff from a random encounter the DM made me roll for at the very beginning, bumping his Charisma to a whopping 25 with a new max of 30 (our party is literally made up of demigods and apparently I'm the farthest along to full godhood), which gives him even more Bardic Inspiration. I'm not complaining, but it does make his true Heroscape version unplayable due to crazy power. Will post an update with both a balanced version and a version of him at full power.You're very much welcome! Thanks for your analysis of my designs!TL;DR:Thanks for the input and kind words. Will post an update of Twisting Illusions, Drake Pests, Vorex and both Aesier the Bard and Aesier the Demigod tomorrow.Thanks for the compliment, fellow Bard! See above for possible changes in the future.In the meantime, I'm making custom Heroscape Christmas presents again, and here's one of them so far. Thoughts?Jesse McCree, from Overwatch: Check out my custom army cards!
My little brother always beats me. I'm very sad. My little brother always beats me. I'm very sad.Associated Press
GIRARD, Ohio — An Ohio man chose to wear a sign proclaiming he's a thief rather than go to jail after trying to steal a 52-inch television.
Greg Davenport, of Liberty Township, pleaded no contest this month to a theft charge for stealing from a Wal-Mart in the township in December.
The man said the sign is better than being in jail. (Facebook Image)
A judge in Girard gave Davenport, 44, the sentencing option of 30 days in jail or wearing a sign saying, "I am a thief. I stole from WalMart."
Davenport has to wear the sign in front of the store eight hours a day for 10 days of his choosing.
Police Chief Richard Tisone said he hopes the sign embarrasses Davenport enough to prevent him from committing the same crime again.
"Maybe you can get to their inner side. Maybe they're a little embarrassed by the fact they have to hold a sign up, so it might affect some of these individuals, so I'm all for it," he said.
Davenport said the sign is better than being in jail, and he just wants to finish his punishment. He said he isn't embarrassed by the punishment.
"I stole, I got punished. That's it," he said.
Copyright 2016 The Associated PressRoma family has agreed to co-operate in DNA tests to establish whether or not child belongs to them
A Roma family in the Irish Republic insists that the girl seized from them by the Garda on Tuesday is their child.
It is understood the family have agreed to fully co-operate in DNA tests that will over the next 48 hours establish whether or not the child belongs to them.
They are said to be adamant that the child belongs to them and that the tests will prove this.
The girl, believed to be around seven, was dramatically seized from the family home in Tallaght, west Dublin on Monday afternoon but details of the Garda operation were not disclosed until Tuesday.
She is currently in the care of Ireland's Health Service Executive under Section 12 of the Republic's Child Care Act.
Her parents told Gardai that the child had been born in Dublin but officers who visited the house were not satisfied with the documentation the couple produced.
The child was removed from the family because her features – blonde hair and blue eyes, were different from the other children in the home.
Meanwhile the executive director of the European Roma Rights Centre expressed concern about the way the incident in Dublin was being reported as well as the portrayal of the Roma in general since the incident in Greece when a child, known as Maria, was seized from another family last week.
Dezideriu Gergely said: "The concern related to these cases is that, one way or another, if these cases are not discussed from all angles possible, there's this, if I can say, trap to fall into, basically labelling the whole community for being responsible for something which needs to be looked at from an individual point of view and responsibility point of view."
The centre's concern over the portrayal of the entire Roma community follows warnings on Tuesday from the Pavee Point human rights group in Dublin that racist elements might exploit both cases.
Aisling Twomey, a spokesperson for the Dublin based Roma and Irish Traveller rights group said: "This specific case could be used as a means to target the Roma community when the reality is that they are one of the most marginalised communities, not just in Ireland, but worldwide.
"In this particular case, the welfare of the child must be foremost in everyone's mind and correct procedures will doubtless be applied to ensure this child's safety and welfare is paramount. Right now, that should be the concern."
On the incident fanning deeper anti-Roma sentiment in the state, she added: "This possibility exists in all cases of a sensitive nature, and this one is no different. In the event that a crime has occurred, Pavee Point would of course support the prosecution of punishment of such a crime without doubt.
"However, using this case as a platform for intolerance is not an option and does a disservice to the Roma community, service providers who work with them, and the population of Ireland who have welcomed them for so many years."
There are around 5,000 Roma immigrants in Ireland with the majority of them living in Dublin. The European commission has criticised the republic for failing to integrate the Roma fully into Irish society.
On the island of Ireland Roma have faced far more overt hostility north of the border. In June 2009 up to 110 Roma immigrants including young children were driven out of their homes in south Belfast following a prolonged campaign of intimidation by racists from their nearby loyalist "Village" area.Bitcoin Edges Up $12, Transactions at All Time High
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Bitcoin moved up $12 dollar today, from $323 to $335 per coin. The bounce from $319 led to a small rally for the cryptocurrency and around mid-day we hit $338.99 on BTC-E. The daily high on BitStamp was few dollars higher at $341. We are currently quoted at $335 on BTC-E compared to $340 on Stamp.
Despite the limited gains today, BTC/USD will remain in a downtrend until the $350 level is taken out. To stage a sustainable rally however, bitcoin will need to climb back above $400 per coin. On the downside, $319 is the first level of support. A break lower will likely lead to quick losses toward the $300 round figure. For other support/resistance levels, take a look at our article yesterday.
The number of transactions on the bitcoin network just crossed a new all time high. The previous January high of >83,000 has just been passed and the current figure is over 85,000 transactions per day. This number is a 7-day average to smooth out the day to day variations.
But the hash rate of the network took a dive few days ago from 336,304,906 GH/s on November 1st to 253,963,452 GH/s today. Small part of the decline can be pinned to a large bitcoin mining farm going up in flames in Thailand. The facility housed several thousand ASIC bitcoin mining rigs. It is rumored that the hardware cost was around $7 million USD and by the time of the incident the farm managed to mine about $3-4 million worth of bitcoins.
While in the longterm bitcoin mining should have no effect on the price, I wouldn’t exclude the possibility that temporary supply/demand disruptions could have some impact. The reason why mining should have no effect on the price is because bitcoin has a built-in mechanism to keep the supply of mined bitcoins at a constant, predictable rate of 6 blocks per hour (1 block=25 BTC). If more miners get online and the network hashrate grows, the difficulty of mining bitcoins will increase until we get an equilibrium of around 6 blocks mined per hour. Reversely, if miners get offline and the hash rate drops, so will the difficulty, making it easier to mine BTC.
Get our free guide to bitcoin trading here.By By Brian Booker Oct 15, 2015 in Health Dole is issuing a recall of spinach across the East Coast and Midwest after state authorities in Michigan discovered that some bags of the produce were contaminated with Salmonella, a deadly bacteria. Dole has labelled the recall "precautionary." The recall is being made after the Michigan Department of Agriculture found that some bags of the spinach tested positive for salmonella during random testing. Not all bags of Dole spinach are affected. If you have any Dole spinach in your fridge, check the bag and examine the code number. Any spinach with the code A27409B and A27409A should be tossed out immediately. The UPC number is 7143000976, and the spinach has a sell-bey date of October 15th. Make sure the spinach is properly sealed up before throwing it out. Dole states that it has already reached out to stores and asked them to pull the product from their shelves. Still, if you find yourself buying Dole spinach, it's best to check for the above codes. The recall is being made voluntarily, but experts warn that Salmonella is a dangerous bacteria and can cause severe food poisoning. In some cases, the accompanying illness can even be fatal. Children, the elderly, pregnant women and people with weakened immune systems are Salmonella is a very serious disease in the United States, even in spite of high food safety standards. The bacteria causes roughly Dole is issuing a recall of spinach, following fears of salmonella contamination. The recall affects 13 different states: Connecticut, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Wisconsin.Dole has labelled the recall "precautionary." The recall is being made after the Michigan Department of Agriculture found that some bags of the spinach tested positive for salmonella during random testing.Not all bags of Dole spinach are affected. If you have any Dole spinach in your fridge, check the bag and examine the code number. Any spinach with the code A27409B and A27409A should be tossed out immediately. The UPC number is 7143000976, and the spinach has a sell-bey date of October 15th.Make sure the spinach is properly sealed up before throwing it out.Dole states that it has already reached out to stores and asked them to pull the product from their shelves. Still, if you find yourself buying Dole spinach, it's best to check for the above codes.The recall is being made voluntarily, but experts warn that Salmonella is a dangerous bacteria and can cause severe food poisoning. In some cases, the accompanying illness can even be fatal. Children, the elderly, pregnant women and people with weakened immune systems are most at risk Salmonella is a very serious disease in the United States, even in spite of high food safety standards. The bacteria causes roughly 19,000 hospitalizations per year, and nearly 400 deaths. It is estimated that up to one million people are sickened by it per year. More about Dole, Food recall, Salmonella More news from Dole Food recall SalmonellaA day after scientists reported finding a huge "plume" of oil extending miles east of the leaking BP well, on Friday a Louisiana scientist said his crew had located another vast plume of oily globs, miles in the opposite direction.
James H. Cowan Jr., a professor at Louisiana State University, said his crew on Wednesday found a plume of oil in a section of the gulf 75 miles northwest of the source of the leak.
Cowan said that his crew sent a remotely controlled submarine into the water, and found it full of oily globules, from the size of a thumbnail to the size of a golf ball. Unlike the plume found east of the leak -- in which the oil was so dissolved that contaminated water appeared clear -- Cowan said the oil at this site was so thick that it covered the lights on the submarine.
"It almost looks like big wet snowflakes, but they're brown and black and oily," Cowan said. The submarine returned to the surface entirely black, he said.
Cowan said that the submarine traveled about 400 feet down, close to the sea floor, and found oil all the way down. Trying to find the edges of the plume, he said the submarine traveled miles from side to side.
"We really never found either end of it," he said. He said he did not know how wide the plume actually was, or how far it stretched away to the west. He said the plume was found in an area that had already been closed to fishing by the federal government.
Cowan's finding underscores concerns about oil moving under the surface, perhaps because of dispersant chemicals that have broken it up into smaller globules. BP officials have played down |
an inability to protect Glenn and later Bridge in the pocket.
“KG is a 38-year-old guy — when you can protect and run the football, he’ll stand there and cut you up,” explained Jones. “When there’s pressure consistently up in his face…(and) you can’t put him in a second-and-manageable because you can’t get two yards on a 1st-and-10 run…”
The Riders head coach pointed to the standard of play set by the Stampeders as an example for his team to follow going forward.
“They do things right, don’t take penalties, protect their quarterback, run the football effectively and make enough plays to win the game,” said Jones, whose Saskatchewan team will face the Stamps one more time this season — Oct. 20 — in Calgary. “They’re very well-coached.”
The Riders will now head to the nation’s capital for a Friday Night Football date with the Ottawa REDBLACKS.
“We’re 6-6 and fighting for our life,” summarized Jones. “We’ve got to get well, get them on film, and (then) go execute at a high level.”
Kick-off for Saskatchewan’s Week-15 visit to Ottawa is slated for 7:00 p.m. ET.Steelcase
The 'Brody' is an effort to reclaim workplace privacy while preserving collaboration—and enhancing comfort and function for the modern office-dweller.
It'll boost the team's communication, they said. It'll make the company more collaborative, they said. Today the open office layout is as commonplace in business as a Keurig machine. For all the benefits that the open office was meant to deliver, from a flatter company structure to team-oriented problem solving, the open-office revolution can be measured best by the uptick in noise-canceling headphone sales. Brody may be one solution. It's kind of a desk, sort of an office, and something like the cubicles that have fallen out of fashion in office planning.
Steelcase
Brody is an effort to reclaim privacy and productivity in an open-office workplace without dialing it back entirely. It's not quite a return to yesterday's office-and-cubicles configuration, but rather an embracing of some of the things that got left behind in the market's rush to embrace open layouts. Steelcase, the product's designers, emphasize the worker's body, and how it affects her mind and focus. That's different than the governing concerns that drove designers to ditch partitions: social factors, such as team work, structure, and collaboration.
(Steelcase)
Researchers at Steelcase drew on the work of the Cognitive Neuroscience Karolinska Institutet in Sweden to come up with Brody. The institute's work on "flow"—the fleeting state of deep concentration in which workers are their most productive—informed the design.
Discomfort is a form of distraction, for example, so Brody was designed with comfort in mind. (Does your desk have an ottoman? No?) Yet movement is good for the body and mind, a growing body of research shows. So Brody doesn't come with a lot of typical office comforts. No more sad desk lunch, because Brody doesn't come with a desk, exactly. The seat's posture, which the designers describe as "alert recline," is designed with the body in mind. So there's lumbar support, of course, but it goes further: the work surface and seat are configured in such a way to prevent the strain of "tech neck."
(Steelcase)
The Brody's modular design is lighter than a cubicle in structure, and it's meant to be adapted to suit a given purpose. The renderings make plain that it's most useful for people who rely on laptops or tablets, a restriction that increasingly applies to an awful lot of white-collar work. If businesses begin to feel buyers' remorse over their open-office conversions, then Brody may be one of several designs competing in the solutions market. Frank Gehry's new offices for Facebook, said to be the largest open-office plan in the world, will put some 2,800 engineers on the same floor, at a time when designers and workers alike are starting to question the value of the open office. Can thousands of orders for work-booths be very far off?Travelers detail purposeful humiliation and violation at hands of federal government
Steve Watson
Prisonplanet.com
Friday, Nov 26th, 2010
The American Civil Liberties Union has received a huge wave of complaints within the last month following the TSA security crack down at airports, contradicting the establishment media spin that naked body scanners and invasive pat-downs are being meekly accepted by a compliant public.
“These complaints came from men, women and children who reported feeling humiliated and traumatized by these searches, and, in some cases, comparing their psychological impact to sexual assaults.” the ACLU website notes.
It states that recurring themes in the hundreds of reports they have received include:
• The searches are extremely invasive
• Many travelers are reporting intense feelings of violation and humiliation
• Some report being physically hurt by the searches
• Some feel their searches are punitive
• Reports of gawking by agents
• Reports of seemingly unnecessary repeated touching of intimate areas
• Many vow not to fly any more
• Any traveler may be forced to undergo one of these searches
Following a Freedom of Information request it was recently revealed that last year that there were over 600 formal complaints about the use of the naked body scanner devices in airports. Judging from the number of complaints to the ACLU in the last month alone, that number has clearly increased exponentially as the devices, in addition to the new pat-down procedure, have become more widespread.
Comments from passengers subjected to excessive experiences at the hands of the TSA have been published by the ACLU.
“The TSA agent used her hands to feel under and between my breasts,” said one woman. “She then rammed her hand up into my crotch until it jammed into my pubic bone.”
Another woman described the TSA groping as more invasive than her monthly breast exam with her GP:
“She ran her hands all the way up and into my crotch with force,” the woman said. “When she finished with the front she did the same with my back to the point that she, what I would call groped, my butt. She went under, in between, and on my breast.”
A New York man described how he was publicly humiliated by TSA agents simply for refusing to go through a scanner:
“Three or four TSA employees came over, basically surrounded me and very loudly proclaimed what a jerk I was for refusing the scan,” he said. “The ‘supervisor’ then spent 15 minutes examining every part of my body – it was intrusive, humiliating and without a shadow of a doubt, intended to punish me for electing to not be irradiated.”
The full list of passenger quotations provided by the ACLU can be read at the foot of this article.
Over the past couple of days several corporate media outlets have been running with stories of how the “opt out” protest against the TSA procedures failed to materialize, insinuating that Americans have absolutely no problems with enhanced security measures.
The Boston Herald even suggested that the TSA had been “handed a victory”.
However, it soon emerged that the TSA turned off many of its naked body scanners across the country, and scaled back the invasive searches for one day in a hastily crafted PR stunt to mute the impact of the protest.
This move came despite the fact that a TSA administrative directive stated that “Opt-Outters” should be considered “domestic extremists”.
In this sense the protest represented a resounding victory for the majority now opposed to TSA tyranny, proving that direct action can influence the government’s actions.
The organisers of the protest emphasized this point in a statement on their website, optoutday.com:
Despite claims to the contrary, National Opt-Out Day was a rousing success. The entire point of the campaign was to raise awareness of the issues of privacy and aviation safety at TSA checkpoints, with the ultimate goal of influencing policy – to ask the question “are we really doing this right?” In that, the campaign was a success. It was always about getting attention to the issue, educating the public and putting pressure on to change the current procedures. With near daily headlines on the front page of newspapers and debates on television and radio news, the mission was accomplished – our voice was heard. By the time November 24 rolled around policy change had already been set in motion.
This success highlights that EVERY day must be an opt-out day, only then will the TSA and the Department of Homeland Security be forced to change the unconstitutional procedures they wish to not only see normalised at airports, but in shopping malls, train stations and at sports events.
As the Charlotte Observer reports today, even if airports are pressured to replace the TSA with privately contracted security companies, the TSA procedures will remain. You may not be barked at so loudly, however you will still be faced with a choice of having harmful ionising radiation fired at you to produce an image of your naked body, or being felt up by security personnel.
A d v e r t i s e m e n t
The only way to defeat this tyranny and prevent it spreading to American streets is to follow the example of pilots and flight attendants and flat refuse to submit to it.
More complaints to the ACLU:
(These quotations have been lightly edited for clarity and length. Please be aware that due to the nature of these searches, these complaints often include graphic and sometimes disturbing language.)
I opted out and was sexually molested in public. The method used to search my body was on par with a sexual massage by a stranger of the same sex. My penis was touched by a man. My anus and groin were rubbed by a man. My scalp was rubbed by the same person. How can this be acceptable…? These TSA agents are not qualified to deal with the psychological or ethical responsibility of this technology. – Joe in New Mexico
The pat down was so invasive that the woman doing it stuck her thumb through my jeans into my vagina, significantly more than simple resistance. She cupped each of my breasts, and ran her hand inside the waistband of my jeans…. I am upset, humilated, degraded and feel abused and criminal, when I am guilty of nothing. – Janet from Maryland [no form]
I was visibly upset and when he started to fondle me inappropriately I yelled “I want to see your supervisor!” I asked (emphatically) if he was legally allowed to grab my genitals and the supervisor said he was. After fondling my genitals he groped my buttocks and told me to have a good flight. – Allen, Nebraska
The TSA agent used her hands to feel under and between my breasts. She then rammed her hand up into my crotch until it jammed into my pubic bone…. I was touched in the pubic region in between my labia…. She then moved her hand across my pubic region and down the inner part of my upper thigh to the floor. She repeated this procedure on the other side. I was shocked and broke into tears. – Mary in Texas
In and around breasts, both arms and legs, inside of legs, up to and including genitals (although I clenched the top of my thighs to limit the officer’s groping. Legs a second time, but from the rear (where her hand ran up my bum crack). Entire inside waistband of pants, both from the front and rear. Lifted up my hair (already in a ponytail), inside collar of shirt. – Sharon, Massachusetts
She ran her hands all the way up and into my crotch with force. To get graphic she could have felt if I had a feminine pad on. When she finished with the front she did the same with my back to the point that she, what I would call groped, my butt. She went under, in between, and on my breast. It was more intense than my monthly breast exam. – Paula M. Hamilton, Corydon, Indiana
In the 4 times she explored the area where my inner thigh met my crotch, she touched my labia each time, and one pass made contact with my clitoris, through 2 layers of clothing. I told her I felt humiliated, assaulted and abused…. In my work as a nurse, if I did what the TSA did against a patient’s will it would be considered assault and battery, and I did not see how the TSA should have different rules. – Chris
TSA says he is going to run the back of his hands on my buttocks and the front of his hands on my groin area…. He feels my bare arms and upper body including my balding scalp. … – Randy Spencer
This is the most humiliating experience of my entire life. Having another male on his knees in front or behind me and feeling my private areas. And in full view of other passengers. It is a disgusting sight. I now can not sleep due to the thoughts of these agents on their knees feeling my private areas…. I have never, ever been so humiliated and will never, ever fly as long as this policy is in effect. – Ron Wilson, California
I have a history of having been raped. I was subjected to what I have since learned is a new TSA “enhanced pat down”…. I cried throughout the groping and have had intrusive thoughts since. It was humiliating. I felt powerless. It brought up emotion I could not explain. – Woman in her 40s
I was shaking and crying the entire time. I was begging them to hurry up but they kept stopping and telling me to calm down. It is impossible to gain composure when a stranger has her hands in your underwear. A crowd gathered and watched and I never felt so humiliated. After it was over, I ran into the ladies’ room where I vomited and cried until my plane was boarding. – Melissa, Massachusetts
I felt molested and sexually harrassed by their search. – Gweneth from California
I would not hesitate to say that I felt sexually assaulted by the agent. – Vince from Kansas
This was, by far, the second most humiliating, and personally violating event in my life – the first being a date-rape in college. – M., Connecticut
The entire affair was very punitive, and humiliating and time consuming and emotionally distressing. When I retrieved my things, I walked into the women’s restroom and wept. – Rosemary, Virginia
While in the “private room”… the agent inappropriately touched my genitalia (more than once) and made me feel incredibly uncomfortable. The agent also pulled down my shorts (about halfway), and I had to ask the agent to let me pull them back up. I was inappropriately touched, groped, rubbed, massaged and sexually harrassed. The procedure was violating, degrading, invasive and humiliating. – Scott in New Mexico
Simply, I was sexually assaulted. My breasts were caressed in an almost amorous manner. And on the second canvassing of my groin, single-finger pressure was applied to my labia majora – the plane of which was near-broken, during which the agent made a wildly off-color remark. – B. from Maryland
In all of these years and the thousands of flights and millions of airlines miles I have never been so humiliated. If my choice is to risk having my genitalia spread all over the internet and my body exposed to unknown radiation or to have my testicles bounced and my buttocks stroked I will not fly any commercial airline…. our humanity and our dignity are being violated. I HAVE HAD ENOUGH! – Dennie from Texas
I am concerned about the exposure and I am equally concerned that someone saw my precious daughter as if she were naked. I was then put through as well and was humiliated and felt as though I were in a peep show. Before this trip, I honestly felt the scanners were a good idea and a price to be paid for travelling – after living it first hand, I have to say it is flat out WRONG. – Celeste in Florida
The TSA agent did not give me the option of going through the screening machine. She put her hand forcefully in between my legs and took it all the way up into my genital area. She then pressed on my breasts just like a doctor would during a breast exam. She then lifted my dress and put her hands inside of my leggings around my waist…. It was so rough that I felt the effects of it throughout the day. – Dina Pember, Kennesaw, Georgia
3 or 4 TSA employees came over, basically surrounded me and very loudly proclaimed what a jerk I was for refusing the scan, were laughing at me, repeatedly berating me. The “supervisor” then spent 15 minutes examining every part of my body – it was intrusive, humiliating and without a shadow of a doubt, intended to punish me for electing to not be irradiated. – Aaron from New York
I was wearing a sanitary napkin, so the agent notified her supervisor that I had a “foreign object.” It took about 10 minutes for her to walk 70 feet, speak with the supervisor, and return. Then she collected my carry-ons and began swabbing items in each of them. This process took a verrrrrry long time…. It was obvious to me that this was punitive for refusing the body scanner…. Finally I was told to remove my sanitary napkin. By the time I got to the gate the jetway had been removed and I was not able to board. – Suzy in California
Going through the body scanner I said, “I want you to know I do not like this machine. ” the TSA agent asked me if I would like to opt out. I said “no, I don’t want you to touch me like that, I think it’s worse,” to which she snickered and replied, “well there’s a good chance we’re gonna do that anyway.” When I went through, she said I did need a pat down, and then she said she need to check my butt and rear crotch…. It was demeaning and indecent…. – Tiffany from Nevada
4 other male and female TSA agents watched while she ran her hands up and down my body, starting with my hair and then going all over, including my breasts and vaginal area. – A physician, Michigan
My genitals were touched no less than 4 times with the index finger as the screener’s hand was slid up my leg until it could go no more into my crotch. – Marlene, California
This new procedure was absolutely humiliating. She touched my limbs, my torso, my breasts, and rubbed my vagina with her fingers three separate times. I might have understood one rub. Three rubs was NOT acceptable. My pants were thin cotton…. As soon as I left the security area, I began to cry. My husband and I had spent one of the best weeks of our lives together for our honeymoon, and it was destroyed on the way home. – Tiff, North Carolina
The female TSA agent did not advise me of an alternative and after she directed me through the scanner she conducted the “pat-down” WITHOUT my permission or WITHOUT warning that she would be making direct and forceful contact with my genitals FOUR times! I felt sexually violated and yet afraid to protest for fear that I would be put on some kind of no-fly list or miss my flight. – Kim, Hawaii
This was a very different and, I maintain, a deliberately abusive experience…. the agent not only felt the inside of my upper thighs but also probed my vagina three separate times. I made it to the end of the search, but then broke down…I cannot and will not allow this to happen to me again…. I continue to have nightmares about this experience. – Charlotte in California, female, 68
I was with two strangers, one of whom now had both of her open palms moving slowly across virtually every part of my body. She barely moved them as she groped both of my breasts. And most disturbingly, her hands karate-chopped their way a full two inches up into my vagina through my slacks. She performed this maneuver not once, but twice: once from behind me, and then once again, standing/bending in front of me. – Alex, Washington state
I will do everything in my power to drive rather than take any commercial flights if this is the new standard of TSA screening. – Max, North Carolina
My daughter was forced to cancel her plans to join us for Thanksgiving because she did not want to subject her children to either the exposure to x-rays or the patdowns. We have cancelled our plans to fly north for Christmas and will drive instead. – Janet, Florida
The TSA agent squeezes my thighs and runs his hand up until they touched my testicles on both of my legs. This was done in full view of everyone in line. This was very uncomfortable, humiliating and seemed very unnecessary. If given the choice, I will do everything in my power to drive rather than take any commercial flights if this is the new standard of TSA screening…. I do not feel safer. I feel violated…. – Max, North Carolina
When I asked the agent politely for her badge number, she said in a sharp, loud tone, “If you want to know my badge number you can talk to my supervisor!” – Heather from New York
I have Type 1 Diabetes and wear a wireless insulin pump. TSA supervisors… informed me that since I have to wear a medical device, I will be subject to the enhanced pat-down every time I fly. It’s not okay with me to have a stranger grope my genitals once, much less 12-15 times per year. Please, please, please help those of us who are being given no choice in this matter. – Laura Seay, Georgia
I didn’t set off any alarms, apparently I was searched because I was wearing a ‘loose fitting shirt’. My T-Shirt was not tucked in. – Anonymous
I walked through the xray machine… with flying colors. And out of the blue a women said I had to get a pat down. – Heather from Illinois
I was the only female in a crowd of men. Even though I was not next in line, I was called over to the body scanner. As I got closer to the scanner, I could clearly hear him say “got a cute one, some DD’s.” … I was appalled and decided at that point to “opt out” of the scanner…. I was then put through the pat down procedure which I only can only describe as sexual assault. – Caitlin, Connecticut
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Steve Watson is the London based writer and editor at Alex Jones’ Infowars.net, and regular contributor to Prisonplanet.com. He has a Masters Degree in International Relations from the School of Politics at The University of Nottingham in England.
This article was posted: Friday, November 26, 2010 at 12:05 pm
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Comment on this articleThe transition to sustainable energy: how much will it cost?
Guiding the Energy Transition (Part 1): Principles and Implications
By Sgouris Sgouridis (*)
Abstract: Following on the sower’s metaphor, I present a quantified view of exactly how much energy we need to invest from our current bounty in order to be able to safely navigate a sustainable energy transition. This is in the context of a formal definition of five principles for the energy transition. We currently invest around 0.25% of our net available energy surplus into renewable energy generation capacity (this is the renewable energy investment ratio – “epsilon”). It needs to be increased to about 3% (an order of magnitude) for our energy systems to be able to provide for a 2000W per capita society at a global scale without crossing the IPCC carbon budget. (note that modern western life is consuming around 8000W per capita). If we do allow for unrestrained emissions then we still need to increase this rate to 1.5%.
Energy is a sine qua non for any self-organizing system and yet it features only in the margins of what passes for long-term planning of our societies. We have grown critically dependent on cheap, energy-dense fossil carbon but its price and climate externalities have been rising as we are nearing peak production. This necessitates a transition to renewable energy sources. This post addresses the implicit physical and financial requirements if this Sustainable Energy Transition (SET) is to happen as a result of a planned and seamless transformation; not forced upon our societies. More specifically, in Part 1 I present five principles (the three first are limiting and the latter two normative) that can be used as a guide for the transition. Based on the fourth principle, I demonstrate the need to increase the amount of investment in renewable energy resources globally by one order of magnitude to achieve a Sustainable Energy Transition within the IPCC carbon budget. Details of the assumptions and methodology can be found in Sgouridis & Csala 2014. In Part 2, starting from the fifth principle, I present a concept of an energy currency that could mobilize resources to achieve this target while better aligning the monetary system with the biosphere limits.
It is generally good to start with a definition to create the common basis for understanding and judging an idea. In this case, I will define SET (sustainable energy transition) as:
a controlled process that leads an advanced, technical society to replace all major fossil fuel primary energy inputs with sustainably renewable resources while maintaining a sufficient final energy service level per capita.
As definitions are wont to be, it tries to capture a lot of concepts sinthetically. But the key words are “controlled”, “technical”, “all” and “sufficient”. The ideas conveyed indicate that the transition should be smooth and not associated with dramatic social dislocation (controlled). It should allow for society to at least maintain its technological capabilities (technical), and at the level of the individual meet a certain threshold of final energy availability (sufficient).
Knowing that the transition will be complete when practically all fossil fuels are replaced, we can backcast the evolution of the transition to the current energy situation. In this exercise, it is instructive to use an energy metabolism perspective focusing on the net energy availability. This way, an unambiguous and transparent picture emerges that pulls back the veil that economics placed in long range planning.
In order for this transition to be indeed “sustainable” we would need to concern ourselves with each of the three sustainability pillars (environmental, social, economic). Extending Daly’s ideas, we propose five principles that need to be met – de minimis – for a SET to be successful:
I. The rate of pollution emissions is less than the ecosystem assimilative capacity.
II. Renewable energy generation does not exceed the long-run ecosystem carrying capacity nor irreparably compromises it.
III. Per capita available energy remains above the minimum level required to satisfy societal needs at any point during SET and without disruptive discontinuity in its rate of change.
IV. The investment rate for the installation of renewable generation and consumption capital stock is sufficient to create a sustainable long-term renewable energy supply before the non-renewable safely recoverable resource is exhausted.
V. Future consumption commitment (i.e. debt issuance) is coupled to and limited by future energy availability.
The first two principles address the environmental aspect (neither fossil nor renewables should impact the environment irreparably within a human generation). The third addresses the social aspect ensuring that (i) a minimum level of available energy is available, and (ii) the rate of change in energy availability is not so drastic that it creates breakdown of social support systems. A direct corollary of this is that a more equal society faces an easier SET task than an unequal one. Finally, the last two principles address economic sustainability (physical and financial). P-IV, a variant of the Hartwick rule in economic literature, ensures that the rate of investment in renewable energy is sufficient to compensate for the drawdown of the fossil fuel supply while, P-V makes the connection between debt issuance and the availability of energy to service that debt in the future (which is the subject of Part 2).
Viewed from a normative angle, the first three principles act as constraints of the transition function – the first gives an upper limit in the amount of fossil energy available, the second puts a limit in the amount of renewables that can be installed, the third provides a lower bound on the per capita energy availability (and of its first derivative during the transition). The latter two though are prescriptive and actionable – they offer a quantifiable approach to estimate the minimum energy investment in renewable energy and the maximum debt that can be extended for that level of investment.
Focusing on the physical side, we can essentially create an equation that ties the renewable energy investment ratio (epsilon) to net societal energy availability which can be seen below (derivation in the paper and supplement):
This recursive equation can be solved numerically or analytically to establish the net power available under different assumptions for the value of epsilon. Below I provide, as a starting point of the discussion, a comparison of the evolution of future energy availability under the following scenarios. As typical of energy transitions (and to meet the discontinuity constraints of Principle III), we assume in the paper that it takes thirty years to change epsilon from its current value of around 0.25% (we actually assume 0.375% for this model) to the “target” value and simply compare energy availability with energy demand assuming that (a) population follows the UN mid-projections stabilizing at 9 billion by 2050, (b) per capita power demand converges to 2000W, and (c) the efficiency at which we convert primary to final energy improves by 25%. (the details on the assumptions regarding population are described in Sgouridis and Csala’s paper).
Frying the Planet
Available Energy with No Carbon Cap Top: ε = 0.375 %, Bottom ε = 1.5 %.
Left: Breakdown by source. Right: Red line indicates Net Available Energy. Blue Line indicates where we need to be at a minimum
50% chance of Slow Cooking the Planet
Available Energy with IPCC Carbon Cap Top: ε = 0.375 %, Bottom ε = 3.0 %.
Left: Breakdown by source. Right: Red line indicates Net Available Energy. Blue Line indicates where we need to be at a minimum
The results are starkly clear: if we allow fossil fuels to run their course frying the planet in the process, we will need to increase our rate of investment in renewables fourfold. If we decide to save the climate and adhere to the IPCC recommendations of no more than 3010 anthropogenic Gt CO2 in the atmosphere by 2100 for having a 50% chance of remaining below 2C by the end of the century (which, apropos, is still the moral equivalent of loading a revolver with three bullets and playing Russian roulette with our grandchildren) we need an eight-fold increase of the investment rate in renewables. Of course, there are key sensitive assumptions involved like the EROEI of renewables (in the scenarios shown starts at 20 and increases with installations) – readers are welcome to enter their own assumptions in our model – yet we believe that our choices are neither conservative nor aggressive and we intend to enhance the simulation’s resolution by disaggregating specific renewable energy technologies as we did for fossil fuels.
(*) Sgouris Sgouridis is Associate Professor at the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology (UAE). His research interests focus on understanding sustainable energy transitions using socio-technical systems modeling. He has been working on the energy currency concept, electric vehicle adoption, sustainable aviation, and local and global sustainable energy transitions. He initiated the development of the Sustainable Bioenergy Research Consortium at MI and was a member of the Zayed Future Energy Prize review committee for the past four years. He holds a PhD in Engineering Systems (MIT-2007), MSc in Technology and Policy and MSc in Transportation (MIT-2005) and a BS (Hons.) in Civil & Env. Engineering (1999-Aristotle University).
RESOURCE CRISISToday, Hillary Clinton was campaigning in Orlando, Florida. She gave a 20 minute speech to a room full of press and VIPs. It totaled no more than 125 people. All told, there were fewer than 400 people, according to eyewitness @FacMagnaAmerica:
This was the room #SickHillary was in in Orlando today. All VIP & press. No more than 125 ppl. I was put in the “overflow” room
250 ppl max pic.twitter.com/cCjPwE8Qoz — Агент КГБ Deplorable (@FacMagnaAmerica) September 21, 2016
Here’s a closeup of Hillary’s crowd:
Trending: CNN Told By South Korean Official: “Clearly Credit Goes To President Trump” (VIDEO)
Meanwhile, Donald Trump was in Cleveland, Ohio. He spoke at New Spirit Revival Center Ministries in Cleveland Heights, Ohio.
Here’s video of Trump’s crowd at the church:
Then, Trump went to Toledo. Here’s the crowd there:
And here was the line outside:
The line for Trump in Toledo, Ohio was HUGE #Trump2016#MakeAmericaGreatAgainhttps://t.co/Afm2eWwPDd — USA For Trump 2016 (@USAforTrump2016) August 12, 2016
Bottom line:
Hillary did one event with less than 400 people.
Trump did two events with thousands attending, and thousands more trying to get in.
Verdict: Not even close – Trump wins!While in Rome, playing Total War: Rome II on the set of HBO’s Rome, I spoke to Michael Simpson, Creative Assembly’s studio director. What was supposed to be a ten minute sprint across a hastily reduced list of questions transformed into a longer stroll when we both realised we’d rather talk than take lunch. We begin by lamenting my ability to die in a tutorial, move on to the clash between history and Hollywood, and then discuss some fundamental design philosophies. The latter portion of the interview moves away from the specifics of Rome II to explore how Michael, and indeed Creative Assembly, consider the player’s time to be their most valuable resource.
RPS: I just got killed. Well, my general did. I’m blaming a stray javelin rather than a tactical disaster.
Simpson: Oh dear. We didn’t invite you here to kill you.
RPS: Oh, it’s entirely my fault. It’s quite nice actually. It’s refreshing to fail in a tutorial, rather than feeling that absolutely everything is being done by the computer.
Simpson: We try to give freedom even in the prologue.
RPS: Almost everything I’d seen before today was the huge, spectacular historical battles, and I wonder how much all of that extra fidelity and scale really adds to the game.
Simpson: That’s an interesting question. I think it actually needs to be there. It wouldn’t feel right as a game set in the Roman period if you didn’t have the battles with thousands of thousands of men on either side. But the smaller battles are fun as well. From a gameplay point of view, they don’t have to be huge to have interesting outcomes. Some of the most nailbiting ones may be those where you only have three, four or five units, and you may be massively outnumbered, and at risk of losing something really important. That can be more fun than some of the big ones. It’s about variety.
RPS: One of the things that attracts me to strategy games is how well they tell stories. With the first Rome, I had my favourite generals and there’s even more emphasis on individuals this time.
Simpson: Yeah. I think we’ve made an attempt to make it more personal this time. Give it more of a human face. Rome was a long time ago now and what machines could do was quite limited. You had to have quite a simple set of mechanics. Now we can do more, so we do. We’ve done more with the personal and with politics. Diplomacy seems a lot more human.
RPS: With the politics, how much of that is going to be different each playthrough? Do situations emerge dynamically?
Simpson: Yeah, absolutely. Characters come and go. Interactions are often optional. It’s up to you how much you engage with that stuff. You could get really into it and start manipulating people. It depends what you set your aim to be. If you want to become the Emperor and get rid of the Senate and have your civil war, then you can do that. But you could also play the political game to achieve a similar end. Or you could just sit there and focus more on economy than military, in which case the political side rises more to the surface, serving up the kind of things you’d expect to see. Choices that adapt to the personality of Rome.
RPS: The flavour of the era is definitely there. We have so many cultural memories and reference points for ancient Rome, without necessarily being all that educated about the reality of it. How much do you rely on the ability to tap into those cultural touchpoints and how much do you try to channel actual history?
Simpson: We sometimes have arguments about Hollywood Rome versus real Rome! It’s difficult to know what to depict. Sometimes, if we actually do the real Rome, people won’t recognise it. They’d think we’ve got it wrong. A good example of that is Roman statues. There’s a marble statue over there (points). It’s white. In Rome, they coloured them all in. It would have looked like Las Vegas, garish and colourful in a way that people wouldn’t recognise. So in terms of things like that, we tend toward the Hollywood end of the scale. We’re sat here now on the HBO Rome set and our Rome is more like that than the real Rome would have been. Hopefully we’re somewhere between the two though.
RPS: I think that’s often the case. There are nice accidents occasionally, when something is historically accurate but also works well, whether for film or gaming…
Simpson: Yes! I think people sometimes underestimate how much history helps us out in that respect. If you’re doing science fiction or a fantasy game, you’re basically inventing mechanics and troop types. You have to balance all of that. If you faithfully reproduce a start point in history, as long as you’re reasonably accurate, it’s guaranteed to be balanced. History is always balanced. At any point in time, the borders are where they need to be and the set up of armies is accurate. It’s all perfectly balanced to allow history to happen as it did.
RPS: With that said, how much is it possible to disrupt history in this game?
Simpson: You can do that. You can play the Iceni, which is the British barbarian faction, and you can go forth and conquer Rome. In reality, that was very very unlikely. Partly because they weren’t that way inclined. But you can do that. You can explore those kind of things. Set up a barbarian empire that covers the entire of the known world.
RPS: With the different cultures, do they have their own historical attitudes and approaches?
Simpson: The AIs have different personalities, so yes. We tweak those to make them tend to act historically, so there’s an element of chaos in there as well. That’s the best way of putting it. So depending on |
not involve heads of state. We're looking at ministerial hospitality hosted by ministers from a whole range of government departments and that's where most of wine is being deployed. It's not the top wines. It's the good standard reliable stock that we are using on a day-to-day basis."
The government's A1-U grading, with A1 being top and U being bottom, is an internal system which offers a guide to what each wine should be used for, in terms of function, occasion and clientele.
The more expensive vintages are now unlikely to be consumed by any guest. During the course of the next year, around £50,000 worth will be sold in order to buy new bottles. This will be repeated over the subsequent three years. The government says the purchase of wine will now be "entirely self-financing". However, the day-to-day maintenance of the cellar will still be paid for by the tax payer.
The Foreign Office, which runs the wine cellar, says it seriously considered shutting it down entirely but that an 11-month review concluded that it remains the most cost-effective way of supplying wine for the government's various events.
Alas, the closest I came to any of the wine and spirits was picking up one of the bottles. I am not then as fortunate as some of the security officers, who accompany presidents and members of royalty when they visit London.
A Foreign Office official told me that some insist on tasting the wine before it is served up to the VIP they are looking after.
Apparently, it is to do with keeping the visitors safe, rather than being able to say they have tasted one of the best wines around.House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are playing a dangerous game. What they are doing runs the risk of turning Israel into a deeply divisive partisan issue.
Boehner and Netanyahu are joining forces to undermine President Barack Obama. By inviting Netanyahu to address Congress without first consulting the White House, Boehner is retaliating for the president’s recent executive actions on immigration and other matters. By accepting the invitation, Netanyahu is putting himself in the anti-Obama camp. Republicans are thrilled, and Democrats are offended, by the show of disrespect for the president.
Nearly every issue in American politics has become partisan. Democrats and Republicans can’t agree on taxes, education, whether climate change is caused by human activity or even how the economy is doing.
Israel used to be a relatively nonpartisan issue. Americans have never shown much sympathy for the Palestinian cause, and they still don’t. During the Gaza war last summer, only 14 percent of Americans expressed more sympathy for the Palestinians than for Israel, according to a Pew Research Center poll. A bare majority — 51 percent — sympathized with Israel. More than one-third of Americans said they sympathized with both sides, neither side or had no opinion.
Public sympathy for Israel has been increasing since 2002, according to the Gallup poll, but that is largely because of growing pro-Israel sentiment among Republicans. A year ago, Republican support for Israel reached 81 percent. Support for Israel was significantly lower among Democrats (58 percent) and independents (56 percent).
Republicans have become uniformly pro-Israel, while Democrats are more divided. The division among Democrats is not pro-Israel versus pro-Palestinian. Very few Democrats are sympathetic to the Palestinians (17 percent in the Pew poll). It’s really a split over Israel’s occupation policies that critics believe violate human rights.
Democratic Party leaders have tried to hide that division. They did that at the 2012 Democratic National Convention. When the delegates voted on a platform amendment to restore language saying “Jerusalem is and will remain the capital of Israel,” support in the convention hall was clearly less than the required two-thirds. After some consultation, the chair called for a second vote. Same result. So the chair simply declared the amendment approved.
Only one place in U.S. politics has, so far, been immune from the growing partisan divide over Israel: Congress. Congressional Democrats have always been as staunchly supportive of Israel as their Republican colleagues. Criticism of Israel in Congress has been confined to the far-left and far-right fringes.
One could make the argument that without Congress, there would be no Israel. Since the 1967 Middle East war, every U.S. president, Republican and Democrat, has experienced run-ins with Israel. But Congress, whether controlled by Democrats or Republicans, has always been there to bail Israel out. Pro-Israel organizations such as Christians United for Israel and the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee know that. That’s why they have always concentrated their lobbying influence on Congress.
Netanyahu is playing his own political card here. Israel is having a national election two weeks after Netanyahu addresses Congress in March. Israeli political commentator Nahum Barnea wrote that Republicans “are helping Netanyahu defeat his rivals here, and he is helping them humiliate their rivals there.” Barnea warned, “That is dangerous. That is toxic.”
On Israeli radio, Shelly Yachimovich, an opposition member of the Israeli parliament, called it “a brutal and unacceptable bypass of the president of the United States,” adding, “Such a thing simply damages us.”
Congressional Democrats will certainly be in the audience applauding Netanyahu’s address. They do not want to retaliate by showing disrespect for Israel. But they deeply resent what Boehner and Netanyahu are doing. That resentment is likely to break into the open if, under pressure from Israel, nuclear negotiations with Iran break down and the U.S. gets pulled into a new military engagement in the Middle East.
Rank-and-file Democrats are also likely to be offended by the insult to their president. The risk is that support for Israel among Democrats will erode and the bipartisan pro-Israel consensus in the United States will collapse.
“Netanyahu is using the Republican Congress for a photo-op for his election campaign,” former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk told the New York Times, “and the Republicans are using [Netanyahu] for their campaign against Obama.”
Both Boehner and Netanyahu are meddling in another country’s politics. That is never a wise thing to do.Timely notification of problems with systems, servers, or apps is the key to preventing outages, and as importantly, to ensuring a smooth, trouble-free end-user experience. New tools and techniques are available that help you strike the right balance between receiving too many notifications and not being alerted in time to nip potential problems in the bud.
Do you really want your phone to be buzzing you awake at 3:00 a.m. to let you know that average page loads on your company's site have increased from 1 second to 1.5 seconds? Not likely. If the site's pages aren't loading at all, well, that's a different story.
The four key system-management operations are monitoring, logging, reporting, and repairing. The first question is, Are you monitoring all necessary parameters -- and only the necessary parameters? A Stack Overflow post on web app monitoring best practices lists the components and operations that need to be tracked:
The Internet connection to the server, particularly the number of connections to detect traffic spikes that may indicate an impending crash CPU, memory, disk space, and other server hardware components The performance of the app itself, as well as all related software Power (via a remote power reset capability) Workflow (via business-logic testing) Your backup, to ensure fast recovery from a catastrophic failure
Of particular importance is testing the end-user experience via an external connection by stepping through a simple workflow, such as conducting a search, adding a product to the cart, and submitting an order.
Making sure notifications are just 'pushy' enough
Notifications have become a way of life, but not all notifications are created equal. There are those you find important but not timely (a bank account balance), those that are timely but not important (a news alert), and those that are both timely and important (the site is down). In a Tech Crunch post, Semil Shah describes three levels of notification importance:
Alerts with a red icon indicate timely events of little importance, such as a news app reporting a breaking story. The app runs in the background, but you're unlikely to open it separately. Alerts with a blue icon involve messaging, whether via Facebook Messenger or another messaging service. Email notifications tend to be so numerous they'll run down your phone's battery. Alerts with a green icon are SMS, which Shah calls the most "personalized" messages, and the messages we tend to pay closest attention to.
The best notifications have four characteristics, according to Shah: they're personalized, contextual, timely, and relevant. That's true of app-availability monitoring as well.
On the Ray Wenderlich site, Ali Hafizji describes how to use Apple Push Notification Services in iOS 6 to display a short text message, play a brief sound, and place a number in a badge on the app's icon. The process is broken into five steps:
Enable push notifications in the app. Deliver a "device token" to the app (the notification address). Instruct the app to send the device token to the server. When a specified event occurs, have the server push the notification to the Apple Push Notification Service (APNS). APNS sends the push notification to the user device.
Push notifications for iOS apps use the Apple Push Notification Service and device tokens to communicate between the server and the app. Source: Ray Wenderlich
Similarly, on the AWS Official Blog, Jeff Barr explains how to use the Amazon Simple Notification Service to push notifications to mobile devices. The five steps for enabling push notifications in a mobile app are listed below:
Create the app for the specific device and messaging API, such as Amazon Device Messaging, Apple Push Notification Service, or Google Cloud Messaging. Use SNS’s CreatePlatformApplication function to create a server-side representation. Call the SNS CreatePlatformEndpoint function to register devices as your server code becomes aware of them. Call the Publish function with the device’s Amazon Resource Name (ARN) to send messages directly to a specific device. Call the same Publish function, but use the ARN of a topic to send messages to all devices subscribed to that topic.
A fast, simple, and efficient approach to pushing server notifications to your mobile device is to create an alert via the Happy Apps service. Happy Apps lets you monitor apps, databases, and servers. You can create checks and alerts for the web, MySQL, MongoDB, Redis, Riak, and ElasticSearch. Happy Apps is a robust app-management solution that supports SSH and agent-based connectivity to all your apps on public, private, and hybrid clouds. It offers dependency maps that help you determine the impact IT systems have on other apps.
All Happy Apps server checks are collected in easy-to-read reports that can be analyzed to identify repeating patterns and performance glitches over time. If you would like to save time, trouble, and money when managing your servers, visit the Happy Apps site and sign up for a free account.[[wysiwyg_imageupload:6157:]]Our DC Entertainment source who has been providing us information on Man of Steel, the Justice League Movie and Batman reboot, has sent over a batch of Star Wars Episode VII news.
Our source says he had the luxury of talking with someone from Lucasfilm who sent over the following details.
Our source does state to take it as a rumor, though.
• Star Wars Episode VII will be set 30 years after Episode VI: Return of the Jedi
• It will indeed feature the Skywalker/Solo children coming to the peak of their powers
• The Jedi Order has been rebuilt with Luke Skywalker as Grand Master
• A disciple of Emperor Palpatine aims to rebuild the Sith Armies of the Old Republic and destroy the Jedi where the Skywalker children will be thrust into battle and face their inner demons of their Skywalker lineage.
Again, this is what our source heard and notes to definitely take it as a rumor.
Our source previously provided us information on the first news about the Man of Steel spearingheading a DC shared universe, the first news about the Justice League 2015 film and Batman 2016 reboot as well as some scenes from both the Green Lantern movie and the new Superman movie, and more.
Star Wars Episode VII has a 2015 release date directed by J.J. Abrams.
Head on over to the Cosmic Book News Star Wars hub for more news.On the cusp of the 2016 NFL season, our analysts provide their predictions, including the winners of individual awards, playoff teams for each conference and Championship Sunday/Super Bowl forecasts.
Elliot Harrison: Packers. Green Bay's defense is slightly behind Minnesota's, but the Packers' offense will be much more explosive than the Vikings' Bridgewater-free unit. Green Bay's immense advantage at quarterback -- with Jordy Nelson healthy and Eddie Lacy slimmer -- should make the difference.
David Carr: Packers. Jordy Nelson is back and Aaron Rodgers is going to take advantage of that.
Charley Casserly: Packers. Initially, I thought this would be the best race in the NFL, but the Teddy Bridgewater injury really hurts Minnesota.
Ike Taylor: Packers. The Packers' offense will be more balanced and the defense is solid. It will come down to the end, but Green Bay edges Minnesota here.
Dave Dameshek: Packers. Like Ali v Frazier, Green Bay v Minnesota is compelling because of the massive stylistic differences. The Vikings' rugged approach knocked Rodgers & Co. down last year. This year, the Pack soars back to the top -- and would've even if Teddy B had been under center for Minnesota. (12-4, No. 2 seed)
Chris Wesseling: Packers. Outside of an Aaron Rodgers injury, everything that could go wrong did go wrong in 2015. That won't happen to the re-stocked 2016 Packers.
Colleen Wolfe: Packers. Sort of process of elimination in this division.
Heath Evans: Packers. I initially had the Vikings winning their second straight division title, but Teddy Bridgewater's injury will hurt them. Green Bay is back on top in the North.
Marcas Grant: Packers. This offense could set records this season. When healthy, this team is head and shoulders above everyone else in the division.
Adam Rank: Packers. I really want to put the Bears here. I'll show some decorum.
Alex Gelhar: Packers. The Vikings are an ascending young team, but the Bridgewater injury is a huge blow and we all know who the true King of the North is.
NFC EAST
Judy Battista: New York Giants. The Cowboys were the pick, until Tony Romo got hurt. The Cowboys won't collapse like last year, but this is just enough of an opening for a vastly improved Giants defense to pair with an explosive offense to prevail in a middling division.
Jeffri Chadiha: Washington Redskins. The Cowboys are the most talented team in this division, but the Redskins will have their starting quarterback available in Week 1.
Gil Brandt: Giants. Eli Manning and a defense that has to improve on its No. 32 ranking from 2015 will carry the East despite having to start and end the season on the road.
Maurice Jones-Drew: Dallas Cowboys. Dak Prescott/Tony Romo, Dez Bryant and Ezekiel Elliott will make up for a mediocre defense and get this team back to the postseason.
Brian Billick: Giants. Often times, winning free agency doesn't translate to winning games in the following season, and while the Giants made some splashy signings, they were also very strategic. Not to mention, Eli Manning is easily the most stable quarterback presence in the division.
Gregg Rosenthal: Philadelphia Eagles. In the worst division of football, I'll take Philadelphia's front seven over anything else.
Willie McGinest: Eagles. I think the Eagles have the most talent on the roster, especially on the defensive side of the ball.
Adam Schein: Redskins. I was all set to pick Dallas, and I still think the Cowboys will be in the mix with Dak Prescott. But I'll take the Redskins to go 10-6, Cowboys 9-7.
Bucky Brooks: Giants. Eli Manning and the Giants' electric receiving corps torch foes up and down the schedule. Odell Beckham Jr., Sterling Shepard and Victor Cruz each top the 1,000-yard mark, as the Giants roll into the playoffs behind one of the hottest offenses in football.
Elliot Harrison: Cowboys. Taking a chance on Dak Prescott here. Dallas stays in the race until Week 8. Tony Romo will return by then, with key defensive players also back in the lineup.
David Carr: Cowboys. I want to pick the Giants, but their offensive line makes me nervous. If Romo plays more than five games, the Cowboys win this division.
Charley Casserly: Giants. Despite an unimpressive preseason, they will win the division with the best QB and defense.
Ike Taylor: Redskins. The Redskins are the most balanced team in this division. They will hold their place at the top.
Dave Dameshek: Giants. It's hard not to like what Kirk Cousins did last year -- and the roster in D.C. is even better this season -- but future HOFer Eli Manning is gonna put up some huge numbers in a defensively-poor East. (10-6, No. 4 seed)
Chris Wesseling: Cowboys. With Ezekiel Elliott entering the league at the superstar level, the offense is loaded enough -- yes, even without Tony Romo for at least the first couple months -- to carry a questionable defense for the second time in three years.
Colleen Wolfe: Cowboys. Dak leads them to the division title, and Tony Romo cries himself to sleep in a Fort Worth motel.
Heath Evans: Eagles. This division might be the worst in the NFL, but I think Philly is the team with the least amount of holes.
Marcas Grant: Giants. This could be the most topsy-turvy division in the league. Tony Romo's injury leaves a big opportunity for Big Blue to prosper in 2016.
Adam Rank: Cowboys. Somebody has to win this division, I guess. Looking forward to the Dak Prescott era.
Alex Gelhar: Redskins. Tony Romo's injury and questions all across the roster for both New York and Philadelphia leave the Redskins as the favorite to win this division and repeat.
NFC SOUTH
Judy Battista: Carolina Panthers. The division is improved, the Panthers have a tougher schedule than last year and the impact of losing Josh Norman's attitude is yet to be seen, so maybe they don't get to 15 wins. But a young and deep roster should get them back to the playoffs.
Jeffri Chadiha: Panthers. The Panthers won't go 15-1 again, but they are still the class of this division.
Gil Brandt: Panthers. This team won't win 15 games again, but repeat MVP Cam Newton and repeat Coach of the Year Ron Rivera push this super-complete team to at least 12-4.
Maurice Jones-Drew: Panthers. After last season, I can't go against Cam Newton.
Brian Billick: Panthers. It's hard to argue with Cam Newton's development, and while his play is never going to resemble the dropback approach the NFL has been defined by for decades, he is knocking on the door of the elites at the position.
Gregg Rosenthal: Panthers. Can they turn into a Seahawks or Patriots-like organization that ranks in the top five each year? Expect them to come back to the pack in a better division.
Willie McGinest: Panthers. The other teams in this division will be improved from last season, but the Panthers will win it once again.
Adam Schein: Panthers. Cam Newton once again brilliantly guides the Panthers to the playoffs.
Bucky Brooks: Panthers. Cam Newton is unable to sustain his MVP-caliber play in 2016, but he finds a way to keep the offense humming with Kelvin Benjamin and Devin Funchess playing big roles in the passing game.
Elliot Harrison: Panthers. Carolina takes the division again. While Cam Newton might not be able to replicate his 2015 campaign, the Panthers simply are better than every team in their division.
David Carr: Panthers. Nothing convinces me that they will drop off.
Charley Casserly: Panthers. Tampa is a year away.
Ike Taylor: Panthers. Ron Rivera's offense is only going to get better with the return of Kelvin Benjamin. Cam Newton must be happy about that.
Dave Dameshek: Panthers. There's very little to quibble about with this roster, so instead I'll provide a tepid reminder that most Super Bowl runners-up tend to fall back the following year. (12-4, No. 1 seed)
Chris Wesseling: Panthers. Make it four consecutive division crowns for Ron Rivera's squad, which is poised to join the Patriots and Seahawks as perennial superpowers.
Colleen Wolfe: Panthers. Run it back.
Heath Evans: Panthers. The other three teams in this division aren't strong enough to overtake Ron Rivera's group.
Marcas Grant: Panthers. Cam Newton is still a bad man, and even without Josh Norman, the Panthers' defense is still one of the most fearsome in the NFL.
Adam Rank: Panthers. Should be motivated still after last year's disappointing finish.
Alex Gelhar: Panthers. Cam Newton and this defense are too good to not win this division for the fourth straight season.
NFC WEST
Judy Battista: Arizona Cardinals. They and the Seahawks could flip spots, but the Cardinals' powerhouse offense -- which set a franchise record for points scored last year -- could be the difference maker.
Jeffri Chadiha: Cardinals. The Cardinals have talent up and down their roster, with defensive end Chandler Jones giving them the pass rusher they desperately need.
Gil Brandt: Cardinals. With an improved defense (thanks largely to Chandler Jones), the Cardinals will edge the Seahawks in a very close race.
Maurice Jones-Drew: Seattle Seahawks. Even without Beast Mode, Seattle is going to take back the West.
Brian Billick: Cardinals. Arguably the most complete roster from top to bottom in the NFL, the Cardinals can win by putting up 40 points or pitching a defensive shutout.
Gregg Rosenthal: Seahawks. Their defense is as loaded as ever and Russell Wilson's young receiver group has a chance to grow up with him.
Willie McGinest: Cardinals. This team just has so much talent and the right man leading the way.
Adam Schein: Cardinals. 1-53, the Arizona Cardinals have the most talented roster in the NFL.
Bucky Brooks: Seahawks. The "Legion of Boom" helps the Seahawks' D rank as the top-scoring defense for the fifth straight season. With Russell Wilson and Co. lighting it up on offense, the Seahawks head into the playoffs with the NFC's No. 1 seed.
Elliot Harrison: Cardinals. The Cardinals might not have enjoyed a fantastic preseason on multiple levels, but they can still equal the talent level of any team in the league. Carson Palmer must fare better than he did in the postseason.
David Carr: Cardinals. They are probably the most complete team in the league, despite struggling a bit in the preseason.
Charley Casserly: Cardinals. Throw out the preseason. The Cards will edge out Seattle.
Ike Taylor: Seahawks. The defense has proven it can lead this team far. The run game should open up the pass for Russell Wilson and Co., getting them back to the top of the NFC West.
Dave Dameshek: Seahawks. In the latest NFC West Juggernaut head-to-head rivalry, I'll take the team with Wilson over the one with Palmer. (11-5, No. 3 seed)
Chris Wesseling: Seahawks. This could be the most talented roster of the Pete Carroll/John Schneider era, which is high praise indeed.
Colleen Wolfe: Cardinals. Don't worry about Carson Palmer's preseason. Write that on the chalk board 100 times until you believe it.
Heath Evans: Cardinals. This team is so talented and knows how to win. The Cardinals have a perfect mix of veterans and young guys, along with one of the best coaches in the league.
Marcas Grant: Seahawks. Marshawn Lynch might be gone, but this team will live and die on the play of Russell Wilson. That's not the worst position to be in right now.
Adam Rank: Cardinals. The Cardinals are poised to make that next step. And really, I just kind of want it to happen after watching "All or Nothing" on Amazon.
Alex Gelhar: Seahawks. A rejuvenated ground game with Christine Michael and Thomas Rawls helps get the Seahawks back on top in the West.
NFC WILD CARD 1
Judy Battista: Seattle Seahawks. They easily could win the division, too, and another Super Bowl run wouldn't be a surprise. With Jimmy Graham returning and Russell Wilson's continuing development, the offense should be better than ever.
Jeffri Chadiha: Seahawks. Russell Wilson took another big step in his development during an impressive second half in 2015. Watch what he does this fall.
Gil Brandt: Seahawks. A great defense along with a very good quarterback leads a squad that could very well finish first in the NFC West.
Maurice Jones-Drew: Arizona Cardinals. This team is way too talented to be at home in January.
Brian Billick: Seahawks. The Seahawks play the Cardinals in Week 16 and that very well might decide the division. While I picked the Cardinals to win, the Seahawks might be the second-best team in the entire NFC.
Gregg Rosenthal: Cardinals. It's a shame that perhaps the best two rosters in football reside in the same division.
Willie McGinest: Seahawks. Pete Carroll always has this group in the mix. This year will be no different.
Adam Schein: Seahawks. The Seahawks still have an elite defense with an MVP-caliber quarterback in Russell Wilson.
Bucky Brooks: Cardinals. The Cardinals challenge the Seahawks for the best record in football but are forced to settle for a wild-card berth when the offense falters down stretch.
Elliot Harrison: Seahawks. Seattle will be a wild card once again, but it doesn't mean the 'Hawks can't make it to the Super Bowl. The offensive line and running game will be key. The Seahawks should be a tough out.
David Carr: Redskins. This team is solid and made the playoffs last year. Kirk Cousins will help lead this team back.
Charley Casserly: Seahawks. Russell Wilson and the defense lead them to the postseason.
Ike Taylor: Minnesota Vikings. Adrian Peterson and the defense will carry this team into the playoffs.
Dave Dameshek: Cardinals. The Cards' third-best WR is better than many team's No. 1. Question is, which of their three great WRs gets the bronze medal? (11-5, No. 5 seed)
Chris Wesseling: Cardinals. Every skill-position player returns from a high-octane offense, and the defensive pass rush should be significantly improved. The Cardinals remain a Super Bowl contender.
Colleen Wolfe: Seahawks. Russell Wilson and Ciara will Instagram every second of the season. Pray for America's children.
Heath Evans: Vikings. The Vikings rely on their defense and run game, and both are strong enough to get them back into the playoffs.
Marcas Grant: Cardinals. The Redbirds could lose a tough division battle to the Seahawks, but it would be a major upset if they missed the playoffs altogether.
Adam Rank: Chicago Bears. The Bears were really close in a lot of games last season.
Alex Gelhar: Cardinals. The new additions on defense (Robert Nkemdiche, Chandler Jones) help the Cardinals make another trip to the postseason.
NFC WILD CARD 2
Judy Battista: Washington Redskins. The Vikings would have edged Washington for this spot before Teddy Bridgewater's injury, but now the well-balanced Redskins have enough balance to take the final wild card.
Jeffri Chadiha: New York Giants. The Giants added a lot of defensive talent in the offseason. Those moves will pay off big in the long run.
Gil Brandt: Tampa Bay Buccaneers. A new head coach (former offensive coordinator Dirk Koetter) and improved play by Jameis Winston make the Bucs much better than they were in 2015.
Maurice Jones-Drew: Minnesota Vikings. With last year's playoff loss in mind, the Vikings will make a good run. It doesn't matter that they won't win the division.
Brian Billick: Vikings. Adrian Peterson's window is closing and the Vikings will need him to dominate once again and carry them to the playoffs after the loss of Teddy Bridgewater.
Gregg Rosenthal: Buccaneers. A team is ripe to emerge from the NFC South as a contender to Carolina's throne. Jameis Winston's second-year leap will edge out a Saints resurgence for the last spot.
Willie McGinest: Vikings. Teddy Bridgewater's injury hurts, but a defense with talent on every level carries this team into the postseason.
Adam Schein: Buccaneers. Jameis Winston takes a major step forward in Year 2. Dirk Koetter is a major improvement as the head coach. And Roberto Aguayo makes kicks!
Bucky Brooks: Dallas Cowboys. Against all odds, the Cowboys roll into the playoffs behind a pair of rookie playmakers (Dak Prescott and Ezekiel Elliott) occupying key roles on offense. The duo plays at an all-star level to help the mask a defense that struggles getting stops.
Elliot Harrison: Redskins. Washington takes advantage of the Vikings' question marks at quarterback and outlasts the Lions and Giants for the final spot.
David Carr: Buccaneers. Jameis Winston's improvement will really show this season. The Bucs also have a good defense, so they will be competitive.
Charley Casserly: Redskins. Kirk Cousins proves he is for real.
Ike Taylor: Buccaneers. This is an under-the-radar team. The Bucs have a lot of young players with a lot of potential. Will potential turn into results this season? I think so.
Dave Dameshek: Buccaneers. Teddy B. didn't deserve that awful injury, but like Will Munny said in "Unforgiven," "Deserve's got nothing to do with it." As it is, Jameis is ready to fill the void with what'll be a strong offense and defense built around Gerald McCoy and Lavonte David, two of the very best -- if most underrated -- players at their respective positions. (9-7, No. 6 seed)
Chris Wesseling: Atlanta Falcons. Matt Ryan's offense will be one of the surprises of the 2016 season, flirting with 30 points per game.
Colleen Wolfe: Buccaneers. In an uncomfortably close game, Tampa comes from behind and clinches a wild-card berth on a game-winning field goal. Robert Aguayo never misses again. Years later, headlines read: "Aguayo Kicks His Way to Canton."
Heath Evans: Seahawks. This defense has been at the top for a while and I don't see the unit dropping off. Plus, Russell Wilson is always a threat in the pass and ground games.
Marcas Grant: Redskins. This spot might have otherwise belonged to the Vikings, but an injury to Teddy Bridgewater opens the door for Washington.
Adam Rank: Vikings. Let's be honest: It's not akin to the Packers losing Aaron Rodgers. The Vikings can survive with a game manager. They now go from Super Bowl contender to playoff team.
Alex Gelhar: Buccaneers. Teddy Bridgewater's injury opens the door for a new team here. A slimmed-down, focused Jameis Winston in Year 2 of Dirk Koetter's system pushes the Bucs over the hump and into the playoffs.Microsoft’s Insider Program that offers access to the first Windows 10 preview version is already available to interested users, but they should know the company’s privacy policy for Windows 10 contains some strange permissions that allow Microsoft to collect user data in unexpected ways, The Inquirer reports.
FROM EARLIER: Cortana is coming to Windows 10, but it’s not ready for the Technical Preview
Many computer users usually ignore terms of service or privacy policy documents, but they should pay attention to what the Windows 10 privacy policy has to say. The document reveals that Microsoft can collect and use voice information and even record text input for some applications, suggesting that Windows 10 can at any time send such data to the company without the user knowing what is happening.
“We may collect information about your device and applications and use it for purposes such as determining or improving compatibility” and “use voice input features like speech-to-text, we may collect voice information and use it for purposes such as improving speech processing,” the company says about voice data collection.
“If you open a file, we may collect information about the file, the application used to open the file, and how long it takes any use [of] it for purposes such as improving performance, or [if you] enter text, we may collect typed characters, we may collect typed characters and use them for purposes such as improving autocomplete and spellcheck features,” Microsoft writes about this unexpected Windows 10 key-logging feature.
To further improve its upcoming desktop operating system, Microsoft says it may collect even more data about users. “Microsoft collects information about you, your devices, applications and networks, and your use of those devices, applications and networks,” the Windows 10 preview terms state. “Examples of data we collect include your name, email address, preferences and interests; browsing, search and file history; phone call and SMS data; device configuration and sensor data; and application usage.”
More from BGR: Nexus 6 leak spills new details
This article was originally published on BGR.com
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This might be the real (and silly) reason there's no Windows 9World-famous ‘breastaurant’ Hooters is looking to expand its chain in Malaysia soon. ― AFP pic
KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 23 ― World-famous “breastaurant” Hooters is looking to open an outlet in Malaysia soon, according to Business Wire, as part of the international chain's expansion plan in Southeast Asia.
Hooters of America LLC said the six-year plan involves opening 30 outlets in Southeast Asia that, apart from Malaysia, includes destinations such as Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, according to a statement on the US-based news website.
The expansion plan, which may also see its entry into Hong Kong and Macau, is part of Hooters' development agreement with international franchisee Destination Resorts Co Ltd.
Hooters' first foray into Asia was in Singapore in December 1996.
Gary Murray, CEO of Destination Resorts Co Ltd, said his firm prides itself on introducing “fresh, exciting” dining concepts to guests and Hooters, he added, fits such a profile.
“The moment the doors opened to Hooters Phuket we realised the tremendous opportunity to greatly broaden our efforts to develop the Hooters brand across Asia,” he was quoted saying in the statement.
The Hooters name is a double entendre that refers to women's breasts, as well as the company's logo of an owl, which is a bird known for making “hooting” sounds.
Its wait staff, who are primarily young, voluptuous girls in revealing outfits, are referred to as “Hooter girls”.
The restaurant serves typical all-American grub including hamburgers, steaks, sandwiches, seafood platters and a variety of appetisers, and is famous for its specialty, the “Hooters buffalo-style chicken wings”.
According to the restaurant's website, the chain currently has 430 outlets in 28 countries. Almost all Hooters restaurants have alcoholic beverage licences.
Hooters’ planned arrival here may not sit well with religious conservatives.
Last January, several leaders in Muslim-majority Malaysia lodged protest over reports that world-famous Hard Rock Cafe was planning to open an outlet in Putrajaya, the country's administrative capital.
Responding to objections by Malay-rights group Perkasa, authorities here said should the franchise, which is known as a live music venue that serves alcohol, ever open its doors in Putrajaya, it would have to abide by regulations set by the local council.
The council's guidelines includes, among others, a ban on the sale of alcohol and obscene entertainment.Dancehall Artist Mr. Vegas Calls Drake “Fake” For His Use of Dancehall Music
Drake‘s recent dominance on the Hot 100 charts can partially be attributed to his venturing into the native sounds of foreign regions, especially Dancehall and Afrobeat. He’s worked with artists like WizKid and Popcaan in recent months, and relied heavily on a those sounds on collaborations with PARTYNEXTDOOR and Rihanna; his “Work” collab with the latter was the #1 song in the country for nine consecutive weeks. Even before this recent streak, “Hotline Bling,” one of the biggest hits of 2015 and Drake’s Views bonus track, borrowed the theme of D.R.A.M.‘s “Cha Cha,” which is heavily influenced by Latin culture and music.
However, not everybody is appreciative of Drake’s empirical spirit. Internationally renowned reggae and dancehall artist, Mr. Vegas, known best for his crossover hits “Hot Wuk” and “Tek Weh Yuself,” called Drake “fake” in a recent Facebook video rant, claiming that the Toronto rapper is appropriating their culture unfairly, and has never made a song with any of the reggae or dancehall artists that he shouts out. Infamously, a leaked version of one of the more popular songs on Views, “Controlla,” featured Popcaan, but the final version of the song was comprised of just Drake.
Vegas also made it very clear in his rant that, despite popular belief, Drake’s interpolation of dancehall music has not made life any easier for reggae artists, and that Views is 40-50% dancehall because Drake sees that it’s the hottest genre out right now.
Watch his full rant above.MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia criticized the Netherlands before talks with the Dutch king on Friday, accusing it of “inaction” in not preventing a Greenpeace protest at a Russian Arctic oil rig in which 30 people were arrested.
Netherlands' King Willem-Alexander (L) and Queen Maxima (C) meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow November 8, 2013. REUTERS/Alexander Zemlianichenko/Pool
Hours before President Vladimir Putin and Dutch King Willem-Alexander met in Moscow, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said the Netherlands was to blame because the Greenpeace icebreaker involved was registered in Amsterdam.
The September 18 protest against oil drilling off the Russian Arctic coast has strained relations between Moscow and The Hague.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich told a regular ministry briefing that the “provocative action” by Greenpeace, in which some of the activists tried to scale Moscow’s first offshore oil rig in the Arctic, had “grossly violated” Russian law.
“The whole situation, to a large extent, is caused by inaction of the Dutch state... when it was clear the vessel entered the Russian economic zone on purpose to knowingly carry out unlawful actions,” Lukashevich said.
Ties have also soured over Russia’s treatment of gays, including a law that prohibits the spread |
an outspoken advocate of exploited workers.
I am also personally and professionally against union-busting, in general. So much so, that I would not publish a strategy to disband the police unions until I found one that did not threaten unions in other fields. Fortunately, I was able to find and articulate just such a strategy. In Stop Blue Lives Matter I write,
“The nation’s leading law enforcement agencies are prevented from unionizing by the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act. After the Watergate scandal, there was a brief political window in which the public and government officials were afraid enough of abuses of authority by law enforcement, that there were willing to enact legislation that placed greater constraints on their ability to engage in misconduct and brought “efficiency and accountability” to law enforcement organizations operating at the federal level. Legislation that adds the national network of state and local law enforcement to list of those prevented from unionizing under the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act would ensure that police are held accountable by the federal government, facilitate the elimination of police unions, dissolve existing police union contracts, and prevent future obstructions created by additional police union contracts and legislation. The petition to support this reform can be found here.”
Conclusion
Clarke closes with, “In the meantime, Dr. Potter will continue to attack the men and women who put on uniforms and serve their communities with their hearts, minds, and muscle, while she writes behind her computer screen about how they remind her of modern-day slavers.”
Again this is a misrepresentation. I will continue to support communities targeted by police in their struggle — in our struggle — to protect our children and families and friends and neighbors from being criminalized for the color of their skin, the abilities of their body, the amount of poverty they must endure every day, the god they pray to, the country they came from, what gender(s) they are and what gender(s) they love…to protect them from being murdered for these same reasons. And yes, I will continue to write. From the grassroots. I will continue to educate. And I will continue to organize.
Some of this work will even be done at a computer. Using the internet. Here’s a link to my other articles on Huffington Post. The also serve to provide information about the struggle against police brutality, and they were also written at a computer.PARIS — French lawmakers Thursday backed a series of measures abolishing tax breaks and taxing the wealthy as the new Socialist government pursued efforts to kickstart the economy with a tax-and-spend programme.
The measures were part of the first budget bill presented by President Francois Hollande’s government since he unseated right-wing Nicolas Sarkozy in May with pledges to focus on growth instead of austerity.
The lower house National Assembly approved the first measure in the early hours of Thursday, ending a Sarkozy policy dubbed the “work more, earn more” rule of exempting overtime hours from payroll charges and income tax.
Lawmakers later voted to back an emergency rise in the ISF wealth tax applying to taxpayers with a net worth of more than 1.3 million euros ($1.6 million) and which is expected to bring in an extra 2.3 billion euros in revenues this year.
They also approved a tightening of the inheritance tax to reduce the exemption ceiling from 159,000 euros per child to 100,000 euros, the creation of a three percent surtax on cash dividends and the doubling of a tax rate on financial transactions to 0.2 percent.
With a strong majority in the lower house, the Socialists and their parliamentary allies were able to easily push through the measures despite some fierce opposition from right-wing and centrist deputies.
The policies are part of a revised 2012 budget up for approval. More measures are expected to be voted in later, including a 30 percent decrease in salaries for the president and ministers.
Lawmakers on Tuesday had already voted to scrap a planned increase in the value-added tax pushed through by Sarkozy to compensate for a reduction in payroll charges aimed at boosting competitiveness.
More fiscal steps promised by Hollande, including a 75 percent tax rate on annual incomes in excess of a million euros, are expected to be introduced next year.
During the debates Budget Minister Jerome Cahuzac defended the measures as “a tough effort asked of those who can” afford it.
The right accused the Socialists of “lying” during the campaign and of hitting the middle-class with unexpected tax hikes.
“The rich will pay a little bit more but those who will make the biggest efforts will be the small and medium” income taxpayers, former labour minister Xavier Bertrand told France Inter radio.
The French cabinet earlier this month approved the revised 2012 budget, which includes 7.2 billion euros in tax rises and 1.5 billion euros in spending cuts this year.
Tax increases are expected to raise another 6.1 billion euros next year.
France has made commitments to the European Union to reduce its budget deficit from 5.2 percent of GDP last year to 4.5 percent this year, aiming to get down to the EU limit of three percent in 2013 and to balance the budget in 2017.
The government is hoping that investment in infrastructure and job creation will reboot France’s stagnant economy, which is expected to have suffered a slight contraction in the second quarter.Yes, we mean his e-cigarette. Leo loves his vape pen, and he isn't going to let "society" or "laws" stand in the way of their eternal bond.
Above, you'll see the happy couple in a warm embrace, DiCaprio's mouth stands open just so, poised for a hit of that sweet, sweet vapor. Sure, he's sitting next to the legendary Alejandro Iñárritu, but who cares? There's no time for intellectual talk about making arthouse films, because Leo only has eyes for Vapey. Iñárritu may as well be chopped liver. (Bison liver, amirite?).
Are you so moved by this love that you'd like to see it in close-up form? Then feast your eyes below. Here we see his BFF in all its glory, with its sleek black form and it's "mysterious" oil. They are a perfect pair indeed.
Love wins tonight.(ABC News)
They were among the youngest at the Sikh temple near Milwaukee that deadly Sunday - and some of the bravest.
Amanat Singh, 9, and her brother, Abhay Singh, 11, were playing outside when they heard gunshots that sounded like fireworks. It was the start of the incident that eventually claimed six lives before the gunman shot himself.
"We saw a guy," Amanat said. "He got out of a cab and he fast-walked and hit two people who were getting into their car."
They children didn't hesitate. They ran into the temple to sound the alarm.
"As soon as we got in the kitchen, I started yelling," Abhay said. "I'm like: There's a guy with a gun! Hide! Hide!
Amanat said she feared, "that he's going to kill everyone."
The siblings were able to warn more than a dozen people to run and hide.
Harban Singh Farwaha was one of them.
"They saved my life," Farwaha said.
He added that they also saved the lives of "my wife, my daughter-in-law and many people."
Amanat and Abhay are happy they were able to do that. Amanat even said she feels like a hero.
"I feel proud because I saved lots of lives," she said.
Even so, she and her brother wish they could have done more.Heisman Trophy winner Johnny Manziel of Texas A&M did not finish his scheduled stay as a college coach/counselor at the 2013 Manning Passing Academy because he missed assigned meetings and practice sessions, apparently due to illness.
Some Internet reports have stated Manziel had been sent home by Archie Manning because of "partying," but camp officials were adamant those reports were inaccurate.
On Sunday, Paul Manziel told The Dallas Morning News his son was resting as he recovered from dehydration. In a text to the newspaper, Manziel's father said the quarterback was not football-ready but feeling better.
A camp spokesman released the following statement from the Manning Passing Academy, which was held at Nicholls State University in Thibodaux, La.
"Johnny Manziel did participate in some activities in the 2013 Manning Passing Academy as a college counselor/coach," the statement said. "After missing and being late for practice assignments, Johnny explained that he had been feeling ill. Consequently, we agreed that it was in everyone's best interest for him to go home a day early."
It was Manziel's first appearance as college coach/counselor at the passing academy after he had been a camper twice during his high school years.
"I enjoyed meeting Johnny," said Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning "I can remember a 20-year-old Eli [Manning] missing a meeting [at camp] and catching some flak. We always have counselors who leave early. Johnny was great with the campers for the time he was here. He had to leave early. I wish him the best and I want him to come back as a counselor next year."
Manziel could not be reached for comment. He apologized privately to camp officials for being unable to fulfill his commitment.
The Manning Passing Academy, in its 18th year, began Thursday evening and wrapped up Sunday morning. Manziel went home Saturday afternoon after missing the morning session.Apple and Google Talk Arbitration in Smartphone Spat
Apple and Google haven’t yet buried their respective hatchets over the patent litigation between them, but evidently they are willing to put them aside for a moment in the hopes of negotiating a broader peace.
A new court filing in the pair’s infringement case reveals that Apple and Google have been discussing the idea of resolving their dispute over standard essential patents via arbitration. Earlier this month, the companies exchanged proposals about hammering out some sort of global licensing agreement over standard essential patents, and both seem to agree that binding arbitration is the way to go. From the filing:
Apple is also interested in resolving its dispute with Motorola completely and agrees that binding arbitration may be the best vehicle to resolve the parties’ dispute. Accordingly, on November 8, 2012, Apple sent Motorola a letter agreeing that the parties should enter into arbitration and proposing the parameters of the arbitration. On November 13, 2012, Motorola responded to Apple setting forth further proposals for the scope of the arbitration, and the parties are now negotiating how to proceed. Included in the parties’ discussions are proposals for a stand-still to the parties’ pending litigations.
A stand-down in litigation? Binding arbitration? That’s a remarkable easing of tensions between two companies that have been sparring the way Apple and Google have. What happened?
A few things:
First, some background … We need to remember that Apple CEO Tim Cook hates patent litigation, which he sees as a “pain in the ass.” And he’s gone on record saying Apple would prefer to settle IP disputes where it can. “I’ve always hated litigation and I continue to hate it,” Cook told analysts in April. “We just want people to invent their own stuff. So if we could get to some arrangement where we could be assured that’s the case and a fair settlement on the stuff that’s occurred, I would highly prefer to settle than to battle.”
The patents Google acquired through its $12.5 billion acquisition of Motorola Mobility haven’t exactly proven a formidable weapon in the smartphone patent wars. Indeed, the patent portfolio Motorola first brought to bear in many of its cases against Apple has largely been winnowed down to standard essential patents the company is obligated to license on FRAND (fair, reasonable and nondiscriminatory) terms. And the fact that Google is using them as a weapon in these battles at all is drawing a lot of unwanted regulatory scrutiny ahead of the company’s imminent showdown with the FTC.
Now on to the specifics …
Sources say those “secret” settlement talks between Apple CEO Tim Cook and Google CEO Larry Page earlier this year went reasonably well, setting the stage for the sort of tentative stand-down that’s now been proposed.
Indeed, Apple actually made a settlement offer to Google earlier this year, sources say, but nothing came of it.
Despite that, high-level background discussions between the two companies continued.
Then, in October, Google abruptly withdrew a complaint it had brought against Apple with the International Trade Commission, not a month after the ITC agreed to review it.
Sources say that withdrawal, which was never explained, was not a coincidence. Could it have been a goodwill gesture? Possibly. Certainly, it’s a clear de-escalation. As best I can tell, however, Apple has not responded in kind.
So what now?
That’s not at all clear. Though Google and Apple are talking arbitration, they are far from agreeing on the terms of an arbitration proceeding — let alone a reasonable royalty base. It’s entirely possible they never make it to arbitration.
But at least they’re talking about it.
Apple and Google both declined to comment on their negotiations.Congressman Jared Polis of Colorado (who recently called for a ban of the U.S. Dollar in response to another congressman’s call to ban bitcoin) is scheduled to be delivering remarks at an event he helped schedule, which will feature a demonstration of Robocoin’s bitcoin ATM.
The event is slated to take place in the Rayburn House Office Building.
“We’re honored to be the first Bitcoin company welcomed with open arms to demo on Capitol Hill,” said Robocoin CEO Jordan Kelley.
So what’s the point of hauling an ATM to the Capitol? Well, it’s Robocoin’s opportunity to share what they do with the nation’s lawmakers. Hey, you might even find some congressmen and women buying a little bitcoin of their own.
Here’s what the invitation from Kelley to the event reads:
You are cordially invited to a demonstration of Robocoin, the world’s first bitcoin kiosk for buying and selling the popular and controversial digital currency. Come see a Robocoin demo, hear a brief bitcoin talk from Congressman Jared Polis, try buying bitcoin yourself and ask your burning bitcoin questions. This will be fun, plus you’ll see how Robocoin is raising the bar on KYC / AML compliance in bitcoin. Welcome to the future of anti-fraud, anti-identify theft and anti-money laundering – this is customer protection built for the 21st century.
The small event in slated to take place on the 8th of April from 4 to 7 PM.
This will undoubtedly serve as the first encounter with bitcoin for the congresspeople who will be attending (a list is not yet available). We think it’s pretty cool! [source: TechCrunch]HOW CAN U ALL FIGHT SO MUCHA BOUT PINNEAPPLES ON PIZZA I THINK WE ALL NEED TO JUST BE HAPPY THAT PIZZ EXISTS AND WE CAN ALL LOVE IT IN OUR OWN WAY LIKE THE SAYING GOES ‘U DO U’ ONLY THE ONLY WAY THAT 'U CAN DO U’ IS IF WE END CAPITALISM WHICH IS THE REASON WE THE PPL R ARGUING OVER PIZZA TOPPINGS!!!!! WE CAN ALL HAVE SUCCESS AND HAPPINESS IF WE TRY 2 WORK 2GETHER N MAYBE SHARE PIZAS AND RESPECT R DIFFERENCES I LOVE U ALL LETS LOVE THIS F’D UP WORLD THAT HAS SO MANY PROBLEMS BUT SO MUCH BEAUTY LIKE WOW WHEN DID U LAST SEE A SUNSET! EAT PIZZA AND WATCH A SUNSET AND THEN WE WILL BE CLOSER 2 THE TRUTH AND FORGET ABOUT PINNEAPOLS FIGHTS!!!!
—experimentalpizzablogPosted by
Mat Rooney
January 25, 2016 Email
Mat Rooney
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For more than 30 years, Trinidadian/long-time Halifax resident Stephen Hart was a part of Canadian soccer, from playing with the Saint Mary's Huskies to coaching the Men's national team. Among his other positions he held included technical director for Soccer Nova Scotia, head coach of Saint Mary's women's team and revered Nova Scotia amateur side Halifax King of Donair. He also spent Texaco and San Fernando Strikers of the TT Pro League, earning 7 caps for the Trinidad and Tobago national team. He served as the Canadian men's head coach twice, as interim in 2007 and as full head from 2009-12, leading the team to the 2007 Gold Cup semi finals and 2009 quarter finals. He exited the team (with a combined record of 20-10-15) following the failed 2014 World Cup campaign, which notoriously ended with a 8-1 loss to Honduras. He currently serves of the head coach of Trinidad and Tobago, which he's lead to back to back Gold Cup quarter finals and a Caribbean Cup final. We spoke to him about his time with the Canadian program, how the games has changed over 30 years, soccer in the Caribbean and the east coast, his career as a coach and player with Trinidad and Tobago, the 8-1 loss and his legacy. Canucks Abroad ("CA"): Since departing Canada, you've taken over the Trinidad and Tobago national team with great success. What do you feel has been the factor to your success with Trinidad and Tobago? Stephen Hart ("SH"): I would not say that it was great success, but we had a good run in two successive Gold Cups, which were quite similar to when I was in charge of Canada. With T&T the response from the players has been tremendous, considering the hardships they face and the well documented financial constraints faced by the Association. Another plus is that we have quite a few very attacking players with good balance. CA: When one looks at the current roster of the Canada men's team players' birth places, one of the first things you notice is the lack of east coast talent. Do you, as a long time Halifax resident, former technical director of Soccer Nova Scotia and head coach of Canada, feel there's a lack of support for young soccer players in Atlantic Canada? SH: Ante Jazic was a special player from the region and made the sacrifice to make football his profession. The region also produced several female players that made their mark on the National Team even at a WC level, those players were also on scholarships in the NCAA. Atlantic Canada needs to look within itself to raise the quality. In my time Provincial players were trained on a weekly basis, now its once a month. The Senior League was very competitive and we had a Select U21 that played in that League. Several players, both male and female were as I mentioned on scholarship in the US. Overall I do believe other factors exist that hinder development, the cost factor is one, it is a burden on parents, the better you are the more expensive it is for you to access training & games. Facility cost is pure madness and now most of the facilities built by the province, are user pay, children do not have free access. Another cost that now falls on parents. Last summer in Halifax I noticed facilities locked up and empty on a weekend!!! Makes no sense to me! CA: Prior to coming to Canada for education, you were a Trinidad and Tobago international player. Why did leave that? Was it just for education? SH: I had a tough decision to make, I was selected by coach Alvin Corneal for preparation for the 1982 WCQ, at 20 yrs old its was a dream. However, I had a good job, but I also wanted to experience life outside of T&T. University offered me that opportunity and I jumped at it. Though I was having a good run in the top league at the time and scoring regularly, I have to be honest, I am not sure if I would have made the squad at that time. CA: Over the 30 years you were involved with the game in Canada, what were the greatest developments you saw and what were the biggest set backs? SH: The popularity of the game accelerated at an amazing pace, it was no longer a game played by "foreigners" Canadian children male & female were all participating, the base became enormous. The game grew bigger than the infrastructure to support it and the expertise needed to guide it properly. The NASL & then CSL were fantastic for the game. It allowed young players to dream, many cut their teeth and learned the fundamentals of professionalism and moved on to bigger more established leagues. It remains a key factor in the rapid decline of the elite game and the missing element in player development. Quite frankly the programs being sold as elite player development were far from it (as I mentioned earlier very expensive on parents) and Canada continued to lose many talented players after the age of 18. As a result the elite pool of quality players was way too small. Having said that the lucky ones who went away to European clubs etc. did very well and gave a good account of themselves. Canada should of also embraced at the younger ages, more games in the winter periods as a player development model, example futsal and six/seven a-side with lines (no boards). CA: Do you feel the current system of 3 MLS teams and 2 NASL teams is the best fit for Canada's soccer future? SH: Well it's better than nothing and at least players have an opportunity, also I do believe the development model in these clubs are a bonus to Canada's National Youth teams'. I always felt Canada could of attempted to establish more regional leagues in the more populated parts of the country. It would have been great to see a league established from Quebec City to Windsor, Ontario similar to junior hockey. (Just an example). CA: What do you think of Canada's current coach Benito Floro and the squad he's put together? SH: His resume speaks for itself. I met him in Philadelphia, I think the job was a major learning curve for him in the first year and a half;, even with his experience. Like many of us before, organizing the team was never a problem, getting the most out of the attack remained problematic. Regardless of the coach you need quality in key positions. In my time once Canada lost Radzinski, Ali Gerba, Josh Simpson just before WCQ and then Dwayne DeRosario after the Panama game, attack could not help but suffer. However, the squad looks to have balance now, with the quality of Atiba, Larin and Hoilett, so I wish him and the team all the best. CA: How does the game in the Caribbean compare to games in North and Central America? SH: North America & CA should really hope that the Caribbean does not get organized in all aspects of its football. The talent base in Haiti, Jamaica, Suriname and T&T is amazing, with the other Islands catching up quickly, but a lack of funding stagnates the TRUE growth of the game, that is, the development models. The game is played, loved & enjoyed everywhere, there are established leagues to accommodate everyone. The quality of its footballers are very good, plus the athleticism is amazing. The top leagues are very physical, with decent technique, sadly they have lost the fan support and for me this takes away from the competitive demands necessary for players to develop. Lack of exposure to higher levels of play at a young age limits experience. Team and individual discipline, are at times, questionable and it leads to naive tactical decisions (or lack of it). However, the region continues to crank out players, T&T with 1.3 million people continues to be competitive in CONCACAF. CA: Looking back on the 8-1 loss to Honduras, what do you feel lead to such a result and is there anything that you feel you as the coach could of done differently?
SH: We lost De Rosario in Panama and Ocean got himself ejected in the Cuba game and on top of it all Jazic fell ill. Then the game was moved to 2pm, a perfect storm was developing. Having said all that, we had 10 points and still needed a result. In the opening 10 minutes we had two glorious chances and failed to convert. Honduras scored what looked like such simple goals and then we were 2-0 down. It all came crashing down. To be honest I could never put a finger on what exactly went wrong. In the dressing room 4-0 down I had two choices, concede defeat and go for damage control, or, go for it and see if we could at least get a goal or two. It was not to be. Looking back, I really don't know what I would have done differently. I thought I got the player selection right. In both rounds of games total, we only gave up 3 goals. Then we gave up 8 in one game, its unexplainable and unforgivable. Losing a game is always a possibility, sometimes the opposition is simply better on the day, or have better overall quality, but you should always give everything you have and be willing to suffer for the result. CA: Earlier you mentioned a hope to see more regional leagues start up similar to the junior hockey model, lately there's actually been some talk of a national league similar to the CFL starting up. What do you think of that approach? SH: You have to start somewhere and be brave. The idea is appealing and I do believe with the right planning & support structure it will greatly enhance football development in Canada. Players, coaches, referees, administrators, trainers etc. all will benefit greatly. CA: What do you think could be done to improve the game on the east coast? SH:Complex question with many avenues, First off you need funding and move towards a model that allows for a competitive league. Also players may need to be imported to mix with locals, so the product on view is a decent one. Atlantic Canada benefited in the past from many immigrants, imported players & foreign students involved in its football. However, once the rules were passed that limited their participation on a National & Provincial level, it discouraged growth and diminished the quality. I must admit I don't have all the answers & have not given the program in its entity a lot of thought. If you are going to tackle player development seriously, you must have a vision for what are the gains for all the sacrifice. What do you want your end product to look like? What will be the benefits for individuals? Etc. All the leagues should be extended over many more months. Atlantic Canada needs more proper facilities and they should be subsidized & be made available,. Training is very limited in winter, there is no reason the 11 v 11 game could not be played in the Winter ( similar to Norway & Iceland). Right now the facilities are money making ventures, 7v7 games take over and the indoor league is longer than the Summer league. Can't say I agree with this, unless your vision is football for all and recreation. CA: Recently your Trinidad and Tobago assistant coach Dwight Yorke has been throwing his name into the race for various Premier League team's (Aston Villa and Sunderland for example) coaching positions. What kind of head coach do you think he'll make? SH: Dwight I have known since he was 12 and even back than you could see he was single minded. He came from a very small island & difficult childhood to achieve great things. So he knows what it takes to achieve. He has played under great coaches and has had unique and varied football experiences. These factors I what I believe will serve him well, how he manages today's players will prove a bigger challenge than the football itself. Having said that, I think he will do very well once given the opportunit.. CA: A lot of Canadian fans have mixed emotions about your time as manager, some feel you were to not right for the role while others feel you were simply the victim of a generational shift with the players. How do you feel looking back at your tenure? SH: One thing I have learned in football & life is that you cannot please everyone. Personally I had some good runs with Canada, three GC's, two of which we played some good football and on both occasions we were out under very controversial footballing circumstances. Mr. Fonseca and myself looked at the squad and we knew that my WCQ a generational shift was on the horizon and in order to compete we had to remain healthy (physically & mentally). Looking back at the squad objectively you would see its peak around 2006-10. However. by the time my third GC & the WCQ rolled around, we simply did not have enough depth and the young players coming through were not ready. No excuses, but we lost Radzinski, Gerba, Simpson. Stalteri retired, Friend had injury issues and was not playing at his club, unfortunately, & Atiba had knee surgery (slowly returning) and then we lost DeRo after Panama. We lost not only a lot of potential attacking players, but also leadership and experience. Yet we were in with a chance for the Hex, for me the telling game was Honduras at home, we should have won that game comfortably. It all came apart in one game & regardless of what I say, my time in charge of Canada will always be judged on one game, nothing will erase that & I accepted the responsibility for that. For more questions to Stephen Hart, as well as other Canadians abroad, please visit Some Soccer Playing Canadians.43 SHARES
By Andy Balaskovitz
In towns up and down Michigan’s Great Lakes coastline, one organization is stepping into planning efforts to make those places more resilient to the effects of climate change.
Resilient Michigan, a project of the nonprofit Land Information Access Association community planning agency, has spent the past year and a half in five towns updating master plans to account for planned changes associated with climate change. Its aim is to expand to more places in Michigan, possibly inland if funding is available.
“We saw a lot of climate adaptation plans (in cities throughout the state) that seemed like separate, stand-alone documents,” said Resilient Michigan planner Harry Burkholder. “They didn’t integrate well with day-to-day planning activities, master plans or ordinances. This seemed pretty important: Could we integrate a resilient adaptation plan with conventional master planning processes?”
It’s been less than two years since the project began and each of the five communities – St. Joseph, Grand Haven, Ludington, East Jordan and Monroe – are still working on their new plans. The group is launching an effort in another west coast town, Holland, this month. Funding comes from a variety of organizations, including the Kresge Foundation, the Americana Foundation, the state of Michigan and the University of Michigan.
In most cases, details about energy policy have not been worked out, but the topic is certain to receive consideration, Burkholder said. It could take the form of zoning ordinances for new generation or simply overall goals the community wants to meet. Some municipalities are already leading by example in efficiency.
Retrofitted municipal buildings are an “opportunity for people to see how things work and people can see it’s doable,” said Whitney Waara, executive director of the Land Information Access Network.
And while most of the planning centers around the economics of tourism, one of those places – Monroe County, about 40 miles south of Detroit and the only east coast community working with Resilient Michigan – is unique for its close ties to the energy industry. DTE Energy, the state’s largest investor-owned utility, has a major coal-fired power plant and a 1,100 MW nuclear plant in the area. This fact received special attention in Resilient Michigan’s reportfrom October 2013.
“The economic impact of renewable energy in the Monroe Community is dwarfed by the two more traditional generation facilities,” the report says. “However, perhaps owing to its long-time role as an ‘energy town,’ this Community is demonstrably more aware of costs, benefits and new opportunities in energy generation and smart use.”
The area already is saving tens of thousands of dollars a year from energy efficiency measures, the report notes: “Efficient use of energy is a crucial component of a resilient community. Reduced energy usage also reduces costs, pollution, and vulnerability to disruptions in supply.”
Burkholder added that Monroe County “was kind of forward thinking about its energy future” because of its close ties with DTE.
‘It’s on everyone’s list now’
While most of the towns taking part in the project are on the west coast, which is notable for its support for conservative politicians, Burkholder said these places were “actually more receptive about ideas of climate change. On the east side, we had to tone down some of the language we use or even come up with words that address climate change and adaptation without saying those words exactly.”
The Associated Press documented this issue in September, showing climate adaptation work being done throughout the country, including in Michigan, without calling it that. (One of the towns profiled was Grand Haven, which is working with Resilient Michigan.)
That may be starting to change, though, as communities live through extreme weather conditions like last year’s severe flooding in southeast Michigan.
“Those climate impacts became real, very quickly,” Burkholder said.
Tom Cannon, East Jordan’s city administrator, echoes Burkholder on this point and said Resilient Michigan’s work comes “ironically at a good time.” Fluctuating water levels in the boating community, as well as last year’s harsh winter, started a community discussion about climate change, he said.
“If we would have done this two and a half years ago, I think (the community’s) attitude would have been different. It was perfect timing for (climate change) to be brought up,” he said. “It’s on everyone’s list now.”
Sticking to a plan and state support
A challenge for this type of community-wide planning when new development occurs is in actually conforming to a master plan once it’s in place. A developer may seek zoning or land use exemptions that are contingent on the project happening.
Wide community buy-in for the final plan, Burkholder said, is a remedy for that.
“We believe that through a robust and active civic engagement process, you get the vision and goals that really speak to the community,” Burkholder said. “When you have that kind of participation, those ideas are firmly footed with what the public wants.
“It’s easier said than done, but we believe civic engagement is a big part of that.”
Moreover, at least in East Jordan’s case, overhauling the city’s master plan (which Cannon said hasn’t been updated since 1999) is an opportunity to follow something that’s relevant, Cannon said.
“We’re starting from scratch, is what we’re doing,” he said.
When the topic turns to ways in which towns can be more energy independent (or, “resilient”), perhaps through more local, distributed generation, the state of Michigan has yet to take a leadership role for a statewide policy, said Matt Howell of Resilient Michigan.
“In other places, the state is really a driver or not of incentives like that,” he said. “In some other places I’ve lived, it’s a priority of that state to get that done. I think it’d be great to see that kind of leadership here.”
In the last legislative session, a bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced an “energy freedom”bill package that addresses these issues. It remains to be seen whether that legislation is taken up again in 2015.
“The potential for incentives at the state level: That’s the kind of thing that would really help if communities were aware of something available to fund a project,” Waara, the LIAA executive director, said. “That’s the kind of thing that will definitely bring that conversation forward.”
Andy Balaskovitz reports for Midwest Energy News where this story first appeared.Ted Cruz said Thursday he’s “eager” to work for Donald Trump — just months after the Texas senator was humiliated by the president-elect during their brutal GOP primary fight.
Cruz’s name has been floated as a possible attorney general in the new administration, and he appeared more than willing to consider that gig.
“I’m eager to work with the new president in whatever capacity I can have the great impact, defending the principles that I was elected to defend,” Cruz told “Fox & Friends.” “Defending the principles of freedom, defending the Constitution.”
Cruz said the onus is on Republicans to lead, now that the GOP controls the White House and both chambers of Congress.
“We’ve got to deliver,” he said. “It is time to put up or shut up.”
Cruz’s eagerness to work with Trump belies the acrimonious relationship between the two during the GOP presidential primary.
Trump famously branded Cruz “Lyin’ Ted” throughout the race.
And he got even more personal, linking Cruz’s dad to JFK’s assassination, and mocking wife Heidi Cruz’s looks.From the estimable Diane Ravitch, we get a look at a letter sent by some of the parents of the students at the Hudson Yards middle school in New York City, a school that’s part of the Success Academy charter network. The Success Academy network is run by Eva Moskowitz, a charter-school proselytizer who makes a little more than half-a-million dollars a year running her empire. Bear in mind that Moskowitz is putatively a liberal and is regarded in many quarters as the best the charter movement has to offer. Anyway, the letter is quite striking.
HYSA faculty broke our children’s spirit and erased their self confidence in less than 3 weeks. Our children who once loved the SA, who were proud of being a part of a great school, rallied in Albany and other events, now simply no longer want to go to school. Some of our children are getting physically sick, experiencing meltdowns, vomiting, having nightmares and/or having sleepless nights and are unable to concentrate etc. Some of our children have even requested to be homeschooled although they had been award winners and popular last year. Intimidation and Detention of the scholars: Since school started most of the scholars were detained at least once for reasons that can hardly justify such an extreme measure. Examples:
• Not locking their hands
• Not completing homework that was confusing, in some cases assignments not even given to them in the first place
• For unintentionally and/or accidentally breaking wind or burping in the classroom
• On October 2, 2017 approximately 50% of the school was detained
• Some parents were informed about the detention 1 hour before it took place.
For almost 30 years, my father worked in what was then called an “inner-city” public high school. It was underfunded. It was coming apart at every seam. His last job was as its assistant principal and he was in charge of “student relations,” which is to say discipline. I can safely say that there wasn’t any particular day on which half the students there were in detention. That’s not educational. That’s a prison riot.
And this, if true, is just awful.
A terminally ill mother was trying her best to acclimate her daughter to the Hudson Yards Middle School community to be her second home. The future may turn out to be just like that. Unfortunately, the scholar’s grandfather passed away shortly after school started and the mother provided the school with her precise travel plans for the funeral. As the scholar’s grandfather was lowered into the ground, the mother received a phone call from her teacher but instead of condolences and support, this teacher demanded speaking about uncompleted homework.
There’s a |
the online store, too, which is managed by Tom Shannon.
Shannon, a tall man with a serious gaze offset by a soft-spoken disposition, came to Used Kids at the tail end of the CD boom and hung on through the tough times as others came and went. Armed with two decades of experience at Used Kids, a master’s degree in library science, and years of fronting deafening garage-punk trio the Cheater Slicks, Shannon is Hall’s trusted consigliere. He handles specialty buys that require the most expertise, as well as all of the store’s eBay sales, which has been an essential part of Used Kids’ business strategy since 1999.
Still, contrary to what you may hear about eBay carrying the lion’s share of sales at brick-and-mortar record stores nowadays, Shannon says the vast majority of sales—90 percent or more—still come from in-store purchases.
While some overseas sales remain strong (“Anybody who sells records sells a lot of soul records to British people,” Shannon says), most online business comes from U.S. customers. “Selling records is still very difficult, and only an extremely small percentage of records are highly desirable,” Shannon says. “The big issue with record stores is getting stock. It’s a very finite quantity out there. Getting original pressings of things is getting harder and harder.”
Some record stores refuse to sell online, claiming it robs walk-in customers the opportunity to find sought-after records. But Hall says Used Kids shouldn’t be a museum: “I do not want to see a $50 record sit on the floor. We sold a 7" single for $2,800 not too long ago, so I can get $2,800 in seven days, or I can let it sit here for years and hope the right person comes along.”
To keep the used stock fresh, Hall does home visits all over Ohio and beyond. Plus, he has a network of basement pickers. “I want a bunch of people feeding into this store,” Hall says. “I’m gonna miss a thousand deals every day, but I want to try to capture as many of them as I possibly can—every day, just jamming cool records in there.”
That philosophy carries over to new stock, as well. Hall orders far more new records than Dow did. On any given day, for example, you’ll find multiple sealed copies of Spoon’s back catalog at Used Kids. “Some stores order it in if someone asks, but that doesn’t work,” Hall says. “I realize the big capital risk, but that’s part of the cool factor: If you don’t have it, you can’t sell it.”A team of McGill students has invented a new type of sorbet, dubbed Frisson, that can be stored at room temperature until you're craving a frozen treat.
McGill food science graduate Karine Paradis says she and her teammates were trying to create something that was both delicious and shelf-friendly.
The result was Frisson: a non-dairy, vegan product that can be stored for up to six months on the shelf.
That means no more half-melted ice cream when you get home from the grocery store.
“When you’re ready to consume it, you just shake it, put it in the freezer, and then after four to eight hours you are ready,” Paradis told CBC's Daybreak.
How does it work?
Frisson is a liquid mixture that remains stable as long as it's sealed.
Once the package is opened, nitrous oxide stored inside will activate, turning the mixture into a frozen treat.
Paradis says Frisson is just as tasty as other sorbets.
“It’s absolutely beautiful, smooth... delicious,” she says.
“It’s really refreshing, you can’t not like it.”
Their flavours include hibiscus sorbet with ginger chunks, and almond-pistachio.
Paradis and her team will be heading to New Orleans later this week to compete at an annual food expo.
The group was selected as one of six finalists in the Institute of Food Technologist Students’ Association, an annual competition sponsored by MARS.Your backing would fund the printing of City of Ash, the first volume of Beatrice is Dead.
About Beatrice is Dead
When 16 year-old Beatrice Robinson seeks escape from her demons down the barrel of a gun, she doesn't count on coming face to face with them in the afterlife. Banded with a group of troubled girls, Beat battles to protect their souls from the damned while struggling to fend off her own corruption. With the help of her ethical guide, Byron, and The Worm--a shifty conspiracy-theorist and afterlife myth-debunker--Beat sets out to find her path before she loses her humanity to a disturbing and unresolved past.
UPDATE: For more on the making of Beatrice is Dead, check out this Bleeding Cool article on the graphic novel's origins.
Volume 1: City of Ash
City of Ash begins Beat's journey through an eerie world where reminders of her violent and troubling life lurk around every corner. She and her newfound companion, Josephine, seek help in the desolate and seemingly abandoned city. The girls quickly find their path fraught with dangerous residents--the lost and hungry dead. Taking refuge with Madame Dankles, the slippery owner of a halfway house, Beat and Josephine meet others like themselves and Beat faces nightmares far worse than soul-starved wraiths. As she contends with the byproducts of death, Beat begins to notice a change taking place within her. A change that threatens a terrible fate.
Everyone Has a Story
The comic is broken up by vignettes revealing the past lives and deaths of the individuals who cross Beat's path. Through these genre-bending "Final Hours" stories, we find that who a person was can shift how we see and define what she or he has become.
From serial killers to backwoods horrors, and even an Easter egg story for some of our backers, the Final Hours flash fiction stories take Beatrice is Dead outside of familiar horror territory and exposes death from all angles.
The Story Behind the Story
Beatrice is Dead began as a few chapters of a novel. Beat's journey through the afterlife was the translation of my fears about death and whether an afterlife exists, and about what would happen if someone took their problems there.
Beat's vivid story found its medium when Robert Burrows and I decided to collaborate on a graphic novel. While rewriting for the comic, Beatrice is Dead turned into a story not just about one character, but about the consequences of trauma--how the things we do to other people and ourselves have lasting and sweeping effects. The story expresses the terror of powerlessness, the depth of hopelessness, and the hard reality of overcoming both.
This is not a graphic novel that averts your eyes for you. It explicitly confronts some of the ugliest sides of humanity as well as some of the bravest.
The Incentives
We're offering a unique selection of incentives to backers, including tarot cards, some original artwork from the graphic novel, and personalized stories. See the sidebar for details.
FINAL HOURS TAROT CARD STARTER DECK SAMPLE
COVER ART
THE WORM ART
Psst! You can find more art and information about the graphic novel here: Beatrice is Dead Facebook Page.
City of Ash is currently complete and ready for print. Yes! All 88 pages are ready for immediate consumption. We just need your backing to make it happen, and you will get some cool stuff in return…
Credit: Video Animations by Seth MusseyIt’s hard not to hear about machine learning and neural networks these days since the practice is being applied to an ever increasingly wide variety of problems. Neural networks can be intimidating and look downright magical to the untrained (ah!) eye, so I’m going to attempt to dispel these fears by demonstrating how these mysterious networks operate. And since there are already so many tutorials on the subject, I’m going to take a different approach and go from top to bottom.
Goal
In this first series of articles, I will start by running a very simple network on two simple problems, show you that they work and then walk through the network to explain what happened. Then I’ll backtrack to deconstruct the logic behind the network and why it works.
The neural network I’ll be using in this article is a simple one I wrote. No TensorFlow, no Torch, no Theano. Just some basic Kotlin code. The original version was about 230 lines but it’s a bit bigger now that I broke it up in separate classes and added comments. The whole project can be found on github under the temporary “nnk” name. In particular, here is the source of the neural network we’ll be using.
I will be glossing over a lot of technical terms in this introduction in order to focus on the numeric aspect but I’m hoping to be able to get into more details as we slowly peel the layers. For now, we’ll just look at the network as a black box that get fed input values and which outputs values.
The main characteristic of a neural network is that it starts completely empty but it can be taught to solve problems. We do this by feeding it values and telling it what the expected output is. We iterate over this approach many times, changing these inputs/expected parameters and as we do that, the network updates its knowledge to come up with answers that are as close to the expected answers as possible. This phase is called “training” the network. Once we think the network is trained enough, we can then feed it new values that it hasn’t seen yet and compare its answer to the one we’re expecting.
The problems
Let’s start with a very simple example: xor.
This is a trivial and fundamental binary arithmetic operation which returns 1 if the two inputs are different and 0 if they are equal. We will train the network by feeding it all four possible combinations and telling it what the expected outcome is. With the Kotlin implementation of the Neural Network, the code looks like this:
with(NeuralNetwork(inputSize = 2, hiddenSize = 2, outputSize = 1)) { val trainingValues = listOf( NetworkData.create(listOf(0, 0), listOf(0)), NetworkData.create(listOf(0, 1), listOf(1)), NetworkData.create(listOf(1, 0), listOf(1)), NetworkData.create(listOf(1, 1), listOf(0))) train(trainingValues) test(trainingValues) }
Let’s ignore the parameters given to NeuralNetwork for now and focus on the rest. Each line of NetworkData contains the inputs (each combination of 0 and 1: (0,0), (0,1), (1,0), (1,1)) and the expected output. In this example, the output is just a single value (the result of the operation) so it’s a list of one value, but networks can return an arbitrary number of outputs.
The next step is to test the network. Since there are only four different inputs here and we used them all for training, let’s just use that same list of inputs but this time, we’ll display the ouput produced by the network instead of the expected one. The result of this run is as follows:
Running neural network xor()
[0.0, 0.0] -> [0.013128957] [0.0, 1.0] -> [0.9824073] [1.0, 0.0] -> [0.9822749] [1.0, 1.0] -> [-2.1314621E-4]
As you can see, these values are pretty decent for such a simple network and such a small training data set and you might rightfully wonder: is this just luck? Or did the network cheat and memorize the values we fed it while we were training it?
One way to find out is to see if we can train our network to learn something else, so let’s do that.
A harder problem
This time, we are going to teach our network to determine whether a number is odd or even. Because the implementation of the graph is pretty naïve and this is just an example, we are going to train our network with binary numbers. Also, we are going to learn a first important lesson in neural networks which is to choose your training and testing data wisely.
You probably noticed in the example above that I used the same data to train and test the network. This is not a good practice but it was necessary for xor since there are so few cases. For better results, you usually want to train your network on a certain population of the data and then test it on data that your network hasn’t seen yet. This will guarantee that you are not “overfitting” your network and also that it is able to generalize what you taught it to input values that it hasn’t seen yet. Overfitting means that your network does great on the data you trained it with but poorly on new data. When this happens, you usually want to tweak your network so that it will possibly perform less well on the training data but it will return better results for new data.
For our parity test network, let’s settle on four bits (integers 0 – 15) and we’ll train our network on about ten numbers and test it on the remaining six:
with(NeuralNetwork(inputSize = 4, hiddenSize = 2, outputSize = 1)) { val trainingValues = listOf( NetworkData.create(listOf(0, 0, 0, 0), listOf(0)), NetworkData.create(listOf(0, 0, 0, 1), listOf(1)), NetworkData.create(listOf(0, 0, 1, 0), listOf(0)), NetworkData.create(listOf(0, 1, 1, 0), listOf(0)), NetworkData.create(listOf(0, 1, 1, 1), listOf(1)), NetworkData.create(listOf(1, 0, 1, 0), listOf(0)), NetworkData.create(listOf(1, 0, 1, 1), listOf(1)), NetworkData.create(listOf(1, 1, 0, 0), listOf(0)), NetworkData.create(listOf(1, 1, 0, 1), listOf(1)), NetworkData.create(listOf(1, 1, 1, 0), listOf(0)), NetworkData.create(listOf(1, 1, 1, 1), listOf(1)) ) train(trainingValues) val testValues = listOf( NetworkData.create(listOf(0, 0, 1, 1), listOf(1)), NetworkData.create(listOf(0, 1, 0, 0), listOf(0)), NetworkData.create(listOf(0, 1, 0, 1), listOf(1)), NetworkData.create(listOf(1, 0, 0, 0), listOf(0)), NetworkData.create(listOf(1, 0, 0, 1), listOf(1)) ) test(testValues) }
And here is the output of the test:
Running neural network isOdd() [0.0, 0.0, 1.0, 1.0] -> [0.9948013] [0.0, 1.0, 0.0, 0.0] -> [0.0019584869] [0.0, 1.0, 0.0, 1.0] -> [0.9950419] [1.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0] -> [0.0053276513] [1.0, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0] -> [0.9947305]
Notice that the network is now outputting correct results for numbers that it hadn’t seen before, just because of the way it adapted itself to the training data it was initially fed. This gives us good confidence that the network has configured itself to classify numbers from any input values and not just the one it was trained for.
Wrapping upAbout this mod Some replacer for Aylied ruins Requirements DLC requirements DLC name Shivering Isles Permissions and credits Author's instructions If you want to use this for your mod, you can freely do so. File credits The maker of the Buddha-statues published them (Buddha statues) as a resource, but he/she is a deleted member. So who ever you are, Thank You!
Qarl: Made the original of the texture replacer.
I can not find the source or the maker of the lion statue mesh. I hope it is ok to publish this. If not let me know! How ever, the statue mesh is superb! Donation Points system This mod is not opted-in to receive Donation Points
After a request, here are the Angkor-Wat-like ruin replacers.
So, if you are bored of the same old ruins over and over again, this gives a very different look.
The towers require Shivering Isles, or at last a texture mod for it.
If you have Jungle For Everyone, you will not need the arches, install only the ArchesAndTowersForJungleForEveryoneUsers Folder and optional the BirdStatueAsTower Folder and Buddha statues.
I recommended to make a backup of your files, that you will replace, first. It are only a few nif files.
Also I do not recommend this for marble-white Ayleid ruins. The towers will look too out of place I think.
The arches/domes have no full collision, so nothing and no one can get stuck, as these domes are bigger than the vanilla arches.
If you want to use this for your mod, you can freely do so.GRAND RAPIDS - Grand Rapids FC's Noble Sullivan shared a quick embrace with his coach after Friday night's 1-0 victory over Indy Eleven at Houseman Field. "You can count on me to save the day," Sullivan was overheard telling George Moni. Actually, Sullivan did more than that. The 2009 Grand Rapids Catholic Central graduate helped save GRFC's playoff dreams before 6,912 fans. Sullivan's goal in the 70th minute was the difference in the National Premier Soccer League Midwest Regional semifinal. The victory sends GRFC into Saturday's 7:30 p.m. regional finals against
in Friday's opening game. Saturday's winner will advance to the July 30 national semifinals at a site to be determined. "It was a lot of hard work from the midfielders to get the ball up to me, and I just kind of switched gears for a second," said Sullivan, who played at the University of Michigan. "We knew their backline would be tired, especially after playing the first half in such sweltering heat. I didn't think too much about it. I just hit it and it went in." Grand Rapids, which earned homefield advantage for this weekend's tournament, had four shots in the game's first 10 minutes. But Indy survived GRFC's early onslaught, with goalkeeper Cody Schweitzer keeping GRFC off the scoreboard. But GRFC continued to keep the pressure on during the second half and was able to break through after Sullivan took a feed from Lito Esquivel. "It was a Superman effort, but at the end of the day, it was a team effort," Moni said. "He put icing on top of the cake, but from our goalkeeper to our defenders and our midfielders, we worked tirelessly up and down the field. "We are not here by chance. We are here because we prepared really hard. We are committed and dedicated and we have a family atmosphere. We believe in each other." GRFC, which captured the Great Lakes West championship this summer, limited Indy's opportunities. In fact, goalkeeper Noah Fazekas said his teammates made his job easy for him. "We were all over them for the first 20, 25 minutes, but they held us off," Fazekas said. "From there on out, we knew it was going to be a battle back and forth. "It was an easy day for me because I didn't have to do much. The defense played a perfect game. I don't think I had to make a save. It was an all-around team effort that got us the win." GRFC will have to take on a Cleveland team that defeated Ann Arbor in a shootout, 4-2. It was be the first meeting between the two teams. "We are going to talk to the coaches and prepare ourselves for tomorrow," Moni said. "We have to make sure we are focused and prepared. The thing is that we have to play our strengths. It's very easy to lose focus and focus too much on the competition and forget our own strengths. "We talked before the game about the positives that we have, the record that we have on this field (10-1). The support we have from our fans is unbelievable. It gives us a lot of energy."“‘Upstream Color’ is a stimulating and hypnotic piece of experimental filmmaking.” Justin Chang, Variety
“Dense, beautiful, hypnotic, and almost willfully opaque, ‘Upstream Color’ is a great movie.” Drew McWeeny, HitFix
“Heart-stoppingly beautiful, quite literally overwhelming.” Sam Adams, AV Club
“A deeply sincere, elliptical movie about being and nature, men and women, self and other.” Manohla Dargis, New York Times
“Bold, impassioned, ecstatically beautiful…in a class by itself at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival.” Scott Foundas, Village Voice
“The artistry on display is indisputable, and thrilling.” Christy Lemire, AP
“Intense and hypnotically powerful, and a more intimate and moving film than ‘Primer.’ ‘Color’ is somehow at once emotionally direct, while narratively abstract.” Mark Olsen, LA Times
“Mind-blowing! Plunges audiences into a realm of unknown pleasures.” Steve Dollar, Wall Street Journal
“A tour-de-force conceived and executed with rare sensitivity and intelligence.” Glenn Kenny, MSN
“A romantic examination of love, who we are as lovers, what our love does to one another, and how that’s connected to the nature of all things. It’s fleeting, transcendental.” Rodrigo Perez, The Playlist
“Full of big bold ideas that demand, and reward, close and careful viewing and contemplation.” James Rocchi, The Hitlist
“An elaborate intellectual concept fuels the film, but a rich sense of humanity gives it power.” Jeremy Mathews, Paste Magazine
“Tantalizes viewers with an open-ended narrative about overcoming personal loss.” Simon Abrams, Chicago Sun-Times
“Sundance Surprise: Did One of the Best Movies Ever Made Just Debut in Park City?” Lily Rothman, Time.com
“A love story as fractured as its lovers” Brian Raftery, Wired
“‘Upstream Color’ is a beautiful, poetic, quietly intense film” Jesse Thorn, NPR-Bullseye
“Carruth’s ideas are among the most philosophically sophisticated in the contemporary cinema.” Richard Brody, The New Yorker
“The experience of watching the film remains intensely transportive, resonating long after the credits roll and the lights come up.” Calum Marsh, Slant MagazineDallas, TX. (December 3, 2014) – Costa Sports Marketing has enlisted help from members of America’s Team to help bring awareness to the “Adopt Don’t Shop” campaign through Dog Rescue and responsible pet ownership. The 2015 calendar which features 12 Cowboys players (including Pro Bowl Left Tackle Tyron Smith, who is an active member in the rescue community and encouraged teammates participation) either photographed with their personal four legged companions, or pups available for adoption through rescue. Each month contains an educational piece as well on topics such as spay and neuter, pet safety tips, adoption of senior dogs, and on-going issues with puppy mills.
The profits on sales of the calendars, which are available now for purchase online via this link at $20 each, will go straight back to the rescue groups selling them. This includes DFW Lab Rescue (www.dfwlabrescue.org) who will have them on-site at adoption events, Paws For Irving (www.pawsforirvinganimals.org) who will have on-site at adoption events as well as for sale in the Irving Animal Shelter, and DFW Rescue Me (www.dfwrescueme.org) who will sell at adoption events but also make the calendar available to fans outside the Metroplex via their online store. DFW Rescue Me will also feature 50 limited edition copies autographed by Tyron Smith on their online store as well.
FOR INQUIRIES CONTACT: Leigh Costa costasportsmktg@gmail.com
Twitter: @CostaSportsMktgElephant populations
Instantly recognised around the world thanks to their trunks and tusks, elephants are the world's largest land animals. African elephant males are the biggest of the bunch, weighing in at up to 6 tonnes, while smaller Asian elephants can still tip the scales at 5 tonnes.Female elephants are social animals, living in herds with their relatives. Males usually live alone but sometimes form small groups with other males. All elephants need a lot of space, sometimes roaming over incredible areas to find enough food and water to sustain them.But their habitats are shrinking. African elephant habitat has declined by over 50% since 1979, while Asian elephants are now restricted to just 15% of their original range.Add in growing human-wildlife conflict and an upsurge in ivory poaching in recent years and it's easy to see why elephants are under threat.While some populations of African elephant are secure and expanding, primarily in southern Africa, numbers are continuing to fall in other areas, particularly in central Africa and parts of East Africa. With an estimated 415,000 elephants left on the continent, the species is regarded as vulnerable, although certain populations are being poached towards extinction. Asian elephant numbers have dropped by at least 50% over the last three generations, and they’re still in decline today. With only 40,000-50,000 left in the wild, the species is classified as endangered.And it is critical to conserve both African and Asian elephants since they play such a vital role in their ecosystems as well as contributing towards tourism and community incomes in many areas.So by helping protect elephants, we’re helping conserve their habitat, supporting local communities, and making sure natural resources are available for generations to come.From our in-house team: - Interesting wildlife facts and research Safari tips, travel and destinations News desk
EXTRACT FROM THE FOLLOWING THIRD PARTY SOURCE: Mwebantu New Media
The Zambian government has lifted the country’s hunting ban of big cats. Minister of Tourism and Arts Jean Kapata announced the lifting of the ban at a media briefing in Lusaka yesterday and said that hunting of lions will only resume in the 2016/2017 season, while that of leopards can start in the 2015/2016 season.
“I am lifting the ban on the following conditions: the guidelines are drafted into a statutory instrument so that they become part of the wildlife law. Lion hunting should only resume in the 2016/2017 hunting season and not this year. Leopard hunting can resume this year 2015/2016 season, but with very cautionary quotas,” Mrs Kapata said.
The ban on the hunting of cats was enforced in January 2013.
Mrs Kapata said safari hunting is profitable and good for wildlife which can benefit all citizens if properly handled.
She said since the adoption of community-based natural resources management approaches, safari hunting has contributed significantly to improving the livelihoods of rural communities.
The minister said the main thrust to safari hunting in Zambia is the cat hunting, which involves the shooting of the lion and leopard.
She said the suspension of the hunting in the 19 hunting blocks greatly affected wildlife resources and the livelihood of the locals in the game management areas.
“Government’s move to ban the hunting of lion and other cats on January 10, 2013 had a good basis with a background of weak regulatory mechanisms,” Mrs Kapata said.
She said some problems that led to the ban included declining lion populations in some areas due to over-harvesting, hunting of underage lions and depleting of the lion habitats.
Mrs Kapata said the leopard population was and is still healthy but hunting was affected because of lapses in monitoring aspects.
She said based on the advice given and fresh information from the field, ZAWA has produced documentation that describes the status of the lions in Zambia and prescribed guidelines that will be used to regulate cat hunting in Zambia.
“Some of the regulatory methods are currently being used in Tanzania, Mozambique and Zimbabwe. These have been found to be effective,” Mrs Kapata said.
She said Government is sure the methods will be useful in the regulation of cat hunting in Zambia.16-year-old Olly Hudson writes for PinkNews.co.uk about his experiences of being gay at a private all boys boarding school in the UK. He despairs at the homophobic environment and the lack of acknowledgement by the school that homosexuality even exists.
My name’s Olly, and I’m a 16-year-old from South Wales. I’m also gay. I decided to write this, mainly because I feel it’s time for someone of my background, to speak up for a whole swathe of the young gay population, who right now, are effectively ignored and left to fend for themselves by the mainstream media, and the environment in which they grow up.
I’m talking about being middle class. I’m talking about going to an independent day/boarding boys’ school, and I’m trying to get across to those who’ll listen, what it means to try and grow up in an environment where, perhaps, the most active and healthy part of any young person’s life, their sexuality, is repressed, ridiculed, though for the most part, willfully ignored by teachers and adults in positions of authority around them.
I haven’t always been a student at a private school, which for now will remain nameless. Until the age of 13, I, like most people, went to a comprehensive school. There, I was most comfortable and indeed spent most of my time in the company of girls. A seeming failure to ever really integrate and become ‘one of the boys’ was I’d admit, the main driving factor behind my decision to leave the school. When I reflect upon it, I wouldn’t have made the same decision to leave, had I my time again, though having not fully come to terms with my sexuality by the age of 13, this would never have played into any decision at the time. But leave I did, and I ended up in an all boys’ school. Again, probably not the most sensible decision on reflection, though that’s something that, really, I’ve realised more recently, as I finally accepted my sexuality, and came out to my closest friends.
I suppose, I wrote this too, to try and dispel a common-held ‘urban myth’ regarding boys’ schools, and boarding schools in particular. Generally, they’re seen as hives of latent homosexuality, places where boys, frustrated only in the company of other boys, inevitably turn to one another to experiment sexually, gay or not. It’s something widely caricatured in popular culture, though is let me assure you, a load of nonsense.
The reality is very much the opposite. So conscious are most of the boys in my school of the abundance of males (and rarity of females), not to mention the homosexual stereotype, that they go over and above to assert their masculinity, an apparently quintessential aspect of which is to see whose ‘banter’ can descend to the deepest depths of homophobic, inane, misogynistic abuse.
For most of the guys, this constitutes ‘banter’. In any other context, namely one in which women are present – i.e. real life – this would be abuse, though they refuse to see it as such, for who in an all boys’ school could possibly be offended or hurt in any way by this loutishness, when nobody who it affects is seemingly there to hear it? That is of course, forgetting the gay guys. There aren’t many of us, though naturally, there are more than you might think, though we are forced to sit there in silence, and endure an endless torrent of homophobic abuse, most of which is invariably ignored by male teachers. Would they continue if we outed ourselves? Who knows, but who are we to turn round and counter a class full of rowdy, senseless boys on a testosterone high? If we did, goodness knows the onslaught of abuse that would result.
As I said, I think most of this comes out of an insecure, alpha-male desire to demonstrate conclusively to the other apes, that ‘I’m not gay’, but there are more, pernicious, and continually dangerous factors at play. I feel let down by those in positions of authority within the school. I feel angry, that in all my time at this particular school, I’ve had not one PSHE (personal, social and health education) lesson on the subject of homosexuality. Not one assembly on homophobia and its consequences. Not even the slightest acknowledgement – unless prompted – from many members of staff, that homosexuality even exists. I felt liberated in a recent philosophy class, led by an outside teacher, to be able to start a discussion on the nature of sexuality, and to really try and get my peers to acknowledge that being gay exists, and that it’s not something to suppress or live in willful blindness of. I think that was probably the first time I used the word ‘homosexuality’ in a classroom.
Although incredibly damaging to countless gay teenagers going through the school, this conspiracy of silence is also incredibly dangerous. How can we expect to do anything about the worrying rise in HIV diagnosis rates among young gay men, when from my experience, there exists not little, but zero homosexual sex education? Those who are perhaps less conscious of the risks of anal sex, owing often, to parental silence on the topic, are time and again being let down by a system which at present, is abjectly refusing to equip young men like myself, with the vital information to ensure that they run no risk of contracting a potentially devastating chronic illness.
I’ve thought about it more and more, and every time I do, it enrages me no end. That’s why homophobic arguments from the bigoted right against same-sex marriage, in fear that it might prompt the teaching of homosexual sex in schools, are actually life-threatening. In this case, prejudice, leading to silence on the issue, actually serves young men with a death-sentence.
I don’t pretend that things are all rosy for gay guys in state schools, because they most definitely aren’t. Prejudice exists in all corners of our society. But there can be no doubt that more is done, at least to make teenagers aware of the nature of homosexuality in the state system, than is done in the private sector, where it feels often, like the school has some kind of ‘don’t ask don’t tell’ policy in place.
I just wish that the taboo of talking about all things gay could be broken, and that has to emanate from the example set by authority. If senior teachers in private schools like mine, are making no effort to counter the disgraceful tide of homophobia that is just so virulent across the independent system, then we simply won’t see a shift in attitudes in this, affluent, and of course, influential sector of the population. And that’s the really scary bit. Unfortunately, the statistics tell us, that generally speaking, it’s going to be these guys who are the leaders of tomorrow, both in the world of business, and in spheres of political influence, and as a gay man, that scares me, it really does.
If you wish to write a comment article for PinkNews.co.uk, simply email [email protected] and one of the editorial team will be glad to review it.Republicans are fast becoming the party of old, white, crotchety men. As their supporters inexorably totter towards mortality, and as the rest of the country gets more Asian, Latino and less pale, the GOP's long-term electoral fortunes look increasingly dire. With demographic apocalypse looming, the GOP has a couple of choices. They could try to appeal to people who are not quite so old, quite so white, or quite so crotchety. Or, alternatively, they could embrace their crotchetiness in an apotheosis of senile spleen and cloistered resentment.
Naomi Schaefer Riley is not the first to plump for the second. Still, her recent article on the evils of professor activism is an inventive variation on the theme. Riley's article harkens back to the (of course, apocryphal) good old days of the late 19th century, when university professors didn't muck about in politics, but just taught their kids the basics of a humanities education. She concludes with this stirring call to abandon the barricades:
"Students have only a limited amount of time in which to learn the great foundations of an undergraduate education—and the rest of their lives to become agitators."
The assumption is that education has nothing to do with political engagement. Apparently there is some sort of pragmatic, value-free undergraduate experience which can be imparted to our youth, allowing them to fit comfortably into their apportioned lifetime cubicle without ever standing up to look over the little cardboard divider. One does wonder, though what exactly these "foundations of undergraduate education" look like, exactly. Are we supposed to read Dickens while carefully ignoring his blatant attacks on injustice? Are we supposed to study the Civil War without considering what it means for racial relations today? Do the earth sciences have no implications for the global warming debate? Is economics irrelevant to policy decision making? Admittedly, mathematics can often be portioned off from social or political issues—but I can't imagine that Riley is calling for a curriculum consisting entirely of calculus.
No doubt Riley would argue that you can study political topics without actually engaging in politics. You can just read over the different positions objectively, carefully not committing yourself to one view or the other. Students will have plenty of time later to care about ideas and the world around them. Right now, they're too young to think or act. They need to just sit there like sponges. Bored, immobile, docile sponges.
The truth is that when Riley says that students will have plenty of time to be activists later, what she really means is that she doesn't want them to be activists at all. She laments that students aren't learning the basics, but the rest of the piece betrays her real interests. If she cared about the students' educational failings, she'd focus on their educational failings—what they aren't learning, what they should learn, and how the activism gets in the way.
But instead, she engages in that long conservative tradition known as "red-baiting." She sneers at women's studies and black studies departments for their sinister commitment to social justice. And in article’s opening, she speaks approvingly of Republican efforts to intimidate professors |
us Torvalds himself had been asked way back in 2003 whether the kernel developers considered a module to be a separate entity and, therefore, not subject to the GPL's copyleft clause that governed the rest of the kernel. Torvalds's answer was a resounding "no".
However, Choudhary considers the conflict between the two licenses to be resolvable and, along with her colleague, Eben Moglen, has published a paper explaining why. In her talk she explained that, even though a conflict existed, none of the parties, or even any third party, was being damaged if one or the other license was being infringed upon. The source code was still being freely distributed, regardless of whether it was being done under one license or the other. Therefore, even if the letter of one of the licenses was not being respected, at least "its spirit" was.
Choudhary and Moglen argued that enforcing a strict interpretation of the letter of both licenses would have, in this case, more negative consequences than positive. There are precedents in Western law for interpreting a contract or license in its spirit, rather than literally. In the case of the GPL, the spirit of section 2(b) is that the source code must be distributed under a copyleft license. As that is what happens under the CDDL, the spirit of the GPL's clause is respected.
This led to a rather heated Q&A session, with Moglen himself flying in from New York specifically to field questions on the matter. Before Choudhary's presentation, the attendees had listened to two talks that advocated taking a hard stance against all infringements and how taking infringers to court had served to establish the GPL and related licenses as valid legal documents (see last week's article on enforcement and compliance of FOSS licenses).
At this point, the Q&A had moved on to a fishbowl format, in which attendees could come up and sit on stage to share their thoughts. Many did.
Multiple attendees felt that interpreting clauses in the GPL "in their spirit" would undo the enforcement work and weaken the license's legal standing, leading to a slippery slope that infringers could take advantage of. "Why," an infringer could argue, "is clause 2(b) not taken literally in the Canonical case, but it is for me?" Attendees also felt that, by not applying licenses literally, developers that had already licensed their work under the likes of the GPLv2 would wonder why they bothered; and those that were considering using the license would now be reluctant, because the move to interpreting the license in its spirit would make it seem vague and ambiguous.
Moglen stated that this was already happening, but for a different reason: companies he worked with were "fleeing the GPL" because of its inflexibility. He argued that this case was an example of how applying a literal interpretation of the clause would cause more damage than good to the collaborative model of development, which is the cornerstone of the free-software movement.
Many attendees saw the argument as a way to appease a prominent player that had violated a license, and opened a door to a slew of "convenience" violations that would weaken strict licenses further. Moglen countered that he could imagine a scenario in which two FOSS-defending organizations entered in a dispute with each other over conflicting FOSS licenses and, if that happened, the legal war would tear the community apart.
That characterization may have been a mistake. Attendees took offense at the notion that, by defending the literal validity of the GPLv2, a license Moglen himself had been instrumental in creating, they would somehow be made responsible for a hypothetical demise of the free-software movement. As the morning sessions drew to a close, there was the prevalent feeling that the CDDL-GPL issue had opened a rift in the FOSS legal community.
Conclusion
The proliferation and complexity of FOSS licenses were bound to lead to a conflict sooner or later. As Choudhary and Moglen's talk and Q&A session showed, the question of whether it is better for the free-software community to always apply a strict interpretation of a license, or take a more lenient approach when it conflicts with a another FOSS license, remains unanswered. We will hopefully learn more as the conflict between ZFS and the kernel plays out.
[ The author would like to thank Red Hat and Intel for assisting with his travel expenses and the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) for help during the event. ]
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Inside this week's LWN.net Weekly EditionA group of researchers from MIT and Georgia Tech have built a device that can see through paper and distinguish ink from blank paper to determine what is written on the sheets. The prototype successfully identified letters printed on the top nine sheets of a stack of paper, and eventually the researchers hope to develop a system that can read closed books that have actual covers.
"The Metropolitan Museum in New York showed a lot of interest in this, because they want to, for example, look into some antique books that they don't even want to touch," said Barmak Heshmat, a research scientist at the MIT Media Lab and author on the new paper, published today in Nature Communications.
The imaging system works by using terahertz radiation, a frequency of light on the electromagnetic spectrum between microwaves and infrared light. Terahertz radiation is widely used in security screening, and it has a few advantages over other imaging techniques such as X-rays. Specifically, different chemicals absorb different amounts of terahertz radiation, creating a unique frequency signature for each material when the waves bounce back to a sensor, allowing the system to differentiate between ink and blank paper.
Between pages of a book, there are air pockets that measure about 20 micrometers. The system uses short bursts of terahertz radiation waves to distinguish between individual sheets of paper by measuring the difference in the refractive index—the way a material bends light—between the air and the paper. The difference in light wave absorption between the ink and blank paper then allows the the system to produce an image of the written letters.
Multiple algorithms work in conjunction to create a legible image of the print. The first set, developed by MIT, produce the raw imaged based on the signals picked up by the device's sensor. An additional algorithm developed by Georgia Tech takes the often blurry and incomplete raw images and identifies the individual letters.
"It's actually kind of scary," Heshmat said of the letter-interpretation algorithm in a press release. "A lot of websites have these letter certifications [captchas] to make sure you're not a robot, and this algorithm can get through a lot of them."
The biggest challenge to fine-tuning this system so it could read every page of, say, a 200 page book, is canceling out the interference, or "noise," that is picked up by the sensor. Although most of the light waves are either absorbed by ink or paper, or bounced right back to the sensor, some of the radiation bounces back and forth between pages before making its way back to the detector. This interference prevents the current device from counting beyond 20 individual sheets, and it can only read the print on the top nine.
However, advances in terahertz radiation technologies, a relatively new field, could see new devices built in the near future that would be capable of reading pages much deeper in a stack of paper. By both increasing the power of the radiation source and improving the detectors that capture the rebounding signals, the research team is confident that "big promises for imaging new and exciting things" are just on the horizon.
Source: MITThe Difference in Paint Sheen Options
Most people generally focus on color when thinking of their next painting project. But once your color is finally selected sheen can be a critical component as well. The sheen of paint is the basic measure by which light reflects off of the surface once it’s dry. The sheen of the paint can also determine if your paint looks how dull or how bright your paint looks in the light. The sheen of your paint is important regardless of whether you are interior painting, or exterior painting.
There are five different sheens to choose from:
Flat Finish:
A flat paint sheen generally reflects about 5 to 10 percent of the light that shines on it. Its ability to absorb more light can often make it appear darker, thus lending well to hiding imperfections in the wall such as dents, dings and changes in texture. However, the duller surface tends to show dirt well and it doesn’t generally hold up to scrubbing. It is the easiest paint to touch up.
Eggshell Finish:
An eggshell paint is a bit smoother than flat, allowing it to reflect a bit more light than a flat paint will reflect. It hides many imperfections well, and is generally durable and easier to wash than flat paint can be. These factors make eggshell a good choice for interior walls such as a living or family room area. This is the recommended finish for most interior walls.
Satin Finish
Satin paint falls directly in the middle of paint sheen scale, meaning that it’s slightly more reflective than eggshell paint. When you hear satin, the first thing that should come to mind is washability. The silky finish of satin paint stands up well to heavy washing which makes it a popular choice of paint in kitchens, bathrooms, hallways, and children’s rooms. It’s higher sheen makes it show more imperfections than a flat or eggshell paint, however, its high durability makes it a popular choice in areas that can require extra cleaning efforts to keep the walls looking clean. Recommended for Kitchens’ and Bathrooms.
Semi-gloss Finish
Semi-gloss paint can reflect 35 to 50% of the light that enters a room, and many find it far too shiny for use on walls. However, it’s extremely durable and is well suited for surfaces that get lots of dirt or hand prints such as trim, woodwork, cabinets and doors. Semi-gloss is also a popular choice in kitchens and bathrooms because of its high durability. Recommended for Trim
Gloss Finish
Gloss paint can reflect 50% of the light or more, thus painting large walls with it can seem discomforting because of the glare that can occur. The high sheen also can make small imperfections in the walls appear much worse than they really are. Effective uses of gloss paint can be achieved in utility rooms, playrooms, or on trim.
Still not sure what is right for you? Call us today for a free paint color consultation and we’ll help get you straight on what is the best fit for your home!From June 10-12, EA PLAY will be in Hollywood at the epicenter of entertainment featuring the biggest games of the year and hottest music, and today we're excited to share more news about some of the amazing experiences that we have planned for you. Eight-time platinum recording artist Nas will be joined by DJ Green Lantern and Dave East for a free live concert on Saturday, June 10 from 6 - 8 pm for everyone that attends EA PLAY. Widely celebrated as one of the greatest artists of all-time, Nas has received more than a dozen Grammy nominations since his debut album Illmatic in 1994. Joining the stage with Nas is DJ Green Lantern, a long-time DJ for some of hip hop's top artists, and Dave East whose mixtape Kairi Chanel hit the US Billboard 200 last year.
At the heart of EA PLAY is the player FanFest, which will feature over 140 hands-on gaming stations, demos, live music and more. EA PLAY gives fans the chance to play:
We also have a few special surprises for our fans at EA PLAY. Each day of the show, the first 2,000 fans that play Star Wars Battlefront II will get a numbered, limited edition poster. On Sunday and Monday, we’ll be giving away 500 copies of Madden NFL 17 and FIFA 17 to the first 500 people to play Madden NFL 18 and EA SPORTS FIFA 18, respectively.
EA PLAY is open to the public, and tickets are free. The FanFest schedule is:
Saturday June 10 from 4pm - 8pm
Sunday June 11 from 12pm - 6pm
Monday June 12 from 12pm - 5pm
At the center of the Hollywood Palladium, hundreds of our global community creators will be participating in the EA Game Changers Creators Cave, where they’ll get the chance to capture early game footage, edit content to share, livestream directly from the show and interact with our studio development teams.
If you can't make it to Hollywood and are following online, be sure to visit EA.com starting at Noon PDT on June 10 to watch our 90-minute show, “Live at EA PLAY,” and stay locked to the site through June 12 for live interviews, in-depth gameplay walkthroughs and a behind-the-scenes look at the event.
Whether it's in Hollywood or joining us online, we hope to see you during EA PLAY. In the meantime, be sure to follow us on Twitter to stay up to date on all things EA PLAY!Georgia’s Secretary of State Brian Kemp claimed in a letter this week that the Obama Department of Homeland Security tried to breach the state’s firewall.
Brian Kemp sent a letter to DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson asking for an explanation of this attempted breach into their networks.
Cyber Scoop reported:
Georgia’s secretary of state has claimed the Department of Homeland Security tried to breach his office’s firewall and has issued a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson asking for an explanation.
Brian Kemp issued a letter to Johnson on Thursday after the state’s third-party cybersecurity provider detected an IP address from the agency’s Southwest D.C. office trying to penetrate the state’s firewall. According to the letter, the attempt was unsuccessful.
The attempt took place on Nov. 15, a few days after the presidential election. The office of the Georgia Secretary of State is responsible for overseeing the state’s elections.
“At no time has my office agreed to or permitted DHS to conduct penetration testing or security scans of our network,” Kemp wrote in the letter, which was also sent to the state’s federal representatives and senators. “Moreover, your department has not contacted my office since this unsuccessful incident to alert us of any security event that would require testing or scanning of our network. This is especially odd and concerning since I serve on the Election Cyber Security Working Group that your office created.”Take a feminist out to dinner.
That's the advice of a social psychologist who concludes in a new study that feminists make better partners and have stronger romantic relationships.
Laurie Rudman of Rutgers University had found in earlier research that negative stereotypes of feminists--that they're unattractive, man-hating lesbians, in a nutshell--cause young adults to distance themselves from the "F-word" and tone down their demands for equality. A majority of college-age respondents agreed with such statements as "Most men would probably not want to date a feminist" and "Romance depends, in part, on men being allowed to be in charge."
This was alarming to Rudman, who is old enough to remember the heyday of the women's rights movement in the 1970s. Continued efforts to achieve gender equality could be seriously hurt, she reasoned, if women (and men) think it comes at the expense of love.
So, with the help of graduate student Julie Phelan, she set about trying to determine if there was any truth to the notion that feminists are more likely than traditional women to have crummy relationships.
The results, appearing in the online edition of the peer-reviewed journal Sex Roles, show that for both women and men there was a benefit to having a feminist partner. Feminist women were also more likely than others to be in a romantic relationship.
"If you're a woman paired with a male feminist," said Rudman, "you have a healthier relationship across the board"--better in terms of relationship quality, equality, stability and sexual satisfaction.
"And men paired with female feminists have greater sexual satisfaction and greater relationship stability," she said. "So, [there were] higher scores on two of the four dimensions, with no difference on the other two."
There you have it: Feminists are sexy.
"Contrary to popular beliefs, feminism does not disrupt men's pleasure in the bedroom," said Rudman.
That makes perfect sense to counselors like Gina Ogden, who says "the cultural missionary position--man on top" isn't conducive to romance.
"If a relationship is based on authoritarian control, keeping one person on top and the other underneath, it gets old pretty fast--for both partners, really," said Ogden, a Boston sex therapist who surveyed 3,810 people for her book "The Heart and Soul of Sex."
"In an egalitarian relationship, there is more flow of give and take," she said, "and that's the romantic tension. That tension--the sexual desire--is in that space between you where you're able to flow back and forth."
In her experience, said Ogden, "where there's caring, sharing, openness and honesty, sexual satisfaction increases. It not only feels good now, but it is likely to get better and better as you age."
Chicago psychotherapist Sue Scheffler, who treats couples, seconds that emotion.
"What's important is mutual respect," said Scheffler. "If you're married to someone with feminist values--someone with a sense that men and women have the same worth--that would be a key factor in terms of your health and satisfaction in the marriage, whether or not you call yourself a feminist."
She added: "No woman wants to be a slave, and I don't think even a somewhat enlightened guy would want to be a meal ticket. There has to be some role satisfaction, whatever you've elected to do, and you have to feel like your partner respects your choice."
For the study, the Rutgers researchers designed two surveys, one for college sophomores in the laboratory and the other an online questionnaire for older adults.
The subjects--513 students and 471 adults ages 18-65 recruited online--were asked how they felt about career women and whether they considered themselves feminists. They were also asked about their partners' feminist identity and attitudes.
Not surprisingly, feminism scores among the subjects were tepid. The mean for women in the college group was 6.2 on a 10-point scale, and the mean for men was only 4.9. (The men's average score was slightly higher in the older, online group.)
Next, they were asked a series of questions intended to get at four measures of relationship health: quality (for example, "How often do you and your partner laugh together?"), equality ("How often do you and your partner disagree about your role in the relationship?"), stability ("How often do you think about finding another partner?") and sexual satisfaction ("How often have you considered having a sexual relationship with someone other than your partner?").
As for the notion that strong, independent women can't get a date, Rudman and Phelan asked the subjects about their sexual orientation, whether they were currently in a relationship, and how attractive they thought they were ("I seem to be very popular with the opposite sex").
It turned out that self-identified feminists were no more likely to be homosexual or to consider themselves unattractive, Rudman said: "There's zero correlation." And they actually had a better chance of having a romantic partner.
"There goes the spinster idea," said Rudman. "If you're a feminist, men are slightly more likely to want to be in a relationship with you."
Leonore Tiefer, a sex researcher who practices in New York City, hailed the study. "I agree with the premise," she said. "Let's get a little data about these claims that feminists have lousy sex lives or can't get along with men or can't sustain relationships."
But Tiefer noted: "We don't really know what the subjects meant by 'feminism' or'sexual satisfaction,' so the study is really about labels."
Since word of the study started leaking out, mostly online, Rudman said she has received a lot of attention. "There are a lot of angry bloggers out there," she said. "We're accused of being man-hating, radical lesbians. One blogger wrote, 'I Googled them--they're both dogs.' That put a dent in my graduate student's naivetM-i."
So, what about the investigator's personal life?
"I was lucky," said Rudman. "I found a feminist guy and we've been married over 30 years."
- - -
Feminism scale
Researchers used these questions to assess whether the respondent was a feminist and whether his or her partner was a feminist. The person's score was obtained by averaging the three answers. Among college students, the mean score for women was 6.2 and for men 4.9.
"I am (my partner is) a feminist."On the occasion of this wonderful op-ed on how Barack Obama's Nobel Peace Prize is a violation of our nation's founding document, let us examine the recent crimes of the Washington Post opinion section.
Under editor Fred Hiatt, the Post op-ed page has gone completely off the rails. They picked up Bill Kristol after the Times dumped him for being not just wrong but boring and lazy. They openly allow George Will to lie, to straight-up lie, without fact-checking or corrections, because we all know reality is open to different "interpretations" and if a prominent columnist writes something patently untrue the best response is to then publish a "true" column by someone else as a counterpoint, because that doesn't just represent everything misleading and terrible about the moden political press. They still publish Richard Cohen. The regular columnists are, for the most part, interchangeable ancient "moderate" liberals who haven't written or thought anything vaguely interesting since 1974. Anne Applebaum was allowed to publish a blog post in support of Roman Polanski without disclosing that her husband is Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, who opposes extradition. Richard Cohen, again.
And on October 10, the Post published an insane editorial on how the Nobel Prize should've been awarded to a murdered Iranian protester. This suggests that either the entire editorial board doesn't know that Nobel Peace Prizes are never awarded posthumously or they simply don't give a shit. The piece is still not corrected, because presumably any "correction" would have to read "the entire premise of this editorial is bullshit, sorry."
So how do you follow that up? How about by running an op-ed by a law professor and a right-wing think tank goon about how Obama's Nobel Peace Prize was... unconstitutional, maybe? Who knows! Who cares! They acknowledge that two other sitting presidents have received the award, but they do not even do the meaningless-but-intellectually defensible thing of arguing that those awards were also unconstitutional, they just say this time it's different because Obama got it so therefore Congress should forbid him from accepting it, because of the House of Saud.
In conclusion, blogs are killing newspapers by being irresponsible and not caring about "the truth."The second round of the Irish Daily Mail FAI Cup produced little fanfare, but it did confirm one thing to me: the First Division clubs are dying on their feet.
That might sound a little drastic, but look at the facts. From the eight teams involved, one side progressed in Athlone Town's narrow 3-2 victory over Liffey Wanderers.
Three sides crashed out of the competition to non-league opposition. This fact is all the more concerning considering there was only one win for a non-league side in the previous two seasons combined.
"I have a lot of sympathy for the First Division clubs. To put it simply, nobody cares."
I'm not taking anything away from those non-league sides that progressed. Well done to them, but should they really be beating First Division teams?
And I'm not trying to make any excuses for the results of Waterford United, Cobh Ramblers or UCD, but I do feel there are contributing factors.
The standard of football on show in the league has regressed, with the exception of Dundalk.
The gap between league teams and non-league teams is getting smaller by the day and if we are serious about football in this country, that shouldn't be happening. If anything, the gap should be widening.
I don't just include the second tier teams in that – there are Premier Division teams falling into that category also. So why is this happening?
Obviously, all the clubs have had to curb their spending in recent years. I don't think it's a bad thing but the standard of player we saw during the Celtic Tiger times is not there any more.
Smaller wages means reduced quality. There are very talented players dotted around the League of Ireland, don't get me wrong, but generally I do feel the standard has regressed.
Focusing on the First Division clubs, they have even less money to spend due to the fact that they are cast aside as some kind of black sheep of the SSE Airtricity League. It's an even tougher battle.
The clubs are so reliant on young kids coming through the ranks and they almost have to be taught the game all over again when they get there.
As has been highlighted, grassroots level football is so behind the times. Thankfully it is beginning to change but the 18, 19 and 20-year-olds are trying to make their way in league football when they are just not ready in many cases.
They should be arriving at their respective clubs from schoolboy football already having a fair understanding of the game, but instead they are having to be taught the basics all over again and in turn everything is getting jammed.
Managers that want to work on tactical or technical stuff have to walk players through the basics and the whole development of the player and the team is slowed down.
I have a lot of sympathy for the eight teams involved. To put it simply, nobody cares. It's a terrible shame considering some of them have a history and tradition that deserves much more.
It's a sad indictment of Irish football that Waterford, Shels and others are left to suffer such a slow death. They are not living, not even existing, they are dying.
I’ve mentioned previously about how these sides need help, and a move to a one-tier division.
I really thought it was a good idea a couple of years ago. Since then, the standard of football overall in the league has got worse so I'm not sure if it would be a good change.
But something needs to happen and at least then the First Division teams may feel a part of something because right now they are a part of nothing.
They may be there on paper, but certainly not in soul. Their existence is one of loneliness, isolation, with little prospect of getting better. It's like anything that is unwanted and unloved, it quickly goes away.
I didn’t play in the First Division but I know lots of people involved in it and exactly how much it means to them to be involved and just how much they care. There are great people doing Trojan work with little or no thanks and it shouldn’t be this way.
All sports have their problems - you only have to look at the hot topic in the Gaelic games world with the Leinster Football Championship.
But the reason these debates crop up is because current systems are not working.
Ironically enough one of the suggestions I heard for changing our league structure was to make it provincial.
I'm open to any ideas or suggestions that can improve the game and most importantly improve the clubs because right now there is nothing.
I've always heard of the fabulous Waterford United teams with the great Alfie Hale.
It would be great to see them in that light again. My best experience in football came when I played at Shelbourne but those days are a far cry away now.
I often look in from the outside at the people who put the money into the clubs and find myself asking the same question, why do they do it?
They do so because they absolutely love the game and love their club, so it's high time those in the second tier got something back, and at least, a bit of hope.WASHINGTON -- One group was not surprised by the collapse of Kevin McCarthy's campaign for speaker: The ultra-conservatives inside and outside the House who have made clear since the rise of the tea party that they have no use for politics as usual.
They have always been upfront: Anyone who believes that President Obama poses a grave threat to our constitutional rights -- and that Republican leaders have sold out conservative principles for decades -- has no choice but to throw sand into the gears of government. For them, governing with Obama means furthering the collapse of the republic.
Let's go back to 2010 and see what conservative politicians were saying.
"They think if they make government so large and the debt so big it will be impossible to reverse it," one Republican warned ominously of the Democrats. "Who would have thought America could be going the way it's going now? With government taking over businesses? With government taking over health care? We've always believed in freedom as a country but now we're starting to understand that we have to fight for it." The goal: "unshackling the grip that Washington has on so much of our lives."
The GOP leadership, he said, lost its way. "The Republican base was angry about the way the party had betrayed its principles," declared this firebrand, referring to the George W. Bush years. "Under Republican leadership in the early 2000s, spending and government got out of control. And as government grew, there were scandals and political compromises."
The author of these words: Kevin McCarthy in a 2010 book called "Young Guns" he wrote with Eric Cantor and Paul Ryan. Cantor is gone, defeated by tea partyers in 2014. Ryan has good reason to fear the consequences of trying to lead the crowd he and his colleagues helped bring to Congress.
Let's stop blaming the Republican far right for what is happening to the party. The party leadership brought this onto itself with phony promises and incendiary but empty rhetoric. The right wing, at least, has the courage of its convictions.
Permit me to channel the Freedom Caucus crowd that has every right to tell its leaders: You betrayed us. You talked a good game when you recruited us. We said the harshest things about President Obama and you didn't rebuke us. You claimed to be as alienated from the old GOP as we were.
In that book, Paul Ryan used tea party language, saying that "business in Washington these days isn't being conducted the way our Founders envisioned." Republicans had "lost the true path," he said, and the Republican House in the Bush years -- the one he was part of -- was run by "machine-like people." Any surprise that we're still raging against the machine?
You young guns said we could get rid of Obamacare -- and then you gave us dozens of show votes that meant nothing. You, Kevin McCarthy, talked about repealing the bank bailout and unwinding "the vast amounts of government spending and mandates that distorts the innovation and free enterprise in our financial services industry, our health care system, our car companies, our energy sector."
How's that going, pal?
Kevin, you're also the guy who said that "should we regain the American people's trust, we will insist that our feet are held to the fire." Bet you never imagined that your toes might be toasted a little.
And now the whole house of cards has collapsed.
There are a few Republicans who have stood up to the madness. Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., is aghast that his caucus has become what he called a "banana republic." Rep. Charlie Dent, R-Pa., has talked of coalitions with Democrats to face down his own party's "rejectionist wing." Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., has repeatedly criticized tactics based on shutdowns and brinksmanship with no chance of success.
But they are exceptions. Again and again, McCarthy and other GOP leaders tried to pretend that two utterly incompatible views of what it means to be an opposition party in a republic that separates executive and legislative power could coexist. They tried to avoid debate over what conservatism means and whether compromise is acceptable. They made inflammatory pronouncements to appease the right wing, a form of disrespect for conviction politicians who care about outcomes and not just words.
Republicans have a big choice to make about what kind of party they are. But they're most likely to keep papering over their divide with psychobabble about "healing." This won't work. Just ask John Boehner. Or Kevin McCarthy.
(c) 2015, Washington Post Writers GroupAccording to a new study published today from the American Civil Liberties Union, major social networks including Twitter, Facebook and Instagram have recently provided user data access to Geofeedia, the location-based, social media surveillance system used by government offices, private security firms, marketers and others.
As TechCrunch previously reported, Geofeedia is one of a bevy of technologies used, secretly, by police to monitor activists and the contents of their discussions online.
The ACLU said in a blog post that both Twitter and Facebook (which owns Instagram) made some immediate changes in response to their study’s findings.
“Instagram cut off Geofeedia’s access to public user posts, and Facebook cut its access to a topic-based feed of public user posts,” the ACLU said.
The ACLU also noted in their post:
“Neither Facebook nor Instagram has a public policy specifically prohibiting developers from exploiting user data for surveillance purposes. Twitter does have a ‘longstanding rule’ prohibiting the sale of user data for surveillance as well as a Developer Policy that bans the use of Twitter data ‘to investigate, track or surveil Twitter users.’”
On Tuesday, following the publication of the ACLU findings, Twitter announced that it would “immediately suspend Geofeedia’s commercial access to Twitter data.”
Based on information in the @ACLU’s report, we are immediately suspending @Geofeedia’s commercial access to Twitter data. — Twitter Public Policy (@Policy) October 11, 2016
A Facebook spokesperson tells TechCrunch:
“[Geofeedia] only had access to data that people chose to make public. Its access was subject to the limitations in our Platform Policy, which outlines what we expect from developers that receive data using the Facebook Platform. If a developer uses our APIs in a way that has not been authorized, we will take swift action to stop them and we will end our relationship altogether if necessary.”
It’s worth noting that Facebook’s platform policy generically limits developers.
For example, it says developers are not permitted to “sell, license, or purchase any data obtained” from Facebook or its services. And they can’t transfer data they get from Facebook, including “anonymous, aggregate, or derived data,” to any data brokers. Finally, developers are not permitted to put Facebook data into any search engines or directories without the social network’s explicit permission.
We have reached out to Geofeedia for comment but executives were not immediately available for an interview.
A public relations consultant for Geofeedia sent a lengthy statement, attributed to Geofeedia CEO Phil Harris, defending the company’s practices in general. An excerpt follows:
“Geofeedia is committed to the principles of personal privacy, transparency and both the letter and the spirit of the law when it comes to individual rights. Our platform provides some clients, including law enforcement officials across the country, with a critical tool in helping to ensure public safety… Geofeedia has in place clear policies and guidelines to prevent the inappropriate use of our software; these include protections related to free speech and ensuring that end-users do not seek to inappropriately identify individuals based on race, ethnicity, religious, sexual orientation or political beliefs, among other factors. That said, we understand, given the ever-changing nature of digital technology, that we must continue to work to build on these critical protections of civil rights.”
Update: A company statement from Geofeedia was added to this post after it was originally published.Their combination of fuzzed-out audiences and moody soul mystified audiences in the 90s – but now pop music has finally caught up with them, two decades on
Daniel Chavis remembers the first time the Veldt were labelled “difficult”. Back in the early 90s, his North Carolina quartet had just recorded an album in London with Cocteau Twins’ Robin Guthrie, and their new A&R rep was unimpressed. “Other black bands were getting noticed, and every record company wanted their Living Colour,” says Chavis. “We didn’t fit into that mode. When it’s Kurt Cobain, it’s ‘He knows what he wants’, but we’re ‘difficult to work with’.”
As black artists whose sound owed as much to My Bloody Valentine as it did to Otis Redding, the Veldt were never universally embraced or understood. But in 2016, they’re less of an anomaly: the mix of shoegazing rock and moody soul they pioneered has been adopted by the likes of the Weeknd and Miguel. With new music on the way, they may finally draw attention to their body of work, which decades ago joined cultural dots the mainstream is connecting only now.
Still shoegazing: the Veldt play New York. Photograph: Supplied
The night after a gloriously noisy show in Toronto – their first in the city since opening for the Jesus and Mary Chain back in 1990 – 49-year-old Danny Chavis (guitar, coyote-fur coat) and Daniel (vocals, toque with ears reaching down to his knees) sit in a bar with their gnomic programmer/guitarist, Hayato Nakao. Daniel brings up the proto-punk band Death, which acquired fame after its guitarist succumbed to cancer. “Some nerdy white kid [says] ‘Oh, my dad found this 45,’ and now they’re huge. Do niggas gotta die to be famous?”
The brothers Chavis have been musical outsiders ever since they were both kicked out of their local church choir. Growing up, Daniel idolized both Prince and Ian McCulloch, and just like Echo and the Bunnymen, he and Danny started out playing with a drum machine. They fraternized with local bands in Chapel Hill’s alt-rock scene (Mac McCaughan of Superchunk joined on guitar for one gig), acquired a rhythm section and built a following. It was a heady time – Daniel gloated about their first deal to the high school principal who’d advised him to join the army – but also the beginning of a long struggle with record-label absurdity.
From Capitol (who shelved the record with Guthrie) to Mammoth (who released their debut EP, Marigolds, in 1992) to Mercury (who put out their album Afrodisiac in 1994), no one seemed to know how to market a group that didn’t even fit the stereotype of a black rock band. One A&R rep advised them to get a blonde bass player. Danny recalls: “We had to go out and make a project so this motherfucker could understand what we were doing. We had cut out pictures of bands we were interested in from magazines – I was like, ‘I know we’re niggas, but can you understand what we’re saying? Try looking at our faces, please?’” The label overcompensated by plastering their image everywhere. Says Daniel |
Minister. Mr. Costello, with his aide, Commander Byrne. SV Soldiers presenting arms. SV Pan arrival of President Sean O'Kelly. SV President on rostrum prior to flag raising.
GV Along O'Connell St. Crowds, troops with the President on the rostrum, pan to top of GPO building showing flag about to be raised.
MS Veterans of the rebellion with medals looking up at flag being raised. CU Pan veterans of 1916 with medals.
LV Front shot flag being hoisted the last few feet. GV Crowd applauding.
LV Soldiers firing volley from roof of General Post Office building. GV From top of GPO building of Soldiers lining roof as mechanised units pass below. MV Mechanised units passing in front of saluting base.
MV Back view of President taking salute as units pass in front of him. SV Towards armoured cars. LV Troops marching past saluting base. SV Troops marching past saluting base, showing similarity of uniforms to the British Army. SV President O'Kelly, aide Byrne looking at march past. MV Towards sailors marching past. MV President, service chiefs and guests at saluting base
GV Flag flying over Dublin.Court documents filed earlier this month with the United States Court of Appeals provide insights into Verizon’s complaints with the Federal Communications Commission over its Open Internet Order. The carrier sued the FCC earlier this year in an effort to have the order reversed and as Media Matters reports, one of Verizon’s legal arguments is questionable at best.
“The Open Internet Order says that Verizon, as a provider of broadband Internet, can’t block or slow access to (legal) online content because they disagree with its message or are being paid by an outside party to do so,” Media Matters’s Simon Maloy wrote. “This is essentially how the internet has operated since its inception, and the Open Internet Order is intended to prevent ISPs like Verizon from becoming gatekeepers. Verizon, however, argues that it has the constitutionally protected right to decide which content you, as a Verizon customer, can access.”
The key section from Verizon’s filing:
Broadband providers transmit their own speech both by developing their own content and by partnering with other content providers and adopting that speech as their own. For example, they develop video services, which draw information from, and are then made available over, the Internet. Many also select or create content for their own over-the-top video services or offer applications that provide access to particular content. They also transmit the speech of others: each day millions of individuals use the Internet to promote their own opinions and ideas and to explore those of others, and broadband providers convey those communications. In performing these functions, broadband providers possess “editorial discretion.” Just as a newspaper is entitled to decide which content to publish and where, broadband providers may feature some content over others. Although broadband providers have generally exercised their discretion to allow all content in an undifferentiated manner, Order ¶ 14 (JA__), they nonetheless possess discretion that these rules preclude them from exercising.
Broadband providers possessing “editorial discretion” even remotely comparable to that of a newspaper editor is a tough pill to swallow, and the FCC’s legislation finally takes steps toward preventing ISPs from editing the Internet as observed by their subscribers. Verizon’s lawsuit makes it clear that it wants to maintain the right to censor the Web, however, a right that is directly threatened by the FCC’s Open Internet Order.Now we’ve been to the Ford Focus RS launch, driven the car for ourselves, given it a five-star rating and met the incredible team who build it, we thought it was high time we got our geek on. Here are some serious facts about the RS you won’t find in the brochure…
It’s basically a stealth fighter jet
The innovative four-wheel drive system underpinning the RS has been developed with GKN Driveline, based in the UK and amazingly it’s set up to always make the rear of the Focus want to overtake the front. Pardon me? So, during hour after hour of calibration, Ford’s boffins realised that driving the rear wheels faster than the fronts (by around two per cent) actually gave them the handling feel and agility they wanted, a bit like the inherent instability built into a Stealth Fighter jet, which would spiral out of control without its electronic brain.
But, there was a problem. The fact the front and rear axles are in a perpetual war blew the prototype system borrowed from an Evoque in just a few days, so the production four-wheel drive has been completely reengineered to be incredibly robust to put up with the stresses. Other party tricks include being able to send 100 per cent of available torque to either rear wheel in 0.06 seconds and constant monitoring of vehicle parameters at 100Hz (100 times per second).
Overboost plus overboost equals big speeds
Now, we all know the 2.3-litre turbocharged petrol engine pumps out 345bhp and 440Nm of torque, and that if you go full throttle there’s an ‘overboost’ function which delivers 470Nm of torque for 15 seconds. But did you know, that if you lift off and put your foot back down as fast as you can, you actually get the full 470Nm again for another 15 seconds? And in theory, you can do this as many times as you want.
So, we’re not sure where in the world this would actually be possible, apart perhaps from the German Autobahn, but it’s still pretty cool.
Ford class the Focus RS as a ‘HP1’ vehicle
Everyone loves a good list, so it makes sense that Ford categorises their vehicles based on certain attributes. So, when Ford Performance plan out a car, they have three tiers of performance. First up, there’s your ‘HP2’ cars, including the Ford Focus ST and Mustang. They are quick, of course, but they are also comfortable and give up some performance for luxury and daily convenience.
Then there’s a ‘HP1’ designation for hardcore models like the Focus RS and Mustang GT350R. These are aimed squarely at serious drivers, who are willing to sacrifice some comfort for speed and want the latest in performance technology and innovation.
Beyond this, there’s ‘Elite’. Few of us will ever get to drive one of these, and the only ‘Elite’ model planned currently is the Ford GT supercar, which will represent the pinnacle of Ford’s engineering and even take it racing against the likes of Ferrari and Porsche with a competition version.
After 30 minutes: “box, box, box”
Part of Ford’s ‘HP1’ designation for the RS also dictates that it has to be able to spend 30 minutes pounding around a racing track without any reduction in the capability of its brakes or engine. Now, any of you who have taken a car on a track day will know that’s no mean feat, even for a hot hatch or performance car, many of which turn into a smoking, groaning mess when shown a circuit.
To accomplish it, Ford has teamed up with Brembo to supply 350mm front brakes with lightweight four-piston monoblock callipers, which are significantly larger than the 336mm discs found in the Mk2.
But, that’s only part of the story. Brake cooling is provided by ducts leading from the front bumper, underbody twin “jet tunnels” and even specially shaped lower suspension arms which direct the air. If that wasn’t enough, the discs themselves have aerodynamically optimised fins to help expel heat.
Someone in Valencia has listened to your engine
If you buy a Focus RS, a highly-trained expert at the Ford manufacturing plant in Valenica, Spain will listen to your engine before it’s sent to you. Like taste testers sipping wine or sampling fine cheese, these aural experts use 18 sound-proofed cells at the end of the production line to listen to each engine for one minute at a time.
Any rattles, whistles or groans incommensurate to the throaty roar of the RS will see the engine fail its singing audition and be sent away for further examination. And, if you think that sounds like a slightly tortuous job, don’t worry, the experts do get to prepare the engines between listening sessions.
The RS is actually too efficient
According to Tyrone Johnson, the Vehicle Engineering Manager at Ford Performance, certain fundamentals of the car’s design had to be signed off right from the beginning, and because the team wanted as much cool air to reach the engine as possible, it created a front grille with a huge opening (85 per cent versus the Focus ST’s 56 per cent).
The team also designed the biggest intercooler possible in the space where it could fit, but on testing the car realised the combination of all this fresh air, and a huge intercooler, meant it was actually too efficient and was causing water condensation, which is bad news for the engine. As a result a suitable blanking plate had to be sourced (the team decided on one from a diesel Transit van) to cover part of the intercooler, bringing the temperature back up within safe limits.
The car in front is a 1.0-litre
To make the Focus RS affordable, it had to be be built along the same production line as every other Focus. So that means, stand next to the line and you could easily see a 1.0-litre Focus come along, followed by a 2.0-litre diesel and then a Focus RS.
This is despite the fact special reinforcements need to be added to the bodyshell, which make the RS 23 per cent stiffer than a standard car, with a 200 per cent stiffer rear subframe.
Previous versions of the RS had to be removed from the line and finished by hand, but this limited output and increased its cost. With the latest model being a truly global car, going on sale in 42 countries, including North America and China, it will be built in far greater numbers than ever before, so any holdups were out of the question.
You don’t need to redline it
Because of the stonking turbocharged mid-range punch of the 2.3-litre engine, holding each gear until its 6,800rpm redline isn’t actually the fastest way to accelerate. In fact, if you want to get the best possible acceleration from the RS, you need to remember the digits 5,900, because Ford says this is the optimum upshift point.
To give you a hand, Ford has included a ‘Performance Shift Light’ in the dashboard, which alerts you as you approach “five-niner” (as we like to say down at the strip) and then flashes if you hit the limit at 6,800rpm, in which case we’d say you’d “six-eighted the engine again”….probably.
Find new car prices for the Ford Focus RSManchester United Store
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Why are the sardines there? That remains somewhat of a mystery. Until recently, when the sardine industry started worrying about the dwindling numbers of the fish offshore, no one had really thought to study them, let alone the smaller groups found closer to shore. As a result, the science on the populations of these fish near Cebu’s beaches is lacking.
“They were nonexistent a decade ago, and now they’re fairly regular,” said Dr. Oliver, who encountered the sardines a few years ago while studying thresher sharks just outside Moalboal on Cebu Island. But he’s not ready to call them residents.
He thinks the sardines probably emerged as anything does in nature that finds a niche. Perhaps a few eggs floated into the waters around Cebu and found conditions favorable enough to persist: few predators, plenty of plankton and ideal water temperatures. The sardines appear to hop from one location to the next, like between Pescador Island and the shores of Moalboal. If this setup ever changes, they might go away for good.
They appear to be doing all right so far, thanks in part to local management by barangays, or villages. Near shore, you may spot security guards enforcing fishing rules, said Ben Meerhaeghe, a manager at Seaquest Dive Centers, in Bohol.The Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel will be closed for the next two weekends (May 30-31 and June 6-7) to allow further preparatory work for U-Link. Per Bruce Gray at Sound Transit:
Similar to what we did in the Beacon Hill tunnels in March, we’re testing the newly upgraded fire/life/safety and train control systems in the DSTT over the weekend of the 30-31. The following weekend, if all goes well, we will make the final switchover from the old to the new systems in the DSTT and integrate with U-Link ventilation control. Finishing this upgrade is an important step towards connecting all tunnel systems later this summer and being ready for more intense testing scheduled through the fall.
Link Light Rail will only run between Stadium Station and SeaTac Airport Station, and will serve all stations in between. A free shuttle (route 97), as well as regular routes 101, 106, 124 and 150, will serve the bus stops closest to Stadium Station and SODO Station. All the tunnel buses except route 255 will run on 2nd and 4th Ave through downtown. Route 255 will run on 4th and 5th Ave. Route 97 will run on 3rd Ave. A full list of stop locations for the re-routed tunnel buses is here.
The Mariners will be playing here both of these Saturdays and Sundays. The Sounders will be hosting the New York Red Bulls at 2 pm on May 31. Three-car Link trains will be running all day on the 31st. Sounder will be serving the simultaneous Sounders and Mariners games on May 31, and the Mariners’ game on June 7.Privacy bungle downs BigPond
Updated
Telstra says it has restored most online services including Bigpond email access for the majority of customers affected by a potential security breach.
"Most online services including BigPond email and My Account are back online, load times may be a touch slower than usual," Testra said on Twitter.
The services were suspended after account information, including passwords, was published on the internet, but Telstra says bank and credit card details were not disclosed.
Telstra says around 60,000 people have been affected by the outage.
The Australian Communications Consumer Action Network (ACCAN) says the privacy breach was a major bungle by Telstra.
The network's spokeswoman Elise Davidson says a Telstra database with up to 1 million customers' personal details including passwords was left open for anyone to view.
"We wanted to test it and we did and sure enough it was readily available - things like passwords, the details of problems having or wanting to change bundles," she said.
"Basically any contact that you would have with the customer centre about your bundle was readily available for anyone to see."
Ms Davidson says it is "almost unbelievable" that Telstra could let the bungle occur.
"ACCAN have been speaking to Telstra. They are obviously taking it very very seriously and are investigating," she said.
"It is hard to imagine how an error of this magnitude has happened, has been allowed to happen for a company the size of Telstra, with the number of the customers they have."
Ms Davidson says Telstra may be liable for compensation in some cases.
"Some people for example might wish to have credit or security checks done on their information," she said.
"There's a fee for that - maybe Telstra's going to cover that fee, maybe they're going to be required to give some sort of compensation in some other way, we really don't know the extent of it."
Telstra said technicians are currently working on the problems and it expected to restore services around mid-afternoon; however a spokesman said at 3.30pm AEDT that "at the worst it shouldn't be longer then 24 hours from now".
The company is updating customers on the situation at its Twitter feed @Telstra.
Topics: telecommunications, internet-technology, australia
First postedSebastopol woman found not guilty of mother's fatal stabbing due to insanity
A judge on Friday found a Sebastopol woman who stabbed her mother to death last year to be not guilty by reason of insanity.
The ruling from Judge Jamie Thistlethwaite came after two doctors determined Julia Katherine Franzen, 26, was in a psychotic state and suffering delusions when she killed Nancy Franzen, 59, in her Tocchini Road home.
Prosecutors did not contest the finding.
Franzen is expected to be committed to Napa State Hospital for an indefinite term. She could be released if her sanity is restored and she is deemed no longer a danger to the public.
“It’s the right thing,” said her attorney, Tyler Hicks. “There is overwhelming evidence that she should be in a mental health facility.”
Nancy Franzen’s sister attended the hearing in Sonoma County Superior Court. She was allowed to speak privately with her niece, who smiled as she approached.
She declined to comment outside court.
The finding brings to a close a case that began Feb. 4, 2013 when neighbors reported seeing Julia Franzen outside her mother’s house carrying a knife in her bloody hands.
Deputies arrived and found the mother dead inside. They believed Julia Franzen chased her through the house, inflicting numerous stab wounds before she collapsed.
Julia Franzen was initially deemed mentally incompetent to assist in her own defense and treated for about six months at Napa State Hospital.
Upon her return, prosecutors charged her with first-degree murder.
But two doctors who analyzed her agreed she was insane at the time of the killing. Psychiatrist Robbin Broadman said Franzen was responding to internal voices and was schizophrenic. She ruled out any possibility Franzen was malingering.
Psychologist David Schneider said Franzen thought people were plotting against her and that she lacked the ability to tell right from wrong. He diagnosed her condition as paranoid schizophrenia.
Franzen, who has been on medication since shortly after her arrest, pleaded no contest Friday to second-degree murder, which carries a punishment of 15 years to life.
Based on the doctors’ reports, Thistlethwaite found that she was legally insane at the time of the killing and ordered her to be evaluated for placement in a state hospital.
Franzen will remain in the Sonoma County jail until after a report is presented at an Oct. 10 hearing.
Both prosecutor Brian Staebell and Franzen’s attorney said it would likely be a lifelong commitment.
But Franzen could someday be released if she meets three criteria. A judge must determine that her sanity is restored, that she can care for herself and that she is no longer a threat to others.
That happened most recently in the case of former Rohnert Park resident Mathew Beck, 40, who was freed from Napa State Hospital two years ago after he stabbed to death his uncle’s fiancée and her mother in 2000.
Doctors said he too heard voices in his head. He was never tried after prosecutors agreed he was insane at the time of the killing.
You can reach Staff Writer Paul Payne at 568-5312 or paul.payne@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @ppayne.Hillary and State Department intelligence
How likely is it that all of Hillary Clinton’s e-mails were free of classified material? Not very. Though it’s not widely known, the State Department has a Bureau of Intelligence and Research that is as much a part of the intelligence community as the CIA or DIA and works in the same highly restricted, security-conscious environment. All those CIA agents with State Department cover have to get it somewhere, and diplomats have always been important pieces in the collection and evaluation of intelligence, some of it very highly classified. I worked for State’s BIR right after I graduated from college in the early 1980s as a low-level intelligence clerk. Everybody had a top-secret clearance, and security in that part of the building was maintained at an extremely high level. Among the analysts I worked with, one of the most sought after professional accomplishments was to get a bit of one’s work-product into the secretary’s morning summary, which was a compilation of important international developments and analysis of immediate interest. Some of that summary, pretty much on a daily basis, originated in the BIR, and most everything that came out of the BIR was classified at some level. I’m sure something similar still goes on there, though instead of literally cutting and pasting the summary together, it’s done electronically.
There would not be much point in the secretary getting this information if he/she had no intention of using it. But to use it, you have to reference it in some way, whether speaking, sending an old-fashioned letter, or, more commonly in the last twenty years, via e-mail. Referencing classified information, even if you are not actually sharing the document from which the information originated, may still be a breach of security protocols. Many documents are classified for sources and methods, not necessarily the information contained therein. But citing that information in an unsecure manner, which might then become available to foreign intelligence, could indicate to a foreign government that they have a security breach, which can endanger sources and methods. Or in some cases, the substantive information itself is sensitive and classified accordingly. It’s pretty hard to believe that in all her years at State, Hillary Clinton never referenced classified material in her thousands of e-mails. Nobody would believe that of the director of the CIA. And the State BIR is part of the same intelligence community, and was an important part of Hillary’s domain. Sure, many if not most of her e-mails probably dealt with the drudgery of running a large bureaucracy – what new carpeting to put on the 7th floor, staffing the cafeteria, and so on. But nobody becomes secretary of state to do that. The hot policy stuff, a good bit of which is classified, is what’s interesting. It’s what Hillary wrote about in her e-mails. It’s probably what she deleted.THE SITUATION
We've shared in everyone's excitement for Liquid Cubed's prospects in Minecraft; however, the further we've developed progressive systems and parsers (with much still left to do), the more we've recognized that the modifications to Minecraft's rendering engine would be a very large operation.
In combination with Minecraft's advanced stage of development and Mojang's goals for the game's release, we've concluded integration in the end is unrealistic at the present time. We'd be willing to consult with Mojang regarding the liquids if they were interested, but up to this point they are not, and we have to move on.
A NEW HOPE
We first fell in love with the freedom of voxels in Zach Barth's Infiniminer back in 2009. A whole slew of limitations forced upon games were suddenly broken with Infinimer's concept “everything matters”, and it was nothing short of brilliant. The real inspiration for us however, came from the game's infamous lava.
While expanding upon the concept of a more advanced liquid algorithm, we spent the next couple years modding Infiniminer off-and-on with many other little hair-brained ideas. Having contemplated adding “constructable flying blimps” in the Fall of 2009, we were led to an even crazier string of thoughts:
“What if you were mining an asteroid instead?” “...What if you could walk around a starship you built from stem to stern, power conduit to warp engine, and every part of the ship actually matters?” “...What if you could suck people out into space, blast apart a ship's power arteries, cut a ship in half, work together with your buddies to hold off a boarding party, raid derelict vessels for parts, and land on procedurally generated planets to force the locals into digging up gold for your intergalactic conquest!?”
At the time, the wishful ramblings of a 'pure voxel starship' game seemed ludicrous, and since 2009 we've added quite a bit to the wish-list for a “Starship: Infiniminer”. But after testing the necessary components in Liquid Cubed, gaining several years of experience within the voxel environment, and building a plan that will support the long-term development, we believe we're capable of pulling off this ambitious concept.
BLOCKADE RUNNER
What will follow for the tentatively titled “Blockade Runner” should be familiar to those already experienced with agile indie projects: Rapid development builds, the indie-funding-formula “pay less now for alpha”, and a team forgoing the publisher's capital investment to ensure the bold vision is never lost to'market appeal'.
Full-time work on Blockade Runner by Nathan has already begun, with an in-development version of the game being prepared for release on April 11th. The six month plan is to focus on multiplayer with build-able, crew-able, functioning, “living” starships using cellular automata. This will then lead to further development sprints reaching procedurally-generated stations, planets, and beyond.
More information on Blockade Runner will be available as the new ZanMgt website is unrolled during the next few weeks.
THANK YOU
We'd like to thank everyone for their support for Liquid Cubed. Your help and suggestions have been an enormous blessing and are very much appreciated. Although we're disappointed in having to cut Liquid Cubed short of meeting our stated goals, we're very excited about the future and hope you'll join us in the development of Blockade Runner!
In the meantime, please enjoy Liquid Cubed 1.0.4c!
– Aaron Harris,
Creative Director, ZanMgt
UNDO
Rejoice! When the line tool accidentally flies off you can now revert the mistake! Press CTRL+Z to undo the last tool events, press CTRL+Y to redo the tool events.
Note that water will not be affected by undo (although you can undo a water conversion).
You can alter the default number of undos inside the Settings.xml. Some of the tools can take up more RAM than others, so use discretion when altering the number of undos (100 should really be more than enough).
POLYGONS SEALED, AND RESEALED
A superior form of sealing the water polygons was constructed in the past two weeks. This was to resolve a coding issue as well as provide a solution for dynamic and smooth water, which will now be carried onto Blockade Runner.
IMPROVED PERFORMANCE
A parsing mechanism that works in combination with the polygon sealing now helps to reduce the GPU load considerably. Liquids closer to the player will update their visual status faster than the liquids in the distance.
If you do something absurd (a floor of water across the sky), you might see some absurd results. In this case, water floating in the air for longer period of time, but this parser is meant more for slower machines.
DISSOLVING WATER
The special effects for water dissolving in the 16x16x16 course is now available in the larger courses as well. You can press the “L” key to cycle through the different levels of the special effects.
SHADER 3.0
We had listed Shader 2.0 as a minimum requirement, but after reviewing the amount of instructions we were sending to the GPU, Shader 3.0 is unfortunately the lowest Liquid Cubed can use as a minimum requirement.
SUMMON BLOCKS IN THE AIR
Blocks can now be created in the air without having to build off of a block. With the Line tool, this allows you to fire a line from where you're standing to where you're looking.
PRIORITIZATION RESULTS
Undo functionality was a “fun feature” added in this version of Liquid Cubed. Even though all new development is focused on the new game, I still wanted to share the ranking results of everyone's combined prioritization lists for those who are interested:
Thanks for prioritizing: Ludsoe, CMD Keen, Nukepb, Nick650, Duartel, and SairenSA!
A. (-1.3) More Blocks
B. (-2.7) Improved Liquids
-- (+5) Undo Functionality
C. (+0.7) Perlin noise terrain
D. (+2.2) Walking/swimming/collision
E. (+3) Some More Tools
F. (-2.2) Re-designed interface
G. (-1) 2D Sprite Critters
H. (-4.3) HD VisualsCOLOGNE, June 26 (Reuters) - More than a third of clients who tried BMW’s DriveNow car-sharing business sold their car and only 20 percent were determined to hold on to their privately owned vehicles, the head of the scheme said on Friday.
Sebastian Hofelich, who became chief executive of DriveNow in April, said the short-term rental service was helping to displace privately owned vehicles but the service was not cannibalising the existing BMW customer base.
“As a rule the DriveNow car did not replace a BMW. The typical BMW driver is aged 50 or older, while our customers have an average age of 32,” Hofelich told Reuters on the sidelines of an automotive conference in Cologne, Germany.
BMW and car rental company Sixt founded DriveNow in 2011, among the early movers as established carmakers seek ways to stay relevant for a generation of drivers that increasingly prefers the convenience of car sharing rather than owning a vehicle.
About 38 percent of DriveNow clients have sold their private cars, Hofelich said. Those DriveNow clients tended to use their private vehicles only at weekends and were questioning whether it was worth owning a car full time.
DriveNow’s survey of its customers revealed that only 20 percent of the car-sharing scheme’s clients are determined to keep their private vehicles.
“The rest can be persuaded to stop using their private vehicles if we meet their mobility needs,” Hofelich said.
Earlier this week BMW’s Mini brand said it was launching a scheme that gives buyers a way to offer their private vehicles for short-term rental to third-party users, much in the same way that owners of apartments offer their flats for rent via Airbnb.
BMW has launched DriveNow in Berlin, Duesseldorf, Hamburg, Munich, Vienna, San Francisco and parts of London with a model that allows users to make one-way journeys without having to return the car to the point of departure.
The scheme now has more than 450,000 users and makes a profit. (Reporting by Edward Taylor; Editing by David Goodman)What Is An Empath? An Empath is a person who can psychically tune in to the emotional experience of a person, place or animal. In the paranormal and in some works of science fiction and fantasy, highly developed empathy is a psychic ability to sense the emotions of others and often highly aware of the health and state of mind of their loved ones, no matter how physically near or far away the individuals may be. It can be challenging for empaths to function healthily in society if they are unaware that they have this sensitivity and often opt to be alone. Most empaths are often in the dark about their innate gifts but the more developed ones are sometimes called in by the police to help track a murderous pedophile or other heinous criminal because they are able to take on the tortured emotions of the assailant. Utilizing Clairempathy, a type of telepathy to sense or feel within one's self, the attitude, emotion or ailment of another person or entity. They are sensitive to the visible as well as the invisible and pick up on body language, tone of voice, body movements, the words people choose when they speak, the words they avoid, the logic they use; and the hidden things that only an empath can sense inside another person. It is not uncommon for an empath to "freak out" for no apparent reason, only to discover later that a friend or family member went through some sort of trauma at that exact moment. So essentially an empath is someone whose feeling sensory is extraordinarily heightened, meaning they receive the majority of their psychic input from what they feel. Since they're being assaulted constantly by emotions which do not originate internally, they can't figure out why they feel the way that they do, and therefore can't address the core issues. Since empathy isn't something you can really ditch it's sometimes difficult to sort out what the Empath truly feels in a given situation or what they are taking on from someone else. This can prove to be very confusing! Emotions that create powers that have been known to be God like in nature. Emotions that build on inside only to be shared with those around you. Emotional empaths are so sensitive that they can absorb the negative emotions of others in their body, and actually take it on. So when an empath is around somebody who is anxious, they can actually absorb that energy into their body, when it isn't even their own anxiety. Empaths are born, and they’re born unskilled and are generally very understanding of others and their positions, and often times will ask questions rather than make snap judgments, or intuitively seem to 'know' there is more to a story than what meets the eye. They are sensitive to TV, videos, movies, news and broadcasts. Violence or emotional dramas depicting shocking scenes of physical or emotional pain inflicted on adults, children or animals can bring an empath easily to tears. Empaths are people who don’t “read” the future, or predict it they “read” people, and their energy although sometimes it depends on the person being read, too. They're often problem solvers, thinkers, and studier's of many things. As far as empaths are concerned, where a problem is, so too is the answer. They are the psychic sponges of the world, soaking up all the psychic and emotional static that other people give off. Being an Empath is one of the most common and most challenging of all the psychic gifts. So as you can see being am empath can be both a blessing...and a curse! Order Empath Tool KitJoin us the first Saturday in May. Every year. Always.
For over ten years Robynn Smith and the MPC Printmakers have devoted the first Saturday in May to fine art printmaking. What began locally in the greater Monterey Bay Area of California in 2007, has become a worldwide event. In 2018, artists from all 50 US states, 46 different countries and all 7 continents participated! We are astonished, printmakers. We are thankful, and so proud to have you with us.
This year we are sponsored by Cranfield Colours, third generation British paint and ink makers. They will be sponsoring us with Caligo Safe Wash Inks, technical know-how and prizes.
By providing a creative synergy and a forum for sharing and building community, this event unites printmakers worldwide and fosters a better understanding and appreciation of printmaking.
Participation is easy. Just make a print on May 4, 2019! Let the world know what you are doing by chiming in on our blog, Instagram and/or Facebook page.
Send us photos of your prints, your studios and your printmaking friends.
Invite guests and friends into your studios to share your love of printmaking.
Please join us! Make a print anywhere on 4th May 2019. Complete an edition, try a new technique, make a footprint in the sand or snow, kiss a mirror, make handprints with kids…just print, enjoy, share and let us know about it!
Spread the word!!!! There are many ways to do so ~ here are a few ideas:
Blog – PrintDayinMay.com – click on “Members and Registration” and follow instructions to register. This will allow you to post comments and photos. Use us as a printmaking forum!
Facebook Group – Print Day in May Printmakers
Facebook – @printdayinmay
Instagram – @printdayinmay
Twitter – @printdayinmay
Contact – Robynn Smith for more information
Connected
Having built this beautiful community, don’t forget to check back and share your work year round! In the meantime, we’ll be looking forward to everything Print Day In May 2019 has in store for us.
Thank you all,
RobynnTrending Bridal Style for 2015
It's the time of the year again where couple are looking forward to tie the knot. Spring and summer is by far the busiest season for brides. From wedding planning to honeymoon, their bucket is pack with tons of to-dos. If you're getting married this year, I've compiled a list of growing trends. Whether you plan to rent or buy a dress, consider these styles. 1. Sweetheart Neckline This never seem to go out of fashion. This sweet and sexy neckline is more modest than a tube dress. The best part is it looks stunning on almost every size. Definitely, a keeper! 2. Off-White Dress I'm seeing more and more brides opt for a subtle peach and off-white dress for weddings. It's something more dramatic than white but still remains the classic look. Perfect for Spring and Summer lightening. 3. Open Back Beauty Want to add a touch of sensuality while looking sophisticated? The open-back design is the winner. The exposed back design is a compromise between modern and modes without disturbing the crowd. 4. A Touch of Vintage The vintage bride with headpieces is a growing trend last year and this year it will continue to remain strong. The 20s inspired gowns are sexy, low-key and perfect for a boho-bride. 5. Texture Update Want to stick with a classic design and be set apart from all the other brides? A subtle texture with a touch of individuality is the perfect way to go. Look at the tube for example. 6. Tulle Tulle This is a better upgrade of the giant princess-style gown that you've seen in the past. I'm especially drawn by the bottom half design - multiple layers |
ern noted, anti-virus protection and up-to-date software cut down the chances of harm befalling your beloved MacBook Pro.
UPDATE: A spokesperson from Yandex is in talks with AV Test to clarify some questions they have about the results, including how AV Test defined malware. The spokesperson described Yandex’s stringent antivirus methods: “Yandex uses its own proprietary antivirus technology to protect users from malicious software. Yandex marks the infected webpages in its search results in order to notify users of unsafe content. We just notify users of possible consequences and do not block access to the webpage completely.” This means that the results for Yandex may have been calibrated in a way that made it seem like the search engine allows more malware through than it does in practice.Romania’s GDP could exceed EUR 200 bln at the end of this decade
Romania’s economy could exceed for the first time a threshold of EUR 200 billion at the end of this decade, if the growth pace maintains in the next 2-3 years.
The GDP exceeded another threshold of EUR 150 billion in 2014. Last year, the economy saw an increase of 3.8% to EUR 160.4 billion.
The GDP growth will accelerate to 5% this year and could remain at this level until 2018, when the advance will amount to 4%, according to a report by Andrei Radulescu, Banca Transilvania senior economist.
In 2018, Romania’s GDP will reach almost EUR 192 billion, reads his report. The economy could thus exceed EUR 200 billion in 2019, or 2020 at the latest, if Romania manages to keep the growth rates estimated by Banca Transilvania by 2018.
editor@romania-insider.comBack in September of 2011, reddit was pushed out of the nest, leaving Condé Nast and striking out on its own - sort of. Reddit remained under the ownership of Advance Publications, the parent company of Condé Nast. But the powers-that-be decided the site would be better on its own.
With its newfound independence, reddit became perhaps the first "start-up" with web traffic stats like these:
In December 2011, reddit served 2.07 billion pageviews. Crazy. Here are some details: 2,065,237,338 pageviews
34,879,881 unique visitors
12.97 pages / visit
16 minutes average time on site
Over 100 million monthly pageviews per employee And, more importantly, our community stats: 100,000+ subreddits
8,400+ subreddits with over 100 subscribers In less than a year, reddit traffic has more than doubled.
So reddit began looking for a CEO, and recently named Facebook alumnus (and part-time Forbes contributor) Yishan Wong as their new chief executive. I had the chance to ask Wong a few questions about his new job, the future of reddit, and whether or not he sees reddit as a start-up or something else entirely.
Forbes: Can you provide some background on the decision to branch off from Condé Nast? How does this benefit reddit?
Wong: Interestingly, the decision to branch off was made by Condé Nast itself. Or rather, Condé Nast's corporate parent, Advance Publications. They made the decision to spin off reddit well before I came into the picture, deciding to make it a separate entity and as part of that, to hire a CEO.
The decision was made primarily because they felt it best positioned reddit for long-term success. After being "incubated" for a number of years, reddit has really begun to take off, so Advance decided that we needed the autonomy of being independent rather than being a wholly-owned subsidiary. They are still investors in the company, but our new capital structure gives us more flexibility in managing our own finances and establishing support operations like HR and IT that are customized to our needs, as well as offer competitive equity compensation to employees. As well, operational autonomy is something the team here in San Francisco has sought for years and this will allow us to make decisions quickly and flexibly.
You've been involved in a couple start-ups in the past. Do you see reddit as a start-up or an established player - or as something in-between?
This is definitely something that makes reddit an interesting beast. reddit is now 5-6 years old, and most startups that you hear about either become at least medium-sized by that time or have gone out of business. We drive an enormous amount of traffic, far out of proportion to our size and costs: reddit has a full-time staff of around 10 people, which is more like something you'd see at a very new startup. Back at Facebook, one of the things we would tout was our "engineer-to-user ratio," which was around 1 engineer to 1 million monthly active users, meaning each engineer had far higher leverage (and thus impact) than engineers at Google, Amazon, etc. In January, reddit recorded something like 35M unique visitors. With only about 5 engineers, reddit's engineer-to-user ratio blows past Facebook's, even if you account for an extremely generous margin of error. So something interesting is obviously going on.
Part of the reason is that reddit has had a unique opportunity during which it was allowed to focus entirely on the needs of its userbase, which helped it grow without the strain of certain pressures that other startups are often subjected to. Many startups, if they show promise, are expected to rapidly expand and take off like a rocket ship; if they don't, they're considered a failure. If you look at Dave Morin's concept of a "slow company" or Joel Spolsky's "Great Software Takes Ten Years" notion, reddit could perhaps be an example of something like that: we're kind of a startup, kind of an established player, but mostly reddit is a work-in-progress.
So if reddit is a work in progress, what sort of work - and what sort of progress - needs to get done? Do you feel like the user loyalty surrounding the site makes any potential changes a bit like walking on thin ice?
I think that building any product that has a lot of user loyalty is a bit like making a sequel to a great movie or video game - people generally want "more of the same thing, except better and different." I think the analogy of walking on thin ice is not exactly what I'd use, because if you do it correctly there is a chance for people to be very happy with the results. And to do that, you have to understand very keenly what things people love about what you've already done, and what things they don't, so that you can enhance the former and fix the latter. So that's why I'm taking a lot of extra time to understand the nuances of the reddit platform and the community.
What do you think differentiates reddit from its competition: sites like Digg and so forth? Or from more traditional social media such as Facebook?
reddit strives to be a community-oriented link-sharing and news site, which means that all our content is submitted and voted on by members of our community. We don't interfere with that process at all, either in an editorial or curation capacity. Combined with the ability for users to create their own subreddits (which can be moderated, but again only by users and not by us), this creates an incredibly diverse ecology of information exchange tailored to what users want.
In the context of social media, reddit is more about the media than the personalities. reddit profiles are very sparse, containing mostly the user's activity (their link submissions, their comments, etc) and very little personal information. So to the degree that there is any social "networking" going on, you get to know people through what they say and give to the community, rather than their name, position, or who they are outside of reddit. It is much more about what content or ideas people choose to contribute than emphasizing pre-existing relationships that are external to reddit.
So what was it about reddit that made you want to work there, and what did that whole process look like? Why you?
Well, for one thing, I'm a big fan. I'm part of a small (large) group of people in Silicon Valley that has always felt that if reddit could operate in a fully independent manner, it would do incredibly well. The job gave me a chance to help bring that about, so it was hard to say no to that.
The process was actually fairly extended - I was contacted in early September of 2011, and we finalized the agreements in late January 2012. There was a holiday in between, so I'd say it took around 3 months. It started off with a series of pretty casual conversations, sort of exploring philosophical alignment and culture fit, and it was only after quite a few of those meetings that we started talking about me taking the position in earnest.
Reddit has been more than a news-sharing site this year. Along with Wikipedia and other websites, reddit helped organize and carry out the anti-SOPA blackout. What does this say about the site, its future as an independent company, and your involvement there?
I think that's one of the most unique and potentially powerful things about reddit - people come for the news, and stay for the community. Moreover, I think it shows that reddit is beginning to reach a critical mass of people such that when the community decides to align behind something, it can help lead the way in creating real change in the world.
Not long ago some steps had to be taken to limit the nature of certain posts that reddit deemed inappropriate. Some of the subjects that were banned were quite disturbing. How was this decision made (I realize it was before you became CEO) and will drawing that balance between user freedom and appropriate content be a difficult task?
Yeah, it was before my time. reddit strives to be a neutral communications platform like email or twitter, so we don't make decisions like that from an editorial mindset, but rather based on whether they interfere with our operational ability to run the site. For instance, even the SOPA blackout was actually based on that - many people have the impression that it was a "protest" move, but it was also strongly motivated by the very practical concern that SOPA really did threaten the ability of reddit to operate.
How has your reception been so far?
So far, so good. The narwhal and bacon constituencies have thus far been appeased.
How do you plan on keeping reddit successful - and how will you avoid the fate of other similar sites, such as Digg?
reddit is successful because of its users and community. Broadly speaking, I think it's important in any enterprise (a business, a non-profit, any sort of big project) that you remember to focus on the party or parties that are responsible for giving you the key valuable thing that makes your enterprise thrive. That's a very abstract way of saying that, in this situation, advertisers might give you money, but users give you content (both in the form of links and interesting discussion), and it's interesting content that draws more users to your site. To the degree that you want to employ advertising as a revenue stream, it's important to remember that advertisers are drawn to users - engaged, interested users - they're not drawn to other advertisers. So that is one core element that helps to underpin a lot of strategy.
Another key thing is that you just have to be good at what you do. It's rare for a business to succeed without good execution - you can plan a great strategy, but then you have to make it happen. So I'm also focused on making sure that all areas of the business are well-run and staffed with great people, and that they all work together well. This is a pretty mundane-sounding thing, but I think it's very key and you see all great companies do this, even if they don't advertise that fact.
You can read more about Yishan's new role as CEO in his introduction post at the reddit blog.
Follow me on Twitter or Facebook. Read my Forbes blog here.StemCells' human neural stem cell StemCells Inc.
(CBS News) For most people who are paralyzed, there is no treatment available to help them regain full function of their limbs.
But, promising new research from a phase 1 study conducted at the University of Zurich sponsored by StemCells, Inc. shows that six months after the implantation of neural stem cells, two out of three complete injury patients - meaning they had no neurological function below the point of injury - were able to gain some sensory function.
"We haven't made progress in how to address injury after they occur, but using neural stem cells in a transplant lets us, for the first time, think we can repair this," Dr. Stephen Huhn, a neurosurgeon and the vice president and head of the CNS program at StemCells, Inc. said to HealthPop.
The phase 1 study was intended to see if the implantation treatment had any unwanted side effects. For the procedure, 20 million neural stem cells were implanted directly into the spinal cord, something that has never been done before. Then, any reactions were monitored including complex examinations of sensory function - for example light touch, sensitivity to temperature and sensitivity to subtle electronic stimulation - as well as electrostimulation of the spinal cord itself.
What researchers were surprised to find was that the neural stem cell implantation was able to return some sensation to these paralyzed patients, who were all injured at the thoracic or chest level.
Hugh explained that if you think of the spinal cord and its 31 segments as a building with a series of floors, these patients could not access the floor below the point of the initial trauma. However, after the implantation, one patient was able to access three to four floors (or spinal cord segments below the paralysis point) and the other was able to reach five or six floors.
"These patients have had such an injury to their spinal cord that to see this kind of effect is amazing. They contain the worst of the worst injuries," he explained.
While the other patient did not regain sensation, none of the patients had any negative side effects. Huhn believes this means that the treatment may be able to work even better for people who have limited function after a traumatic injury. Since the treatment has been deemed to be safe, the next phase is to test the implantation on nine other people who have incomplete injuries or some limited sensation or function after an injury.
Huhn recognizes that the field of stem cell research is controversial. The world's only other trial using stem cells to treat spinal injury - which used embryonic stem cells - was ended in 2011 for financial reasons, according to the New Scientist. But, Huhn feels that the unique properties of neural stem cells and potential benefits warrant their use in medical treatment. Neural stem cells have the unique ability to divide and replicate themselves though cell culture. This means that for this trial, the team was able to use only one donated brain source to supply all the material needed for the study.
"This is a very delicate area, and we appreciate that neural stem cells are one of the first discoveries that we've had in which we can think about biologically repairing the nervous system," "Now we have a tool, a technology - something we can think about repairing the central nervous system with."
The information was presented at the International Spinal Cord Society's (ISCoS) annual meeting in London on Sept. 3.Note: the source code and test for this blog continue to evolve, but the changes to the text are not being maintained here. Please see the tutorial version for the most up to date content.
In this article we continue our discussion of how to use Spring Security with Angular JS in a “single page application”. Here we show how to use Angular JS to authenticate a user via a form and fetch a secure resource to render in the UI. This is the second in a series of articles, and you can catch up on the basic building blocks of the application or build it from scratch by reading the first article, or you can just go straight to the source code in Github. In the first article we built a simple application that used HTTP Basic authentication to protect the backend resources. In this one we add a login form, give the user some control over whether to authenticate or not, and fix the issues with the first iteration (principally lack of CSRF protection).
Reminder: if you are working through this article with the sample application, be sure to clear your browser cache of cookies and HTTP Basic credentials. In Chrome the best way to do that for a single server is to open a new incognito window.
Add Navigation to the Home Page
The core of a single page application is a static “index.html”. We already had a really basic one, but for this application we need to offer some navigation features (login, logout, home), so let’s modify it (in “src/main/resources/static”):
<!doctype html> <html> <head> <title>Hello AngularJS</title> <link href="css/angular-bootstrap.css" rel="stylesheet"> <style type="text/css"> [ng\:cloak], [ng-cloak],.ng-cloak { display: none!important; } </style> </head> <body ng-app="hello" ng-cloak class="ng-cloak"> <div ng-controller="navigation" class="container"> <ul class="nav nav-pills" role="tablist"> <li class="active"><a href="#/">home</a></li> <li><a href="#/login">login</a></li> <li ng-show="authenticated"><a href="" ng-click="logout()">logout</a></li> </ul> </div> <div ng-view class="container"></div> <script src="js/angular-bootstrap.js" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="js/hello.js"></script> </body> </html>
It’s not much different than the original in fact. Salient features:
There is a <ul> for the navigation bar. All the links come straight back to the home page, but in a way that Angular will recognize once we get it set up with “routes”.
All the content is going to be added as “partials” in the <div> labelled “ng-view”.
The “ng-cloak” has been moved up to the body because we want to hide the whole page until Angular can work out which bits to render. Otherwise the menus and content can “flicker” as they are moved around when the page loads.
As in the first article, the front end assets “angular-bootstrap.css” and “angular-bootstrap.js” are generated from JAR libraries at build time.
Add Navigation to the Angular Application
Let’s modify the “hello” application (in “src/main/resources/public/js/hello.js”) to add some navigation features. We can start by adding some configuration for routes, so that the links in the home page actually do something. E.g.
angular.module('hello', [ 'ngRoute' ]).config(function($routeProvider, $httpProvider) { $routeProvider.when('/', { templateUrl : 'home.html', controller : 'home' }).when('/login', { templateUrl : 'login.html', controller : 'navigation' }).otherwise('/'); $httpProvider.defaults.headers.common["X-Requested-With"] = 'XMLHttpRequest'; }).controller('home', function($scope, $http) { $http.get('/resource/').success(function(data) { $scope.greeting = data; }) }).controller('navigation', function() {});
We added a dependency on an Angular module called “ngRoute” and this allowed us to inject a magic $routeProvider into the config function (Angular does dependency injection by naming convention, and recognizes the names of your function parameters). The $routeProvider is then used inside the function to set up links to “/” (the “home” controller) and “/login” (the “login” controller). The “templateUrls” are relative paths from the root of the routes (i.e. “/”) to “partial” views that will be used to render the model created by each controller.
The custom “X-Requested-With” is a conventional header sent by browser clients, and it used to be the default in Angular but they took it out in 1.3.0. Spring Security responds to it by not sending a “WWW-Authenticate” header in a 401 response, and thus the browser will not pop up an authentication dialog (which is desirable in our app since we want to control the authentication).
In order to use the “ngRoute” module, we need to add a line to the “wro.xml” configuration that builds the static assets (in “src/main/wro”):
<groups xmlns="http://www.isdc.ro/wro"> <group name="angular-bootstrap">... <js>webjar:angularjs/1.3.8/angular-route.min.js</js> </group> </groups>
The Greeting
The greeting content from the old home page can go in “home.html” (right next to the “index.html” in “src/main/resources/static”):
<h1>Greeting</h1> <div ng-show="authenticated"> <p>The ID is {{greeting.id}}</p> <p>The content is {{greeting.content}}</p> </div> <div ng-show="!authenticated"> <p>Login to see your greeting</p> </div>
Since the user now has the choice whether to login or not (before it was all controlled by the browser), we need to distinguish in the UI between content that is secure and that which is not. We have anticipated this by adding references to an (as yet non-existent) authenticated variable.
The Login Form
The login form goes in “login.html”:
<div class="alert alert-danger" ng-show="error"> There was a problem logging in. Please try again. </div> <form role="form" ng-submit="login()"> <div class="form-group"> <label for="username">Username:</label> <input type="text" class="form-control" id="username" name="username" ng-model="credentials.username"/> </div> <div class="form-group"> <label for="password">Password:</label> <input type="password" class="form-control" id="password" name="password" ng-model="credentials.password"/> </div> <button type="submit" class="btn btn-primary">Submit</button> </form>
This is a very standard login form, with 2 inputs for username and password and a button for submitting the form via ng-submit. You don’t need an action on the form tag, so it’s probably better not to put one in at all. There is also an error message, shown only if the angular $scope contains an error. The form controls use ng-model to pass data between the HTML and the Angular controller, and in this case we are using a credentials object to hold the username and pasword. According to the routes we defined the login form is linked with the “navigation” controller, which is so far empty, so let’s head over to that to fill in some gaps.
The Authentication Process
To support the login form we just added we need to add some more features. On the client side these will be implemented in the “navigation” controller, and on the server it will be Spring Security configuration.
Submitting the Login Form
To submit the form we need to define the login() function that we referenced already in the form via ng-submit, and the credentials object that we referenced via ng-model. Let’s flesh out the “navigation” controller in “hello.js” (omitting the routes config and the “home” controller):
angular.module('hello', [ 'ngRoute' ]) //... omitted code.controller('navigation', function($rootScope, $scope, $http, $location) { var authenticate = function(credentials, callback) { var headers = credentials? {authorization : "Basic " + btoa(credentials.username + ":" + credentials.password) } : {}; $http.get('user', {headers : headers}).success(function(data) { if (data.name) { $rootScope.authenticated = true; } else { $rootScope.authenticated = false; } callback && callback(); }).error(function() { $rootScope.authenticated = false; callback && callback(); }); } authenticate(); $scope.credentials = {}; $scope.login = function() { authenticate($scope.credentials, function() { if ($rootScope.authenticated) { $location.path("/"); $scope.error = false; } else { $location.path("/login"); $scope.error = true; } }); }; });
All of the code in the “navigation” controller will be executed when the page loads because the <div> containing the menu bar is visible and is decorated with ng-controller="navigation". In addition to initializing the credentials object, it defines 2 functions, the login() that we need in the form, and a local helper function authenticate() which tries to load a “user” resource from the backend. The authenticate() function is called when the controller is loaded to see if the user is actually already authenticated (e.g. if he had refreshed the browser in the middle of a session). We need the authenticate() function to make a remote call because the actual authentication is done by the server, and we don’t want to trust the browser to keep track of it.
The authenticate() function sets an application-wide flag called authenticated which we have already used in our “home.html” to control which parts of the page are rendered. We do this using $rootScope because it’s convenient and easy to follow, and we need to share the authenticated flag between the “navigation” and the “home” controllers. Angular experts might prefer to share data through a shared user-defined service (but it ends up being the same mechanism).
The authenticate() makes a GET to a relative resource (relative to the deployment root of your application) “/user”. When called from the login() function it adds the Base64-encoded credentials in the headers so on the server it does an authentication and accepts a cookie in return. The login() function also sets a local $scope.error flag accordingly when we get the result of the authentication, which is used to control the display of the error message above the login form.
The Currently Authenticated User
To service the authenticate() function we need to add a new endpoint to the backend:
@SpringBootApplication @RestController public class UiApplication { @RequestMapping("/user") public Principal user(Principal user) { return user; }... }
This is a useful trick in a Spring Security application. If the “/user” resource is reachable then it will return the currently authenticated user (an Authentication ), and otherwise Spring Security will intercept the request and send a 401 response through an AuthenticationEntryPoint.
Handling the Login Request on the Server
Spring Security makes it easy to handle the login request. We just need to add some configuration to our main application class (e.g. as an inner class):
@SpringBootApplication @RestController public class UiApplication {... @Configuration @Order(SecurityProperties.ACCESS_OVERRIDE_ORDER) protected static class SecurityConfiguration extends WebSecurityConfigurerAdapter { @Override protected void configure(HttpSecurity http) throws Exception { http.httpBasic().and().authorizeRequests().antMatchers("/index.html", "/home.html", "/login.html", "/").permitAll().anyRequest().authenticated(); } } }
This is a standard Spring Boot application with Spring Security customization, just allowing anonymous access to the static (HTML) resources (the CSS and JS resources are already accessible by default). The HTML resources need to be available to anonymous users, not just ignored by Spring Security, for reasons that will become clear.
CSRF Protection
The application is almost ready to use, but if you try running it you will find that the login form doesn’t work. Look at the responses in the browser and you will see why:
POST /login HTTP/1.1... Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded username=user&password=password HTTP/1.1 403 Forbidden Set-Cookie: JSESSIONID=3941352C51ABB941781E1DF312DA474E; Path=/; HttpOnly Content-Type: application/json;charset=UTF-8 Transfer-Encoding: chunked... {"timestamp":1420467113764,"status":403,"error":"Forbidden","message":"Expected CSRF token not found. Has your session expired?","path":"/login"}
That’s good because it means that Spring Security’s built-in CSRF protection has kicked in to prevent us from shooting ourselves in the foot. All it wants is a token sent to it in a header called “X-CSRF”. The value of the CSRF token was available server side in the HttpRequest attributes from the initial request that loaded the home page. To get it to the client we could render it using a dynamic HTML page on the server, or expose it via a custom endpoint, or else we could send it as a cookie. The last choice is the best because Angular has built in support for CSRF (which it calls “XSRF”) based on cookies.
So all we need on the server is a custom filter that will send the cookie. Angular wants the cookie name to be “XSRF-TOKEN” and Spring Security provides it as a request attribute, so we just need to transfer the value from a request attribute to a cookie:
public class CsrfHeaderFilter extends OncePerRequestFilter { @Override protected void doFilterInternal(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response, FilterChain filterChain) throws ServletException, IOException { CsrfToken csrf = (CsrfToken) request.getAttribute(CsrfToken.class.getName()); if (csrf!= null) { Cookie cookie = WebUtils.getCookie(request, "XSRF-TOKEN"); String token = csrf.getToken(); if (cookie==null || token!=null &&!token.equals(cookie.getValue())) { cookie = new Cookie("XSRF-TOKEN", token); cookie.setPath("/"); response.addCookie(cookie); } } filterChain.doFilter(request, response); } }
To finish the job and make it completely generic we should be careful to set the cookie path to the context path of the application (instead of hard-coded to “/”), but this is good enough for the application we are working on.
We need to install this filter in the application somewhere, and it needs to go after the Spring Security CsrfFilter so that the request attribute is available. Since we have Spring Security protecting these resources there’s no better place than in the Spring Security filter chain, e.g. extending the SecurityConfiguration above:
@Configuration @Order(SecurityProperties.ACCESS_OVERRIDE_ORDER) protected static class SecurityConfiguration extends WebSecurityConfigurerAdapter { @Override protected void configure(HttpSecurity http) throws Exception { http.httpBasic().and().authorizeRequests().antMatchers("/index.html", "/home.html", "/login.html", "/").permitAll().anyRequest().authenticated().and().addFilterAfter(new CsrfHeaderFilter(), CsrfFilter.class); } }
The other thing we have to do on the server is tell Spring Security to expect the CSRF token in the format that Angular wants to send it back (a header called “X-XRSF-TOKEN” instead of the default “X-CSRF-TOKEN”). We do this by customizing the CSRF filter:
@Override protected void configure(HttpSecurity http) throws Exception { http.httpBasic().and()....csrf().csrfTokenRepository(csrfTokenRepository()); } private CsrfTokenRepository csrfTokenRepository() { HttpSessionCsrfTokenRepository repository = new HttpSessionCsrfTokenRepository(); repository.setHeaderName("X-XSRF-TOKEN"); return repository; }
With those changes in place we don’t need to do anything on the client side and the login form is now working.
Logout
The application is almost finished functionally. The last thing we need to do is implement the logout feature that we sketched in the home page. Here’s a reminder what the navigation bar looks like:
<div ng-controller="navigation" class="container"> <ul class="nav nav-pills" role="tablist"> <li class="active"><a href="#/">home</a></li> <li><a href="#/login">login</a></li> <li ng-show="authenticated"><a href="" ng-click="logout()">logout</a></li> </ul> </div>
If the user is authenticated then we show a “logout” link and hook it to a logout() function in the “navigation” controller. The implementation of the function is relatively simple:
angular.module('hello', [ 'ngRoute' ]). //....controller('navigation', function(...) {... $scope.logout = function() { $http.post('logout', {}).success(function() { $rootScope.authenticated = false; $location.path("/"); }).error(function(data) { $rootScope.authenticated = false; }); }... });
It sends an HTTP POST to “/logout” which we now need to implement on the server. This is straightforward:
@Override protected void configure(HttpSecurity http) throws Exception { http....and().logout()... ; }
(we just added.logout() to the HttpSecurity configuration builder).
How Does it Work?
The interactions between the browser and the backend can be seen in your browser if you use some developer tools (usually F12 opens this up, works in Chrome by default, requires a plugin in Firefox). Here’s a summary:
Verb Path Status Response GET / 200 index.html GET /css/angular-bootstrap.css 200 Twitter bootstrap CSS GET /js/angular-bootstrap.js 200 Bootstrap and Angular JS GET /js/hello.js 200 Application logic GET /user 401 Unauthorized GET /home.html 200 Home page GET /resource 401 Unauthorized GET /login.html 200 Angular login form partial GET /user 401 Unauthorized GET /user 200 Send credentials and get JSON GET /resource 200 JSON greeting
The responses that are marked “ignored” above are HTML responses received by Angular in an XHR call, and since we aren’t processing that data the HTML is dropped on the floor. We do look for an authenticated user in the case of the “/user” resource, but since it isn’t there in the first call, that response is dropped.
Look more closely at the requests and you will see that they all have cookies. If you start with a clean browser (e.g. incognito in Chrome), the very first request has no cookies going off to the server, but the server sends back “Set-Cookie” for “JSESSIONID” (the regular HttpSession ) and “X-XSRF-TOKEN” (the CRSF cookie that we set up above). Subsequent requests all have those cookies, and they are important: the application doesn’t work without them, and they are providing some really basic security features (authentication and CSRF protection). The values of the cookies change when the user authenticates (after the POST) and this is another important security feature (preventing session fixation attacks).
Note: it is not adequate for CSRF protection to rely on a cookie being sent back to the server because the browser will automatically send it even if you are not in a page loaded from your application (a Cross Site Scripting attack, otherwise known as XSS). The header is not automatically sent, so the origin is under control. You might see that in our application the CSRF token is sent to the client as a cookie, so we will see it being sent back automatically by the browser, but it is the header that provides the protection.
Help, How is My Application Going to Scale?
“But wait…” you are saying, “isn’t it Really Bad to use session state in a single-page application?” The answer to that question is going to have to be “mostly”, because it very definitely is a Good Thing to use the session for authentication and CSRF protection. That state has to be stored somewhere, and if you take it out of the session, you are going to have to put it somewhere else and manage it manually yourself, on both the server and the client. That’s just more code and probably more maintenance, and generally re-inventing a perfectly good wheel.
“But, but…” you are going to respond, “how do I scale my application horizontally now?” This is the “real” question you were asking above, but it tends to get shortened to “session state is bad, I must be stateless”. Don’t panic. The main point to take on board here is that security is stateful. You can’t have a secure, stateless application. So where are you going to store the state? That’s all there is to it. Rob Winch gave a very useful and insightful talk at Spring Exchange 2014 explaining the need for state (and the ubiquity of it - TCP and SSL are stateful, so your system is stateful whether you knew it or not), which is probably worth a look if you want to look into this topic in more depth.
The good news is you have a choice. The easiest choice is to store the session data in-memory, and rely on sticky sessions in your load balancer to route requests from the same session back to the same JVM (they all support that somehow). That’s good enough to get you off the ground and will work for a really large number of use cases. The other choice is to share the session data between instances of your application. As long as you are strict and only store the security data, it is small and changes infrequently (only when users log in and out, or their session times out), so there shouldn’t be any major infrastructure problems. It’s also really easy to do with Spring Session. We’ll be using Spring Session in the next article in this series, so there’s no need to go into any detail about how to set it up here, but it is literally a few lines of code and a Redis server, which is super fast.
Tip: another easy way to set up shared session state is to deploy your application as a WAR file to Cloud Foundry Pivotal Web Services and bind it to a Redis service.
But, What about My Custom Token Implementation (it’s Stateless, Look)?
If that was your response to the last section, then read it again because maybe you didn’t get it the first time. It’s probably not stateless if you stored the token somewhere, but even if you didn’t (e.g. you use JWT encoded tokens), how are you going to provide CSRF protection? It’s important. Here’s a rule of thumb (attributed to Rob Winch): if your application or API is going to be accessed by a browser, you need CSRF protection. It’s not that you can’t do it without sessions, it’s just that you’d have to write all that code yourself, and what would be the point because it’s already implemented and works perfectly well on top of HttpSession (which in turn is part of the container you are using and baked into specs since the very beginning)? Even if you decide you don’t need CSRF, and have a perfectly “stateless” (non-session based) token implementation, you still had to write extra code in the client to consume and use it, where you could have just delegated to the browser and server’s own built-in features: the browser always sends cookies, and the server always has a session (unless you switch it off). That code is not business logic, and it isn’t making you any money, it’s just an overhead, so even worse, it costs you money.
ConclusionAs India on Tuesday stole the march over China by launching a mission to Mars, Beijing called for "joint efforts" to ensure peace in outer space.
A rocket carrying the unmanned Mangalyaan orbiter lifted off this afternoon, making India the fourth country after the US, Russia and EU to send probes |
this intense, ever."
Aegis staff member David Anderson contributed to this report.Google has quietly put millions of dollars' worth of resources into a biotech startup that creates targeted antibody drugs that single out diseased targets among healthy cells. The Internet search giant ultimately hopes that computer models alone could identify the best antibody for particular targets for testing in human clinical trials. That would speed up or even replace the usual "wet lab" work and years spent on drug safety testing in animals and humans that costs hundreds of millions of dollars, according to Xconomy.
Tillman Gerngross, a chemical engineer at Dartmouth University who founded Adimab, currently relies on a yeast-based model to create hundreds of antibodies aimed at a certain target within just eight weeks. That gives Adimab an edge over biotech labs that spend six to 18 months working on antibody candidates, but Gerngross has set his sights even higher with the help of Google Ventures, the venture arm of Google.
All of Google's computing power would help create a computer model that could not only show how an antibody binds to a 3-D target structure, but might also simulate the cell death or immune system reaction that follows. The model could then give pharmaceutical customers a quick but precise idea of which antibody candidate stands the best chance of becoming a drug.
This may sound like a strange venture for Google, but Gerngross noted that it's a mathematical problem which requires "formidable" computing power. So it's not necessarily as offbeat as Google's efforts to develop renewable energy, give smart-charging electric cars a boost, or toy with quantum computing.
[via Xconomy]President Trump's voting commission has fallen flat on its face, with nearly every state refusing to hand over the voter registration data the commission is asking for. Louisiana, a solid Republican state, is one of those. I talked to Secretary of State Tom Schedler (R) about why. Our conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
THE FIX: Let's start from the beginning. What was your reaction in January, when the new president said millions of illegal votes almost cost him the election?
The Washington Post's Paul Kane speaks to Libby Casey about President-elect Donald Trump's unfounded claim that millions of people voted illegally for Hillary Clinton. (The Washington Post)
SCHEDLER: As secretary of state of Louisiana, I take exception to that. I don't think we have a bunch of illegal votes being cast in Louisiana. Our list maintenance, I would put it up against any state.
Louisiana has been a photo-ID state since 1987. We don't have same-day registration. We don't have automatic registration. We're not an all-paper ballot state. So I think the safeguards we do have give me somewhat of a comfort zone that maybe didn't exist 30 to 40 years ago. A lot of the prejudice against Deep South Louisiana go back to the mid-60s, when we were a pre-clearance state. I often tell people, much to my conservative principles, that Louisiana deserved to be on that.
We had a disparity of over 40 percent between African American and Caucasian votes in elections. I'm proud to tell you today that disparity is less than a point and a half. When's the last time you heard Louisiana named a problem in an election?
We have a drastically different state than what we were then, and I stand on the process we have here. The U.S. Constitution gives the rights of the states to have the time, place and manner of elections.
Given Louisiana's history with voting rights, did you take Trump's accusations about voter fraud personally?
I'm a big boy. I've been doing this for 30 years. Yeah, you don't like somebody saying that, but it's not so much personal to me. We've seen an erosion of voter participation and voter confidence across the state, so anytime someone brings into question the integrity of elections, that doesn't help the situation.
And usually, people who are saying that really don't understand the voting system. My job here is to make the process easy, efficient, practical, accessible, but make it damn hard to cheat.
And you realize your criticisms sound like they extend to the voter fraud commission Trump put together?
Yes and no. After hearing me talk, you're probably like: 'This guy is like California and Virginia and adamantly against an investigation.' You know what, I welcome the investigation. I think it's time to put the concerns to rest once and for all. We've got Democrats calling voter suppression. We've got Republicans claiming voter fraud. We've got it coming from all angles, and at the end of the day, it diminishes voter participation. It's a difficult thing in the states for us to fight.
So let's get the questions answered once and for all. If Donald Trump's comments are totally off base, it seems to be the other side would want to show he's wrong. If he's right, I would hope all Americans, no matter what your political stripes, would be in agreement: Let's clean it up.
[Editor's note: No study has shown the existence of widespread voter fraud.]
So what could this commission do differently to get your cooperation?
It was the way the ask was approached. If you look at Kris Kobach's letter, on the first page he only asks for publicly available voter rolls that are legal under your state law.
But then he goes on to get into some things that get a little out there: Social Security numbers, mother's maiden name, date of birth and the like. Only yesterday in an interview did he finally say what he should have said from the get go: 'I'm only asking for public information that anybody can get. I'd like to get A, B, C, D and E, but if you're law doesn't allow it, that's okay.'
[Trump's voter fraud commission wants to know the voting history, party ID and address of every voter in the U.S.]
On Aug. 1, a federal judge declined to block the president's voter fraud commission from collecting voter data. A lawsuit attempting to block the collection of voter data could now go to a federal appeals court. (Patrick Martin/The Washington Post)
And would you have handed that data over?
I would have been a little less verbal, I woulda just said: Hey, Kris, this is where you get the public information that's available. It's address, name, party affiliation and frequency of voting. It's readily available to anyone. He forced all of us — after being besieged with thousands of tweets and emails from both side of the political equation, saying: 'Don't give out my personal information.' So I made a very steadfast deal that no Louisiana information that encompasses Social Security number, mother's maiden name, date of birth, will ever be released under my administration, Tom Schedler.
And let me get the hypocrisy of politics today for just a moment. Five years ago I was sued by Eric Holder's Department of Justice regarding we didn't with'sufficient vigor' register people to vote at social services office. They wanted me to produce in discovery the voter registration lists that included the birthday, the Social Security number, the mother's maiden name and the code of how to manipulate the data. I refused, I was defending the confidentiality of people's voting information. And I will continue to do that. I didn't give this to Obama. I'm not giving it to Trump.
I think the difference between the two administrations — and perhaps why there's been such a visceral reaction to this request — is the president accused states like yours among others, as trying to hide something. The White House said refusing to give over the data is “a political stunt” on the states' part.
I wouldn't necessarily disagree with you. I think they have created this environment. I think, done in a different way, this could have been accomplished. And it still can be accomplished. I'm passionate about the integrity of elections, and there are tools to do this very thing from a state level.
There is a Homeland Security list called the SAVE list that purportedly has 15-20 million illegal aliens that are in this country. Can you imagine how valuable that could be to the states, when they register someone, to be able to cross check against that list to determine if they are a citizen?
Are states under attack in terms of their election integrity?
I don't know if we are under attack, but it goes back to: There are so many people engaged in this that don't have a clue how elections are run. It's beyond me.
Things have become so caustic, and the sad thing is that it's spilled over now into the most precious right we have as Americans, the vote. And that's what's so frustrating to me, no matter who is claiming fraud or whatever. Damnit, bring forth the proof. Bring forth the proof that the Russians did something on Election Day. I'm so tired of this back and forth and nobody brings the proof.
What other advice would you give Trump and this voter commission to get states to participate?
Take the time to study and learn the system, learn what people are doing, and learn what elections are I say that to Donald Trump, I say that to anybody in Washington, D.C. Learn the system and then you can criticize it.With the first half of the NHL season behind us, it’s time to look around the league and see who should be picked to win the various major awards in the NHL. It’s been an exciting first half, filled with some surprising (and not so surprising) performances. Let’s look at who is getting the job done right now, and who isn’t.
Masterton Trophy (sportsmanship, perseverance, dedication to hockey): Josh Harding
Likely the easiest award I will give out. Harding exemplifies what this award is all about. Diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in the offseason, Harding is fighting hard every day to be back on the ice with his teammates and playing the game he loves. In his first game this season, he even posted a shutout, giving us one of the feel good moments of the year. Let’s hope Harding can continue to live his dream and make an impact in the NHL, while being an inspiration to others with this horrible disease.
Runners Up: Andrei Markov, Teemu Selanne
Selke Trophy (best defensive forward): Patrice Bergeron
The Bruins continue to battle for a spot at the very top of the NHL and Bergeron is a big reason why. He plays against the top players on opposing teams, keeps them in check, wins faceoffs, kills penalties, and even provides a little offence of his own. One of the most complete players in the National Hockey League, Bergeron is a key cog in making the Bruins a feared opponent once again.
Runners Up: Pavel Datsyuk, Jonathan Toews
Jack Adams Award (Coach of the Year): Paul MacLean
Paul MacLean currently has the Senators in 5th place in the Eastern Conference and solidly in a playoff spot. This is despite the fact that they have been without their #1 centre, and best forward Jason Spezza for all but a few games; their #1 defenceman, Norris Trophy Winner, and team MVP Erik Karlsson for well over a month now; and their star goaltender Craig Anderson for over 3 weeks. MacLean is leading this “no name” group of Senators to things no one would have thought possible, and thus is the coach of the year in my mind.
Runners Up: Joel Quenneville, Bruce Boudreau
General Manager of the Year: Stan Bowman
A relatively new award compared to its counterparts on this list, but one that will grow in prestige as the years go by. Bowman is recognized for his work in retooling the Hawks following their stint in Cap Jail after the 2010 Stanley Cup Win. The Hawks are a powerhouse as seen by the 24-game unbeaten run which ended recently and the work of Bowman in surrounding a good core with quality depth through smart trades and draft picks is the reason why.
Runners Up: Marc Bergevin, Bryan Murray
Calder Trophy (Rookie of the Year): Jonathan Huberdeau
With the injury to Vladimir Tarasenko, and Cory Conacher slowing down from his early season pace, Huberdeau has seized the opportunity to take the lead in this award. Playing on a Florida squad that has been decimated with injuries, Huberdeau has become one of the key offensive contributors for the Panthers. Huberdeau’s slick moves and all world talent have him atop the Rookie charts with 12 goals, while his 17 points are second to Conacher.
Runners up: Cory Conacher, Justin Schultz,
Vezina Trophy (top Goaltender): Pekka Rinne
Rinne has a 2.00 goals against average, a.924 save percentage with 5 shutouts. On a Nashville team that isn’t known for putting up big offensive numbers, Rinne is forced to keep the goals against very low to give his team a chance to win every night. He’s been up to the challenge yet again this season. Rinne is the number one reason Nashville remains competitive year in and year out, and continue to be right in the mix in the Western Conference playoff race. Craig Anderson could challenge for this award, but he’s going to need to repeat his stellar early season numbers once he returns from injury.
Runners Up: Craig Anderson, Victor Fasth
Norris Trophy (top Defenceman): P.K. Subban
Probably the biggest surprise on this list and one of the closest races in my mind. Subban leads all defencemen with 7 goals, and is second in the league with 20 points in 21 games, as he missed the first six games of the season in a contract holdout. Subban is also +5 and is now averaging over 22 minutes per game. That number is rising however, as it appeared it took PK a few weeks to find his endurance. He’s been playing increasingly more minutes, and the tough match-ups lately as his ice-time spiked to a season high 31 minutes last night vs Ottawa. Subban seems to be getting better and better as the young season goes on, and is a massive reason for the Habs turnaround from worst to first this season. Meanwhile in Pittsburgh, defensive scoring leader Kris Letang will certainly give him a run for his money in the second half.
Runners Up: Kris Letang, Zdeno Chara
Hart Trophy (MVP) & Ted Lindsay Award (Most Outstanding Player): Sidney Crosby
It’s a clean sweep for Crosby as he wins the NHL’s two most prestigious individual awards. Crosby is quite simply the best player in the game right now. He’s running away with the scoring title and has led his Penguins to the top of the NHL’s Atlantic Division (and fighting for the top of the Eastern Conference). Crosby leads by example, and never takes a shift off. He’s deadly in all areas of the ice, and does more than just score points as he is also a top faceoff man, and good defensively. Right now Sid has no equal in the NHL, and he deserves all the accolades he gets, including these awards.
Runners Up: Steven Stamkos, Patrick Kane
So there you have it, my picks for the midseason NHL awards. Agree/Disagree? Leave your comments below.
You can follow me on twitter @lastwordBKerr. Give the rest of the hockey department a follow while you’re at it – @BigMick99, @IswearGaa and @LastWordOnNHL, and follow the site @lastwordonsport.
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photo credit: Thebeev via photopin ccThe “arch-federalist” Juncker? A comparative perspective Ronny Patz
UK politicians call Juncker arch-federalist, and the press has taken over this term, too. The Telegraph does it. The Guardian does it. The (Irish) Independent does it. The Washington Post does. What they show is their lack of perspective, of comparative analysis, with Juncker’s predecessor(s) and with his competitors for the Commission top-job.
Had those media closely followed political discourses at European level in recent years, they would have noticed that the current Commission President was not less in danger of being an ultra-arch-hardcore-whatever “federalist” – aka “pro-centralisation-ist” as Nosemonkey pointed out.
In 2011, Barroso said Europe needed a “federalist moment”. He has called for the EU to become a federation of nation states back in 2012 and had to defend himself writing that this would not mean an EU-superstate. Then again, he said in 2013 that the EU would be a federation in a few years’ time.
Most interestingly, Barroso was backed twice by the UK.
First, because he liked the Iraq war that Britain had tried to get Europe into based on lies. Second, because Barroso has a strong pro-US stance based on his CV and also because he was known to be a market-liberal. And when he was re-elected as Commission President in 2009, the UK government knew that he was such a weak Commission President that he would not face any threat.
Juncker, it seems, has neither of these qualities, and that’s probably worse than the his so-called “arch-federalist” views. Why? Because Cameron made the Tories leave the European People’s Party because it was too federalist – meaning that any EPP candidate is potentially too federalist for Cameron anyway, so that could hardly be the argument.
Instead, the debate around Juncker shows how the UK and European political discourse have seen a change during and after these elections.
It shows that for the first time the outcome of a European election seem to matter for British politics, and that is so frightening for parts of the political and journalistic class that they have to leave their years of quality discourse and quality EU journalism (#sarcasm) and lose sight of reality.
Funny enough, had the UK press been as fierce on Barroso as on Juncker, we would have spent the best part of 2004 discussing about Barroso’s communist past. But we didn’t. Instead, we got “Mr Compromise” Barroso (not “Mr Maoist” Barroso) as part of a backroom deal over the policies and top-job portfolios. Not much excitement.
Now, this time it’s just a little different, but to quote from yesterday’s Charlamagne column in The Economist:
“The odd thing is that, of the available Spitzenkandidaten, Mr Juncker is probably the least bad choice. He is neither an ultra-federalist like Guy Verhofstadt, the liberals’ man, nor a creature of the parliament like Mr Schulz.”
It shows how a little bit of perspective suits the debate, whether it’s comparison of Juncker with his predecessor(s) or with those man who ran alongside Juncker for the Commission presidency.
So as someone who wouldn’t call himself a federalist/centralisatist, I’m not afraid of getting an “arch-federalist” Commission President with Juncker.
What I’m more afraid is that Juncker will not be up to the job. During the TV debates in past months, I’ve seen a tired old man with little capacity to explain European policies and politics to a wider audience, even though Charlemagne indicates he is rather likable in private. Even if he was arch-federalist, he didn’t leave the impression that he would fight for that (or for anything).
So what we should be afraid of is a Commission President who’d be even less inspirational than Barroso in his 10 years on the top. Probably a great hope for Mr. Cameron and his PR-stunt for EU reform.
But then again, Juncker at least managed to get any kind of emotion into EU politics – that’s definitely a plus compared to the past decade and José Manuel Barroso. And that’s my closing comparative view.Winnie-the-Pooh, for starters, is a seemingly harmless children’s novel. The first Winnie-the-Pooh book was published in 1926 by A. A. Milne and has been a cherished childhood staple ever since. The titular Pooh Bear being a honey-obsessed, clumsy, stuffed bear who goes on little adventures with other anthropomorphic characters like Piglet, Eeyore, and Tigger.
The charm of Winnie-the-Pooh exploded when Disney acquired ownership in 1961. Now, many years later, Pooh can be found in countless movies, spin off books, and TV shows in multiple languages. There are even streets named after Pooh Bear in Warsaw and Budapest. In Hollywood, he has his own star.
It’s hard to see how this innocent childhood classic could land itself on the banned book list. However, Winnie-the-Pooh has been challenged since it’s original publication date for featuring animals that are just as articulate as the human character, Christopher Robin.
In America, conservative Christians claimed that the walking-talking stuffed bear was an insult to God. They weren’t too jazzed that he never wears pants, either.
In Britain, there was worry that children’s stories featuring talking pigs — we’re looking at you, Piglet — might be offensive toward Muslim and Jewish children. The Muslim Council of Britain came out against the ban and called it “well-intentioned but misguided.”
Now British children can enjoy Winnie-the-Pooh, Charlotte’s Web, and The Three Little Pigs as children should.
Even as recently as this summer, Winnie-the-Pooh was stirring up trouble and was banned in China because bloggers started using images of Winnie-the-Pooh to mock President Xi Jinping. Due to China’s censorship policies, children are being denied a literary classic.ABBOTSFORD (NEWS 1130) – The same day that members of the Coalition Against Bigotry rallied to honour Martin Luther King Junior, KKK flyers insulting the civil rights icon were scattered around a neighbourhood in Abbotsford.
The group is holding another rally outside a Sikh temple in that city today urging law enforcement and governments to act.
“They need to protect us and they’re not,” says Imtiaz Popat, an organizer with Coalition Against Bigotry Pacific.
The group formed after KKK flyers were delivered to homes in Abbotsford, Chilliwack, and Mission last fall.
“I’m not very happy with the reaction from the Abbotsford police, I have to tell you. I don’t think they’re taking it seriously,” says Popat, adding the rally is meant as a sort of wake-up call.
“White supremacies are on the rise in the Fraser Valley, in Vancouver, and nothing’s being done about it,” says Popat.
He says the reports of racially-motivated attacks have been getting more frequent.
“These people are dangerous. They are out to kill us. They have guns from the past. They firebomb, they hurt, and they attack, and we need to take this seriously.”
Back in 1998, a group of skinheads stomped a man to death outside a Sikh Temple in Surrey.
The BC Hate Crimes Team is being consulted about the latest set of flyers.The leader of the Tea Party Nation organization has a blunt message for likely Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney: Tea partiers will likely vote for you, but don’t expect them to get energized and campaign for you.
“The tea party is not going to coalesce around Romney,” Judson Phillips told The Daily Caller on Thursday. “Most of us will vote for Romney, but we will not be out there with signs for him or in his campaign.” (RELATED: Full coverage of the tea party movement)
Phillips said that surveys conducted on the Tea Party Nation website have shown that about 25 percent of tea party activists say they won’t vote for Romney in the general election.
These activists — who don’t think Romney is an authentic conservative — flirted with Romney’s rivals during the Republican primary fight.
But Phillips said he expects that number to decrease as the former Massachusetts governor gets into a one-on-one race with President Barack Obama.
“While that number will change as we get closer to the election, Romney has a huge problem with the conservative base of the GOP,” Phillips said. “He had better do something about that ASAP or he won’t have to worry about that moving to the middle nonsense. Without the GOP base, he is a lost cause.”
“Most of us,” he added, “are focusing on Senate and House races now.”
Another conservative leader, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, struck a similar note after former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum dropped out of the presidential race this week.
“It’s difficult for us to back a candidate our constituents don’t believe in and aren’t excited about,” Perkins told CNN, suggesting that social conservatives will instead focus their efforts on helping Republicans win control of the U.S. Senate in 2012.
Follow Alex on TwitterKalief Browder Deniers Solve Nothing
June 15, 2015 (Mimesis Law) Fault Lines writer Cristian Farias slums over at New York Magazine when he’s not penning stuff for a more, ahem, prestigious outlet. This past week, he wrote about the case of Kalief Browder, a teenager who spent three years on the Rock before being cut loose, his case dismissed. He is now dead.
Cristian’s post was titled, How All New Yorkers Killed Kalief Browder. While the author of the post doesn’t get to pick his own headline, and headlines are, to some extent, framed for the purpose of getting people to read what follows, this one pretty much nailed Cristian’s point.
In the narrow focus, Kalief Browder committed suicide. In the broader focus, Kalief Browder’s suicide was brought about by the hell he experienced in the system. But in the broadest focus, the system is us. We killed Kalief Browder.
Don’t start sweating. No cop will knock on your door with an arrest warrant. It’s not that we are legally culpable for Kalief’s death. We are, however, culpable for a legal system that put in place the barriers, one after another after another, that led inextricably to a young man taking his own life.
No doubt, there were other influences involved, as no one commits suicide for only the reasons that are obvious from the outside. But ceteris parabus, everything else is on our shoulders.
Yet, the reaction to Cristian’s post was, well, shocking.
Title of this article is very misleading. New Yorkers did kill Mr. Browder. New York City/New York State and the Federal Government all financed by the 1% killed Mr. Browder. So was this Kalief Browder’s fault? He was a New Yorker, of voting age. This is nonsense. When you trot out this “it was EVERYONE’S fault” line, what you do is absolve the actual people who were at fault. And you do it by putting the blame on the victims. This author is a damn liar! Tell me now, do you support this cracker bullshit? Do you like seeing innocent people murdered by police and a paying for a prison system that causes mental illnesses? If so answer yes, if not answer no. I just don’t believe Americans want any of this crap, Christian Farias. I cannot get past the title. And I won’t go beyond the first page. No, “we” are not all at fault. They are not our “servants” doing our bidding. They are employed by the State of New York which has a bureaucracy which is dangerously screwed up. I think that when arguments are based on “we are all at fault” they are the weakest arguments because it turns away all but those who like to feel guilty but do nothing.
It’s not that any of these comments were uncritical of what happened to Kalief, but that they rejected, vehemently, the implication that they had anything to do with it. In the good old “us against them,” they picked the “not me” side.
Does the “we are all at fault” theme serve to diffuse responsibility over too broad a group so that those whose fingers were actually wrapped around Kalief’s neck are absolved of personal responsibility for their role in this fiasco? From one perspective, it does.
There are degrees of responsibility, and those who made active decisions, horribly bad decisions or just facile decisions that served their interest at the time are certainly more directly responsible for what they did than those who aren’t in a position to directly affect much of anything.
But then, the angry denials of responsibility miss the boat as well. The litany of things that went wrong in Kalief Browder’s case was nothing new. Granted, pretty much everything that could go wrong, that could be blown, that could destroy a life, that could happen to Kalief and suck the sanity out of him, did. That confluence of horribles doesn’t happen too often.
Each element of the system that crashed down on the head of Kalief Browder was in place for a reason, and the nice folks who put it there did so in our name. They crafted laws and procedures to protect us from crime and capture the criminal. They hired men and women, and outfitted them with shields and weapons. They hired more men and women, kids actually, and gave them vast discretion to decide whom to prosecute, who needed bail because they couldn’t be trusted to return to court. And there were judges, too, who get to be called “Your Honor” because our system may not be perfect, but, well, you know the rest.
You can blame it on the 1% protecting their turf from the groundlings, but you’re lying to yourself. One percent can’t win an election. It takes more than 50% of the voters to do that, and even if you voted against the power oligarchy, your parents and your neighbors didn’t.
Then, there is the never-ending stream of stories of good and evil in the legal system, and you are happy to embrace the bad when it applies to someone you hate, whether because they’re a cop, a hater or someone who did something to you personally. Where was your outrage when the system failed, but you liked the outcome?
So don’t worry about an arrest warrant being issued for you. It’s not happening, and no one will ask you, either at the cocktail party at the club or the rave, how you sleep at night knowing what you did to Kalief Browder. But to deny that we’re all in this together, and that what happened to Kalief is the rare, but inevitable, outcome of a system to which we all contribute in one way or another, is the lie.
Cristian was right, we are all responsible, because we are all laboring oars in a system that caused the death of Kalief Browder. Suck it up and do something more productive than angrily denying it. There is no easy answer to how to fix it, but shirking responsibility clearly won’t work.
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TwitterThe NFL is looking for an artist that will top Lady Gaga’s 2017 Super Bowl halftime performance(and ratings) and they found everything they need in Jay-Z. Problem is, Hov says no.
The rap mogul turned down the coveted halftime spot for next year’s Super Bowl, which boasts past shows from the likes of Missy Elliot, Janet Jackson and his wife Beyoncé. The Sun Newspaper quoted an “insider” close to Jigga as saying that, “He really has no plans to do the half-time show,” in reference to the Super Bowl performance in Minneapolis next year.
Last week, Jay showed his solidarity with ousted NFLer Colin Kaepernick by shouting him out during his stage performance in NYC.
Could this be Jay’s way of supporting the NFL boycott after the booting of Kaepernick and Ezekiel?
TheSource.com will update this story as the details become available.US corporate profits soar on layoffs, wage cuts
By Barry Grey
6 October 2010
US corporate profits are soaring in the midst of the deepest economic slump since the Great Depression, on the basis of a ruthless policy of using mass unemployment to slash wages and heighten the exploitation of American workers. In order to make the impoverishment of the working class a permanent feature of American life, companies are hoarding vast amounts of cash rather than hiring workers and expanding output.
These are the conclusions that flow from a Wall Street Journal analysis of second-quarter 2010 corporate profits, reported in the newspaper’s Monday edition under the headline “Propelling the Profit Comeback: Retooling, Downsizing.” The article gives statistics showing that US corporate profits are surging despite stagnant and even falling revenue, sharply increasing the percentage of revenue represented by profit.
None of the other major industrialized nations has registered a rise in corporate profits in the aftermath of the financial panic of September 2008 comparable to that in the US. Not coincidentally, none has witnessed mass layoffs on the scale seen here.
This difference points to the critical role played by the Obama administration. It has rejected any serious measures to create jobs and thereby fostered an economic environment of permanent mass unemployment. It gave the signal for a nationwide offensive against the wages and conditions of US workers when it forced General Motors and Chrysler into bankruptcy and insisted on tens of thousands of layoffs and unprecedented wage cuts as part of a government bailout of the auto bosses.
Among the statistics reported by the Journal are the following:
• The Commerce Department estimates that for all US companies, second-quarter after-tax profits rose to an annual rate of $1.208 trillion, an increase of 3.9 percent from the first quarter and a 26.5 percent rise from a year earlier. This is the highest annual rate on record, although it does not take inflation into account. As a percentage of national income, after-tax profits were the third highest since 1947, surpassed only by two quarters in 2006, at the height of the last boom.
• Companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index reported second-quarter profits of $189 billion, 38 percent higher than a year earlier and their sixth highest quarterly total ever, without adjusting for inflation.
• This year’s second-quarter profits at S&P 500 companies were 10 percent higher than in the second quarter of 2008, prior to the financial panic, even though revenue was down by 6 percent. Out of every dollar of sales, companies kept nearly 8.4 cents as profit, up from 7 cents in the 2008 quarter.
• Cumulative profit at technology firms rose 33 percent in the second quarter compared with the same quarter in 2008, though revenue increased by only 7 percent.
• In the consumer discretionary category, which includes the finance and auto industries, net margin—the percentage of revenue that represents profit--more than tripled between the second quarter of 2008 and the corresponding period this year.
As the Journal notes, “To achieve that performance, companies laid off hundreds of thousands of workers, closed less profitable units, shifted work to cheaper regions and streamlined processes.”
The article singles out a number of companies that sharply increased their profits by means of cost-cutting and downsizing, including Texas Instruments, video game maker Electronic Arts Inc., Starbucks, Coca Cola, Ford Motor Co. and industrial parts maker Parker Hannifin. All reported higher profits despite flat or declining sales as compared with 2008, the newspaper notes.
“Despite the hefty profits,” the Journal says, “executives aren’t expected to boost spending on new employees, products and equipment anytime soon.”
John Riccitiello, chief executive of Electronic Arts, which slashed its video game releases by nearly half and laid off 2,000 of its 9,800 employees, is quoted as saying, “We’ve focused on permanent changes that won’t have to be undone as sales improve.”
At Parker Hannifin, profits more than quadrupled from a year earlier while sales grew only 25 percent. Its CEO is quoted as saying the firm plans no significant new hiring “for the foreseeable future,” and will instead stretch its work force by using part-timers and adding weekend shifts.
The turnaround at Ford is even more staggering. In the second quarter of 2008 the company posted an $8.7 billion loss. This year, even though sales remain 15 percent below 2008 levels, Ford reported a second-quarter profit of $2.6 billion, its fifth consecutive quarterly profit.
Far from this upsurge in profits arising from a general expansion of production and employment, it has been achieved almost entirely from the destruction of jobs and the use of mass unemployment to blackmail workers into accepting wage cuts and speedup.
As Financial Times commentator Tony Jackson writes in a column published Monday, “Among the many puzzling phenomena of the post-crisis world, one of the oddest is the astonishing rebound in American corporate profits.” Noting that US corporate profit as a proportion of total national output is “back at record levels in spite of the financial crisis,” Jackson attributes this fact to the “division of the pie between capital and labour.”
Also on Monday, the New York Times published a front-page article on the immense cash hoard being piled up by US corporations as a result of the Federal Reserve’s near-zero interest rate policy and the increase in profits. The estimated $1.6 trillion of cash in corporate coffers is not being used to hire more workers. To the extent that a portion of this money is being invested, it is largely going for such parasitic purposes as stock buy-backs (which drive up share values without producing any real value) and mergers and acquisitions, which inevitably result in more job-cutting and downsizing.
These statistics provide a only a pale indication of the human suffering and social devastation at one pole and ever more obscene enrichment of the financial aristocracy at the other resulting from the failure of the capitalist profit system and the drive by the ruling class, spearheaded by the Obama administration and backed by both big business parties, to impose the full brunt of the crisis on the working class.
What is involved here is not a temporary downturn, after which conditions will improve for the masses of people, but rather a fundamental realignment of class relations based on a drastic and permanent lowering of working class living standards.
To carry through this offensive, the ruling class relies on the collaboration of the trade unions to suppress working class opposition. In the United Auto Workers union and the AFL-CIO and Change to Win union federations the Obama administration and the corporate elite have accomplices whose only concern is to secure for the union bureaucracy a cut in the spoils of the class war being waged against working people.
The Socialist Equality Party urges workers to carry out a rebellion against these corrupt, right-wing organizations and establish independent and democratic rank-and-file action committees to fight against layoffs, plant closures and wage cuts. These committees should spearhead the struggle to unite all sections of workers and young people and mobilize the power of the working class.
This is a political fight against the Obama administration, both big business parties and the capitalist system which they defend. We urge workers and youth to read the SEP program, “The Breakdown of Capitalism & the Fight for Socialism in the United States,” attend the public meeting in their area and make the decision to |
executives were annoyed that he occasionally wore Nikes. 50 Cent, who had a lower-end line, was always in Reeboks, and actually ended up making more from his endorsement deal than Carter, who shared in the joint venture’s overhead costs. “Even if it did cost him some money in the short term,” says Que Gaskins, who oversaw the sneaker’s marketing as an executive at Reebok, “I think it was really important to him to be perceived as an equal partner.”
The Reebok deal led to relationships with other major corporations, alliances that often came with an equity stake, an impressive title—“co–brand director, Budweiser Select”—or an advertising campaign timed for Jay-Z’s purposes. He also began seeding his songs with placements for products like the Champagne Armand de Brignac, the cognac D’Usse, and even a beauty-product company called Carol’s Daughter—all enterprises in which he had a disclosed or presumed interest. Stoute once tried to market a trademarked color, “Jay-Z Blue.” That didn’t work, but you might say Carter and his wife have since relaunched it as a diffusion brand. Earlier this year, they trademarked their daughter’s name, Blue Ivy Carter, for the purpose of marketing products like baby strollers, bibs, and teething rings. The name Shawn Carter, meanwhile, was licensed in perpetuity to a joint venture Carter formed with a publicly traded clothing company in 2007.
Some brand associations reap intangible dividends, like Carter’s relationship with the Nets, an investment that was both less and more than met the eye. At a Barclays Center concert last year, Carter gave a lengthy monologue about the origins of the deal: how Jason Kidd—then the New Jersey Nets’ point guard, now the coach—told him one night in 2003 that the team was for sale, which led to a series of meetings with developer Bruce Ratner, who was bidding to buy the team. “He was like, We’re going to Brooklyn,” Carter told the crowd. “I was like, Oh, let’s do that. I actually said, ‘Fuck yeah.’ ”
Minus the profane flourish, that’s pretty much how it happened in Ratner’s recollection. The developer took Carter to the top of a tall building overlooking the state-owned rail yards along Atlantic Avenue, a prime expanse of Brooklyn real estate.* He feared he might lose the Atlantic Yards site if the government went to open bidding, so he had come up with the Nets as a unique anchor tenant. Carter pointed out a nearby building where he had once lived, 560 State Street—later to be immortalized as his “stash spot” on “Empire State of Mind.” “I don’t think I overly thought about, at that point, whether he had good business sense,” Ratner told me. “But I did know this: I knew his history, I knew how he started from nothing.”
Some discerned a political calculus: Ratner was facing a tough public-approval process. “He was kind of their minority poster child,” says L. Londell McMillan, who knew Carter growing up in the projects and went on to become an entertainment attorney and a fellow Nets investor. He added, “You look at his business model, it is very similar to Magic Johnson’s.” In fact, before sealing the deal with Carter, Ratner unsuccessfully wooed Johnson. “I think there was some skepticism,” says one executive who was involved in the project. “Could this guy who was a rough teenager and committed acts of crime, who had these horrible lyrics, come into the corporate fold?”
For Carter, the deal was all about changing perceptions—and making connections. Drew Katz, whose father Lewis was selling the team to Ratner but was planning to hold on to a percentage, helped to broker an initial meeting at the 40/40 Club. “My dad said, ‘Being a partner with Bruce and me, you’ll learn a whole lot more about how to make money,’ ” Katz recalls. “Both sides were trying to feel each other out to see who was going to get the bigger benefit of being connected.” Carter’s investment of a million dollars amounted to one third of one percent of the $300 million purchase of the team and allotted him a similar interest in the planned arena and the rest of the Atlantic Yards real estate. Those numbers weren’t publicized, however, and Carter was presented as a major partner.
At the 2010 ground breaking for Barclays Center, Carter was one of a handful of hard-hatted executives holding shovels. Marty Markowitz, Brooklyn’s blustery borough president, praised him as an entrepreneur who “went from bricks to billboards,” a reference that caused Carter to arch his eyebrows theatrically. Alone among the well over 100 limited partners, Carter had a seat on the arena’s board. “Everyone quieted down when he spoke about anything that had to do with marketing,” Ratner said. The team awarded an advertising contract to Translation. As it prepared for the relocation to Brooklyn, Carter exercised influence over the new logo and color scheme.
There were tensions, particularly during the messy period when Ratner was slashing payroll and struggling to move the team. When naming rights became available for the Meadowlands arena where the Nets played, Carter wanted to rename it “the Roc,” for Rocawear, and he made his displeasure known when he was outbid by Izod. Carter wanted to use his connections to improve the team, but there were limits to what he could do. Many fans hoped he would recruit the biggest pending free agent of all, LeBron James, but he was wary of asking his buddy to come to a losing team. “We’re friends—we’ve still gotta hang out!” Carter told Rolling Stone. James ultimately did grant the Nets an audience, but opted for the Miami Heat. It seems there are no hard feelings: The two superstars host an annual “Two Kings Dinner” for charity during the NBA All-Star break.
Martin had a dream, HOV got a team
—“F.U.T.W.”
The James relationship is emblematic of the way Carter approaches life: His friendships and investments interweave into one very expensive tapestry. “Over time I’ve developed a clearer sense of the difference between business ‘friendships’ and true friendships,” he writes in Decoded. “Loyalty is what sets them apart.” A few of his top executives—like Briant “Bee-High” Biggs, a cousin who has been exploring technology investments in Nigeria, and Tyran “Ty-Ty” Smith, who is ever at his side as a sort of homeboy without portfolio—are confidants from his life before music. Many others date back to the days of Roc-A-Fella.
During his period as Def Jam’s president, Carter found himself in an unaccustomed position, working for a large, unfriendly organization. He tried to sell the higher-ups at Universal on giving him his own vehicle, a fund to invest broadly in entertainment ventures. They passed, and also balked at his contract demands, so he announced his departure in 2007, taking his core team en masse. After a whirling period of free agency, he signed his $150 million deal with Live Nation, the publicly traded concert promoter. One third of the money went to start Roc Nation, the entertainment company he wanted—a boutique firm that capitalizes on Carter’s ability to forge alliances with much larger partners.
At the time, Live Nation was trying to diversify by forming comprehensive “360 deals” with major stars. The rest of the $150 million, a mix of upfront payments and advances, gave the company rights to Carter’s tours, recorded music, and other revenues. For Carter, the deal was appealing because it locked in future profits. For Live Nation, the benefits were less evident: Kenny Chesney sells out football stadiums; the biggest hip-hop acts play arenas.
Last year, Carter toured Europe with Kanye West and staged a celebratory solo stand in Brooklyn to open up Barclays Center. The eight sold-out shows grossed around $7.3 million, according to the trade publication Pollstar. Before the finale, Carter and his entourage caught the subway at Canal Street and rode to Brooklyn, creating a viral-video moment. Walking next to him was a middle-aged man in a Nets cap: his old friend Emory Jones. When Jones was up for a sentence reduction in 2009, Carter wrote a letter to the judge, and on his release there was reportedly a Maybach waiting at the gates. “Welcome home to Emory,” Carter raps on the new album. “Let’s get back to this dinero.”
That night, Carter took the stage in full Nets regalia, in a mood to redress some grievances. A recent front-page New York Times story had revealed that the current size of his ownership stake was just one fifteenth of one percent. “Most media, they try to refer to my participation in the team, they talk these numbers, ‘.0015’—whatever. I don’t know where they get that number from, but hey, that’s their way of diminishing our accomplishments,” Carter said. Then, after referencing his hard-knock childhood, he declared: “I stand before you as an owner of the Brooklyn Nets.” He called on the audience to raise their middle fingers, and launched into “99 Problems.”
The origin of Carter’s diatribe was a change in his business relationship with the Nets. In 2008, after years of lawsuits and delays, the crash hit, scuttling Ratner’s bond financing. As he was about to lose the site, Ratner called on an unlikely savior, the Russian nickel billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov, who invested $200 million in cash and took on a similar amount of debt. Carter, like all the limited partners, saw his equity in the team diluted by 80 percent. It wasn’t just the proportions that changed, though. “Bruce was a pretty egoless owner,” Drew Katz said. The same could not be said for Prokhorov, an international playboy who recently ran for Russia’s presidency.
Nonetheless, Carter made the most of his role as the revived franchise’s most visible fan. He put a branch of the 40/40 Club on the luxury-suite level of Barclays Center. (On the less exalted concourse, his cousin also opened a chicken-wing concession.) Carter applied his expertise to the Vault, the ultraexclusive luxury-suite complex on the court level. “Jay-Z looks at the design,” Ratner recalls, “and he says, ‘Nope!’ ” Carter had a suite in the Vault, and he often sat with members of his inner council in a row of courtside seats just left of the Nets bench.
As always, Carter exploited the marketing opportunities. During the Nets’ first regular-season home game, for instance, he wore a conspicuous pair of custom-retrofitted Air Jordans, overlaid with nine different animal skins. The exposure of the “Brooklyn Zoo” shoes, which retailed for $2,500, provided a major boost to PMK Customs, the Cleveland firm that designed them. It is now consulting with Puma and Under Armour, says André Scott, the company’s chief executive. Scott told me his sneakers caught Jay-Z’s attention through Emory Jones, who, getting back to the dinero, had previously acquired part of PMK Customs.
Carter wasn’t just there to be seen, though: He is a genuine fan. “He appears to be absolutely thrilled and enthralled with the game,” says David Kuperberg, a real-estate executive and Nets investor who has seats behind Carter’s. He isn’t an obnoxious partisan like Spike Lee. “The opposing players are always saying hello to him,” Kuperberg says. As it turned out, Carter wasn’t just being friendly. He was networking.
I’m on to the next one / On to the next one / I’m on to the next one
—“On to the Next One”
Jay-Z’s chorus blasted over Barclays Center’s sound system as David Stern prepared to announce the next pick in the NBA draft. Carter himself was nowhere to be seen, but it was still very much his building. His presence hung in the air as prospects waited in a corral ringed with cameras, families and agents at their sides. The agents were easy to identify—they were the white guys—and they had reason to be nervous. A few days before, Carter had become licensed to represent NBA players, and now he was free to come after their clients.
The launch of Roc Nation Sports was orchestrated through the usual social-media striptease. One day in early April, Roc Nation and CAA announced they were forming a partnership to start the agency and stealing Robinson Cano from powerhouse Scott Boras. As an opening statement, it was like picking a fight with the biggest guy in prison. Cano tweeted out a picture with Carter and the message “Rocboys!” Over the ensuing weeks, further clues leaked: A picture of Carter with the Jets’ rookie quarterback Geno Smith appeared on Instagram, as did one of the WNBA player Skylar Diggins standing next to a gift from the agency, a white Mercedes. Then, moments after game seven of the NBA Finals ended, Roc Nation executive Rich Kleiman tweeted: “Everything starts Now.” A few days later, Kevin Durant posted an Instagram photo of himself and Carter signing a contract, with the hashtag #newrules.
If the promotional connection between the agency and the new album might seem tenuous, it made sense to one audience: professional athletes. The night the Samsung ad ran during the NBA Finals, C. J. McCollum, a guard who was expected to be picked high in the draft, sent out a tweet marveling that Jay-Z had “managed to pitch his album and was probably paid by Galaxy too.” At an interview session the day before the draft, McCollum and other touted prospects spoke admiringly of Carter’s marketing savvy. “It’s Jay-Z!” said Ben McLemore, who was wooed by Roc Nation, as was Nerlens Noel, thought by many to be the draft’s top talent. Last week, reports linked Carter to two baseball phenoms, Yasiel Puig and Yoenis Cespedes. In a radio interview, Carter said he was seeking to get clients “their just due,” as opposed to “half-ass agents or people who rob them.”
Sports agents are a paranoid bunch, always on guard against rivals, but Carter’s entry into the business has incited a different order of hysteria. “Guys are just going to Jay-Z because they fetishize him,” said one agent. “It’s getting crazy.” Some were fighting covertly, pressing the NFL Players Association to look into whether Carter’s courting of Geno Smith violated a technical regulation. On the new album, Jay-Z responds: “NFL investigations / Oh, don’t make me laugh.”
As it is, the agency business is roiling, with big firms squeezing embattled boutiques. Carter aligned himself with one of the giants. He has a long-standing relationship with CAA agent William Wesley, a shadowy fixer who used to play gatekeeper to LeBron James. But James left CAA last year. Carter will function as a new rainmaker, bringing in lucrative talent like Durant. In return, Carter gets a partner that will presumably defray his start-up costs and provide negotiating expertise. Fees for playing contracts are set fairly modestly: usually between 3 and 5 percent. The cut from marketing deals is considerably higher, and that will be where Carter concentrates his efforts.
After Cano’s signing, rumors circulated around baseball of exorbitant endorsement promises, and many experienced agents question whether Roc Nation will be able to deliver. Cano’s upcoming free agency will be closely watched. “In baseball, in the owner’s game of player contracts, it’s about what you know, not who knows you,” Boras said. “Fame plays no part.” Other agents asked whether Carter was prepared for the recruiting corruption and grasping families, the 24-hour demands of client service.
“Is anyone asking why Jay-Z wants to be a sports agent?” asked one. “Does he need to create new income or was he just tired of owning his 0.000002 percent of the Nets?”
Throughout his career, though, Carter has shown he knows when to leave the stage. His deal with Live Nation, in early 2008, was timed for the peak of heedless deal-making on Wall Street. Within months, the Live Nation executive who championed the 360 concept was forced out. “They didn’t get much out of it,” says Rich Tullo, director of research at Albert Fried & Company. “That’s why they don’t do those deals anymore.” Similarly, in 2007, Carter sold Rocawear’s trademark and licensing rights for $200 million in cash, split among three partners, to the public company Iconix. The recession sapped Rocawear’s sales, and analysts now see the label as an overpriced acquisition.
The Nets should be contenders next year, but the team’s aging core looks uncertain beyond that, and after the climax of the inaugural season, the relationship was bound to pay diminishing returns. Carter could call himself an owner, but he could never really control the team. So he left to a triumphal tune, waving a Mutombo-esque finger on a song: “Would’ve brought the Nets to Brooklyn for free / Except I made millions off it, you fuckin’ dweeb.”
There was much speculation about the identity of the “dweeb,” but Ratner says Carter assured him he wasn’t the target. He says he was “surprised” by Carter’s decision, but they talked it out. “It’s part of a bigger business plan,” Ratner says. “Jay-Z sees that the important thing in the world today is content. And content means everything from stuff that’s presented at the arena to sports in particular to sports on TV.”
Sports leagues are legalized cartels with controls on compensation. But there are many other ways to profit from athletes. Iconix has been hinting about “new exciting initiatives” to revive Rocawear, and there are market rumors about a sportswear line. TV networks, in search of content that can’t easily be fast-forwarded, have been showering even marginal sports like soccer with cash, creating a boom economy. Kevin Liles, who watched game seven of the NBA Finals with Carter, told me that if I wanted an idea of what his friend has planned for his sports clients, I should look at the equity-driven deals he’s negotiated for himself. “Sports is just another piece of a portfolio that he’s building to curate culture, to challenge the status quo,” he said. “Why can’t they start to make different demands in the sports business?”
Carter likes to call himself “the new Sinatra,” but even the original Chairman of the Board wasn’t able to sustain his cultural relevance forever. Sooner or later, everyone ends up singing at the Sands. No Jay-Z album over the past decade has come close to selling like those at his peak (and neither, likely, will Magna Carta). Though this is certainly not how Carter would characterize it, the move to build a diversified entertainment company at once hedges a risk—the natural decay of Jay-Z, middle-aged megastar—and capitalizes on skill set: Carter’s ability to spot, cultivate, and exploit talent.
“Jay-Z has, in my view from the outside, figured it out: how the sports and entertainment business has changed and merged,” says Mark Rosentraub, a University of Michigan professor and co-author of the book Sports Finance and Management. “It’s no longer about the team on the field; it’s really about the real estate and entertainment that swirls around it.”
Carter is retaining his interests in the Atlantic Yards real estate, and he and Ratner are now seeking to expand their partnership further, by advancing a proposal to renovate the Nassau Coliseum. In early May, several teams of bidders gathered at a police station in Mineola to present their plans to an advisory council. Rosentraub, a consultant to a competing team, gave a sober presentation of financial projections. Ratner’s group, meanwhile, brought in a surprise guest, who inspired a cascade of flashbulbs when he entered, fashionably late, in the midst of a speech.
“Did I break your train of thought?” asked Carter, dressed in a conservative white shirt and black V-neck sweater. The meeting halted so he could shake hands with members of the council. He took a seat next to Ratner and sat silently, absorbing the room’s attention, as the team presented architectural renderings. When the presentation was over, he lingered for a moment so Nassau County executive Ed Mangano could get a joint photo.
“We may have 99 problems,” the politician said, “but the coliseum’s not one of them.”
Carter gave him an obliging laugh.
“That’s not bad,” he said. “The president used that line.”
*This article originally appeared in the July 22, 2013 issue of New York Magazine.
*This article has been corrected to show that the state-owned rail yards Bruce Ratner redeveloped were part of a larger real estate project called Atlantic Yards.In the U.S., those agitating for better worker compensation have pursued a logical, time-tested path: urging the government to require companies to pay their employees better. So far, this has at the very least made the minimum wage a more salient talking point, and some employers, such as The Gap, Walmart, and McDonald’s, have felt pressured to raise theirs by a dollar or so—progress, but not a lot.
In the Mexican state of Baja California, which exports huge amounts of strawberries, cucumbers, and tomatoes to the U.S., labor is taking a different tack that might take some of that pressure off of employers, for better or for worse: The local government is reportedly leaning toward paying a portion of farmworkers’ wages, bringing them up to 200 pesos (about $13.30) per day.
The terms of the agreement between farmworkers and the government have yet to be nailed down (for example, how much of the wage increase will be shouldered by government versus industry) but it is refreshing to see a government recognize that significant amounts of workers simply don’t make enough money to live comfortably, and to try to do something about it. And wages are only one part of the equation. The agreement would also have the government take pains to make sure workers are receiving the healthcare and social-security benefits they’re guaranteed by law, and hopefully would make it rarer for crew bosses to sexually harass female farmworkers.Joshua Gay, the Free Software Foundation's Licensing and Compliance Manager, has reported on the FSF licensing team's 2012 activities, as the FSF's 2013 fundraising comes to an end. According to Gay's post there were over 400 reports of "suspected license violations" which the team resolved. They also answered over 600 general licensing and compliance questions. This work has reduced the team's backlog and, in 2013, the two-person team is looking at being able to "more ambitiously pursue our licensing compliance cases" and working more with groups, such as Creative Commons.
Other work in 2012 included the first awarding of the "Respects Your Freedom" certification. The certification programme was launched in 2010, but it took until 2012 to create the marks, certification lab and process to enable the LulzBot AO-100 3D Printer to be awarded that first certificate. Gay says they hope to build on that work in 2013, developing better relationships with hardware makers and "hopefully certifying more products". In 2012, the FSF also produced more educational material, such as a guide to licence selection, improved resource pages and updates to the GNU licences FAQ. "Licensing is one area where we want to make sure that our answers to those questions and the materials we provide are both accurate and easy to find," says Gay.
As of 29 January, the FSF's fundraising drive for 2013 had already exceeded its goal of $350,000 by raising $389,000. The FSF has yet to announce the final results of the 2013 fundraiser.
(djwm)It’s time we stop assuming that all actresses are game to go nude on TV. At least, that’s what Aya Cash thinks.
While chatting with Elle.com about the sex scenes on You’re the Worst, Aya explained her disdain for the way female sexuality is exploited on TV.
“As a young girl, that’s what you get asked to do all the time, and it’s completely gratuitous. It feels like there’s just an expectation that if you decide to be an actress, your body is public domain.”
Couldn’t agree more — in fact, it’s considered out of the norm if you refuse to do nudity. Other actresses like Sarah Jessica Parker have been forced to “explain themselves” when it came to their no-nudity stance.
Of course, Aya has had her fair share of sex scenes playing Gretchen, but she insists it isn’t full-on nudity — “it’s incredibly graphic simulated nudity.” She added,
“I still don’t enjoy doing them. I wish I was some cool girl who was like, ‘Yeah, it’s no big deal!’”
But Cash and her costar Chris Geere try to make the best of the situation. She once told Glamour,
“We’re both pretty silly. I try to make him laugh though. In the pilot, my pasties would say, ‘Hi, Mom!’ or little things like that, because [sex scenes are] so not sexy. It sounds cliche, but it’s not sexy at all.”
Even on social media, Cash has been pretty vocal when it comes to tackling sexism in the industry. She previously posted to Instagram about auditioning for offensive roles. But now that Aya has a hit show on her hands, she’s making those terrible auditions a thing of the past.
“I’ll be less rich, and maybe less famous, and that trade-off is absolutely okay.”
You’re the Worst will end with it’s fifth and final season this year.
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Samira Wiley: How ‘You’re the Worst’ Changed My View of DepressionThe U.S. presidential campaign might be very entertaining to watch from afar (not so much if you are an American or care about humanity’s future, but I digress…), but it actually gave us a very interesting detail about Ford’s future: the fact that the Bronco and Ranger were coming back to North America has been confirmed.
Here’s how it went down. Republican candidate Donald Trump lashed out at Ford, accusing them of stealing precious jobs from hard-working American citizens by sending production out to Mexico.
During an interview with a UAW representative for the Detroit Free Press, we heard the manufacturers’ side of the story: yes, production of the C-MAX and Focus will go south of the border, but U.S. jobs won’t be affected with the imminent arrival of the Bronco and the Ranger. The automaker’s Michigan assembly plant will still employ just as many people.
If we are to believe the interview, the factory will add another assembly line as early as 2018; according to rumours, this will be the Bronco. Then, in 2020, the Ranger will follow. Since this vehicle is currently sold on the international markets, it stands to reason that the automaker would wait for the new generation of the pickup truck to move production into the U.S. of A.Clint Dunn / AP File Thirteen-year-old Hailey Dunn (left) poses for a photo with her mother Billie Jean Dunn and her mother's boyfriend Shawn Adkins on Dec. 25, 2010, in Colorado City, Texas. Authorities in West Texas on Friday confirmed the remains found in a remote part of Scurry County in March are those of Hailey Dunn, who has been missing for more than two years.
SNYDER, Texas — Remains found in a remote West Texas location last month are those of a 13-year-old middle school cheerleader missing since December 2010, authorities announced Friday.
Hailey Darlene Dunn's remains were found near Lake J.B. Thomas in Scurry County on March 16, more than two years after her mother reported her missing.
The girl's disappearance and the cause of her death remain under investigation, Scurry County Sheriff Trey Wilson said at a news conference Friday. The Scurry County District Attorney's Office received written confirmation of the identity of the remains on Friday, he said.
Texas Rangers informed the girl's mother, Billie Jean Dunn, on Friday afternoon at her Austin home, said her attorney, John Young. Dunn will be driving to West Texas to arrange her daughter's funeral, he said.
The body was found about 20 miles northwest of the girl's hometown of Colorado City. The girl had been the subject of months of intensive searches in and around Colorado City and surrounding fields and landfills after her mother reported her missing on Dec. 28, 2010. More than 100 billboards featuring her picture and information about the case were set up along interstates in Texas and other states.
The mother's boyfriend, Shawn Adkins, has said he last saw Hailey a day before she was reported missing. He said the girl told him she was going to her father's home nearby and then on to spend the night at a friend's home. She did neither.
Authorities had named Adkins as a person of interest in the girl's disappearance, but he was never charged. At one point, authorities accused the girl's mother of lying about the whereabouts of Adkins, who was found at her home. Billie Dunn pleaded no contest in June 2011 to making a false report to law enforcement and received a suspended 90-day jail term with probation.
The mother and Adkins have denied involvement in Hailey's disappearance.
Hailey's paternal grandfather, Bill Dunn, died in 2011, six months after the girl went missing. His widow, Spicy Dunn of Ponca City, Okla., said her husband spent much of the last months of his life trying to learn what became of his granddaughter.
"He was very, very hurt, and was on the computer all the time looking and trying to find anything that had to do with Hailey," she said Friday. "Anything."
She said family members made a point not to change their phone numbers so that law enforcement officials could reach them in case of any developments, even years later.
"It is a relief to know that she's at peace," Spicy Dunn said. "She doesn't have any more suffering."
She later added, "I hope the family comes to a closure. I know it's very hard."Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders delivered a populist message to around 20,000 supporters at a Portland political rally hosted at the Moda Center.
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders spoke before a crowd of thousands at the Moda Center in Portland on Sunday, shortly after activists against police brutality organized to shed light on the year that has passed since the shooting death of Michael Brown.
During his nearly one hour speech, Sanders spoke about raising the minimum wage, expanding Social Security, women’s rights, single-payer health care and combating climate change through diplomacy with China and India. But the senator never mentioned Hillary Clinton, the former secretary of state and current Democratic frontrunner for the party’s nomination.
Sanders’ speech often took on a populist theme.
“This campaign is sending a message to the billionaire class: Yes, we have the guts to take you on!” he said to loud applause.
Security at the event estimated there were about 19,000 people inside the Moda Center, and another 9,000 outside.
In the afternoon before the Sanders’ rally began, members of Don’t Shoot Portland gathered in Southeast to commemorate the shooting death of Brown, the unarmed, African-American teenager from Ferguson, Missouri.
John Sepulvado/OPB
The activists said they came together for a spontaneous memorial, but the group blocked the intersection of Southeast 82nd Avenue and Southeast Division Avenue. Portland police said in a statement that 75 to 100 people interfered with traffic, at which point officers moved protesters onto the sidewalk.
Police said two protestors stayed in the street and were arrested. They later identified the protesters as Diane Chavez, 43, and Don’t Shoot PDX organizer Teressa Raiford, 44. Police said the activists were booked into Multnomah County Jail on disorderly conduct and interfering with a police officer charges.
As NPR reported Saturday, Black Lives Matter protesters sidelined Sanders during his Seattle rally when activists commandeered the microphone, demanding the crowd to hold the congressman “accountable.”
Sanders largely avoided a similar conflict with activists in Portland, allowing a speaker from the Black Lives Matter movement to take the stage before he spoke. Speakers also took the stage to discuss the economy, the environment and immigration.
OPB’s John Sepulvado provided live updates from the Moda Center:
Tweets about #BerniePDX lang:en from:JohnLGC since:2015-08-09As the nation continues to grapple with the aftermath of a shooting in which a 21-year-old white man has been charged with murdering nine people at a historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina, an emotional debate surrounding the Confederate flag has once again resurfaced.
At the South Carolina state capitol in Columbia, flags were lowered to half-staff in the aftermath of the slaughter, with one notable exception: The stars-and-bars Civil War-era banner that has flown on the statehouse grounds since it was moved there from the capitol dome in 2000 has remained at full-staff.
In light of the racially motivated shootings, outraged observers have taken to social media to urge Gov. Nikki Haley (R) to remove the flag that commemorates the slave-owning South. But Haley is hamstrung by a state law that prevents the Confederate flag from being removed without a two-thirds majority vote from the state General Assembly.
Even if she had the ability to act, the political ramifications of meddling with the Confederate flag in South Carolina could be significant. In 1998, Republican Gov. David Beasley lost his re-election bid after calling for the removal of the flag from the South Carolina capitol.
“I’m the last living casualty of the Civil War,” Beasley joked to RealClearPolitics in 2012.
While all of the major presidential candidates have weighed in on the Charleston shooting, one dealt directly with a similar issue involving the controversial flag when he was governor.
In February of 2001, Jeb Bush, then governor of Florida, ordered that the Confederate battle flag, which since 1978 had flown at the state capitol in Tallahassee, be taken down.
"Regardless of our views about the symbolism of the... flags -- and people of goodwill can disagree on the subject -- the governor believes that most Floridians would agree that the symbols of Florida's past should not be displayed in a manner that may divide Floridians today," Bush spokeswoman Katie Baur said in a statement at the time, according to the St. Petersburg Times.
Bush’s action came at a time when wounds were still fresh from the contentious 2000 recount in Florida, which ended in his brother, George W. Bush, officially winning the state’s 25 electoral votes -- and thereby the presidency -- by just 537 votes out of almost 6 million cast.
Reports of voting irregularities across the state were especially pervasive in minority communities, and investigations into how the election was conducted in Florida were ongoing at the time.
But Bush’s office denied that the move to bring down the Confederate flag was motivated by a desire to placate African-Americans in the state, 93 percent of whom had cast their ballots for George W. Bush's Democratic opponent, Al Gore.
The decision made 14 years ago by the 2016 Republican presidential candidate to remove the flag was approved by then Secretary of State Katherine Harris -- a central figure in the recount saga.
The discreet action did not go over well with the Confederate flag’s supporters in Florida, according to the Times.
"If (Bush) had 3,000 protesters in front of the place hollering to take the flag down, I would at least understand why. But nobody said anything, at least that we were aware of," said John Adams, who was the Florida division commander for the Sons of Confederate Veterans. "I feel betrayed."
At least one other 2016 Republican presidential candidate has weighed in directly on the Confederate flag issue.
As he was going head-to-head against Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) before the closely contested 2008 South Carolina presidential primary, Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) came down firmly on the side of allowing the flag to be flown at the capitol.Concentrated solar thermal plant in the Mojave Desert
The Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System is a concentrated solar thermal plant in the Mojave Desert. It is located at the base of Clark Mountain in California, across the state line from Primm, Nevada. The plant has a gross capacity of 392 megawatts (MW).[6] It deploys 173,500 heliostats, each with two mirrors focusing solar energy on boilers located on three centralized solar power towers.[6] The first unit of the system was connected to the electrical grid in September 2013 for an initial synchronisation test.[7] The facility formally opened on February 13, 2014.[2] In 2014, it was the world's largest solar thermal power station.[8][9]
The facility, costing $2.2 billion was developed by BrightSource Energy and Bechtel.[10] The largest investor in the project was NRG Energy which contributed $300 million. Google contributed $168 million.[11] The United States government provided a $1.6 billion loan guarantee and the plant is built on public land.[12] In 2010, the project was scaled back from its original 440 MW design to avoid disturbing the habitat of the desert tortoise.[13]
Description [ edit ]
Aerial photograph of Ivanpah Solar Power Facility
Power tower 2 of the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System under construction. The heliostat mirrors on the truck are awaiting installation
View of Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System from Yates Well Road. The Clark Mountain Range can be seen in the distance
Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System with all three towers under load, Feb 2014. Taken from the I-15
The bright spots of Ivanpah are clearly visible from above Las Vegas and further.
The Ivanpah system consists of three solar thermal power plants on 3,500 acres (1,400 ha) of public land near the California–Nevada border in the Southwestern United States.[14] Initially it was planned with 440 MW gross on 4,000 acres of land, but then downgraded by 12%. It is near Interstate 15 and north of Ivanpah, California.[15] The facility is visible from the adjacent Mojave National Preserve, the Mesquite Wilderness, and the Stateline Wilderness.[15]
Fields of heliostat mirrors focus sunlight on receivers located on centralized solar power towers. The receivers generate steam to drive specially adapted steam turbines.
For the first plant, the largest-ever fully solar-powered steam turbine generator set was ordered, with a 123 MW Siemens |
— is heart-rending and terrifying, and underlines the slow-building sense that something went very wrong on the parts of those who worked for the various governments, or even just the families back home. Burns and Novick are less interested in scoring political points than they are in the idea that world-changing events look so different when you’re trapped in them. More than in any other Burns miniseries, The Vietnam War lets you feel what it’s like to be crushed under history’s heel.
The Vietnam War debuts Sunday, September 17 at 8 pm Eastern on PBS in most markets. You should, as is always the case with PBS, check your local listings. Further episodes will air through Thursday, September 28, taking Friday, September 22 and Saturday, September 23 off. The first five episodes will be available to stream on PBS’s website on Sunday, September 17, and the last five episodes will be available Sunday, September 24.I remember my first pair of good shoes. They were Ralph Lauren penny loafers, which I bought as an undergrad for $125 (on sale, down from $300). That was a lot of money for me back then, and I remember taking them out of the box, slipping them on, and carefully trying them out on carpet.
The first crease you put into good shoes is always the most painful. It feels like you’re permanently damaging something new and beautiful. Not to mention that feeling you get when you first step outside and hear those leather soles grinding on hard concrete. It’s enough to make you wince.
Having owned a couple more pairs of shoes since those loafers, however, I’ve learned that the value of good footwear is all in how they age – much like the value of good, raw denim. In fact, that’s the only reason to spend so much money on shoes. Despite what some people say, Goodyear-welted or Blake-stitched shoes will not save you money in the long run. A decent resoling job alone can be more than a pair of cheaply made kicks.
No, the reason to buy good shoes is because they look better with age. Assuming you take care of them, of course. That means inserting cedar shoe trees when you’re not wearing them, using leather conditioner and shoe polish on a regular basis, and rotating between shoes so you’re not wearing any pair for two days in a row.
If you do that, your shoes will build a patina, like you see above. Covered up scuffs will become light colored accents, highlighting the varying shades of color that have been built up from years of applying shoe polish. Regular treatments of leather conditioner – along with an occasional treatment of wax polish – will also make the leather glow. At that point, you’ll always want to resole your shoes, rather than buy new ones.
(photo via chriscrat)Today I found out Simo Häyhä, arguably the greatest sniper to ever live, sniped over 542 invading Soviet soldiers in World War II using nothing but a bolt action rifle that had no scope. He also has the distinction of having recorded the highest known number of confirmed kills by any sniper in any major war; with the runner up being Soviet Ivan Sidorenko with 500 in WWII. In addition to his 542 confirmed sniper kills, he also managed another couple hundred kills with a Suomi 9mm machine gun bringing his total for the “Winter War” to just under 800 kills. Even more amazing is that he did all of this in under 100 days with his personal best sniping 25 Soviet soldiers in one day.
The “Winter War” was a conflict between Russia and Finland beginning on November 30, 1939, three months after the start of WWII, with the Russians invading Finland. The Winter War officially ended on March 13, 1940 with the Soviets having captured most of Finland.
Simo Häyhä was a member of a group very similar to the old American “Minute Men”. He served his required one year with the military in Finland and went home, back to farming and hunting. When the Soviets invaded he grabbed his standard issue M/28 rifle and gear and reported for duty. He preferred his rifle, which only had an iron site rather than a scope, over Swedish sniper rifles as it allowed him to keep a slightly lower profile over a scoped rifle; the scopes made you raise your head an extra inch or two making a nice target for other snipers. In addition to this, scopes on sniper rifles tended to reflect the sunlight which is how he says he was able to kill so many of the Soviet snipers who were sent to specifically take him out. The really amazing thing about just using the iron sites was that many of his kills were shot at people over 400 yards away.
Simo was assigned to the Kollaa battlefield where an estimated 32 Fins held off over 4000 Soviet Troops at one point and indeed even by the end of the war which the Soviets won, never conceded that particular ground. Temperatures there typically ranged from around -40 F to -4 F. As such, Simo would go out by himself to snipe dressed in white camouflage with nothing but a few clips of ammo and food provisions for a day.
Tired of getting their heads blown off all the time by Simo, the Soviets eventually dispatched a group of snipers and a series of artillery strikes to try to get rid of “Belaya Smert” (“White Death”) as they nicknamed him. He managed to get the best of the snipers sent against him and apparently wasn’t where they thought during the artillery strikes.
He was however finally shot in the jaw with an exploding bullet in a pitched battle against a large group of Russian soldiers. Some of his fellow Finish soldiers pulled him from the battle and he survived even though, as they said, “half his head was missing”. He was then in a coma for nine days, during which Finland lost the war (Coincidence? I think not!). He didn’t regain consciousness until March 13th, the day the war ended (presumably the Soviets heard he woke up and decided to stop trying to take any more of Finland and just ended the war right there). It took Simo a few years to fully recuperate from his wounds, but he went on to live to the ripe old age of 96, dying April 1st, 2002.
During the war, the Soviet army lost close to one million soldiers, close to forty times the number of Finnish casualties.
Simo credited his incredible sniping ability to knowledge of the forests, patience, and practice. He typically liked to snipe from a sitting position, normally not used by snipers due to giving a larger profile to be seen from. However, he was very short (5 foot 3 inches), so he was able to sit and still make a very small profile and he felt it gave him a better platform to shoot from. He would also pack the snow in front of him so that when he shot, none of the snow would waft up giving his position away. In addition to this, to get around the problem of his breath potentially giving away his position in that frigid place, he would breath through his mouth but keep snow in there to keep his breath from showing up in the air.
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Simo HäyhäThe FBI has been lobbying top internet companies like Yahoo and Google to support a proposal that would force them to provide backdoors for government surveillance, according to CNET.
The Bureau has been quietly meeting with representatives of these companies, as well as Microsoft (which owns Hotmail and Skype), Facebook and others to argue for a legislative proposal, drafted by the FBI, that would require social-networking sites and VoIP, instant messaging and e-mail providers to alter their code to make their products wiretap-friendly.
The FBI has previously complained to Congress about the so-called "Going Dark" problem – the difficulty of doing effective wiretap surveillance as more communications have moved from traditional telephone services to internet service companies.
Under the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, or CALEA, passed in 1994, telecommunications providers are required to make their systems wiretap-friendly. The Federal Communications Commission extended CALEA in 2004 to apply to broadband providers like ISPs and colleges, but web companies are not covered by the law.
CNET reports that in addition to this push from the FBI, the Federal Communications Commission may be looking at reinterpreting CALEA to demand that video and non-telephone-replacement VoIP products such as Skype and Xbox Live be modified to include backdoors that allow FBI surveillance.
The news comes on the heels of another FBI plan that began kicking around in 2010 that would require backdoors in encrypted communication systems. That proposal, which would revisit the encryption wars of the 1990s, has failed to gather administration backing.Image caption A fading mural of Bill Cosby still stands near the Richard Allen homes in North Philadelphia
Less than two weeks before Father's Day, the man once affectionately known as America's Dad stepped back into the public spotlight to defend his legacy as he faced one of dozens of sexual assault allegations against him.
Dressed in a dark navy suit, the 79-year-old was supported by the use of a cane and Keisha Knight Pulliam, the woman who played his precocious daughter, Rudy Huxtable, on the landmark television series The Cosby Show.
But his reputation as a fatherly figure has been overshadowed in recent years by the more than 50 women who have come forward to accuse him of sexual assault.
The actor and comedian is facing three counts of felony aggravated indecent assault stemming from a 2004 incident in which former Temple University employee Andrea Constand claims he drugged and molested her.
He maintains his innocence, though some among the chorus of women who have offered up similar accounts appeared in court in Norristown, Pennsylvania, wearing pins with the words emblazoned: "We stand in truth."
Image copyright Christine Cornell
Stained legacy
Though the allegations have tarnished Mr Cosby's reputation, the actor has long been considered a Hollywood trailblazer for African Americans.
He rose to fame as the first black actor to star in a major drama series, I Spy, in 1965. The role earned him three of his four Emmy awards before he created several shows including the influential The Cosby Show in 1984.
Darnell Hunt, the director of the Ralph J Bunche Center for African American Studies at UCLA, says his depiction of an upwardly mobile African-American family transcended race and broke new ground in an era otherwise criticised for portraying the "ghetto-centric" black stereotypes.
"It showed that black people were American, too, which was sort of Cosby's political philosophy," he said.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Cosby was accompanied by Cosby Show co-star Keshia Knight Pulliam on the trial's first day
"It was and is still one of the most talked about TV shows ever and it certainly had a huge impact on this sort of whole discussion of images of black people and media."
In fact, Mr Cosby enlisted Harvard psychiatrist Dr Alvin Poussaint as a consultant to ensure the scripts underscored a genuine family dynamic.
Which is why it may be difficult for some Americans to separate the career he has made on promoting family values and education from the man Assistant District Attorney Kristin Feden accused of being a sexual predator in court on Monday.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Cosby accuser Lili Bernard speaks out as the trial begins
Racial undertones?
Mr Cosby and one of his daughters have recently suggested race played a role in the allegations against him.
The suggestion sparked outrage among some critics who point to previous comments he made in which he criticised single African-American mothers and young black men.
"Many blacks felt it was him talking down to them and blaming them as opposed to the systemic forces that keep black people subordinated," says Mr Hunt.
Image copyright Christine Cornell
"But the sad reality is race is always a factor in America and that lens will be significant regardless of whether or not the allegations are racially motivated," says Mr Hunt, who wrote OJ Simpson Facts and Fictions, a book on the racial divide and perception of the American footballer's famous trial.
"There is probably a lot of ambivalence in the black community with respect to the meaning of all of this," he added. "People are probably waiting to see how all of this works out with the trial."
Some Philadelphia residents like Rickey A Rivera, who lives in Mr Cosby's childhood neighbourhood, remain convinced the case has racial undertones.
"He can never be who he was and that's what's sad to me," Mr Rivera says.
Fallen idol
Other Philadelphia residents have struggled to reconcile how to talk about the local hero and the allegations against him.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption "Bill Cosby was like a hawk looking at a little mouse"
A mural that once stood on Broad Street depicting Mr Cosby and other famed fathers has disappeared, but another still stands amid the housing projects where he grew up in North Philadelphia's Poplar neighbourhood.
William "Buddy" Savin, who owns a funeral home in the area, points out his own partially eroded image on a similar pillar beneath an overpass less than 100ft (30 metres) away from the portrait of Mr Cosby.
Mr Cosby is seen flashing his signature grin, holding his fist in what appears to be a nod to black power as children play in the foreground.
Mr Savin grew up with Mr Cosby in the Richard Allen housing project and spoke to him as recently as last week about the death of a mutual friend and Philadelphia jazz legend, Mickey Roker.
The projects have mostly been torn down and replaced with new rows of town homes, but remnants of a past life - and Mr Cosby's legacy - still exist.
"He was a black person who made it but he never forgot his roots," Mr Savin says. "He always came back to the projects."
Though some residents are cagey when asked about Mr Cosby, everyone seems to have an anecdote about the comedian.
A women standing in her front yard not far from where his house stood explains how she once saw Mr Cosby perform at her high school, but demurs when asked about her feelings on him now.
"I have his autograph," she tells the BBC. "That's all I can say about him."
Image copyright Getty Images Image caption News helicopters hover of the courthouse
But Mr Savin is happy to recount Mr Cosby's community work despite the scandal that has engulfed him over the last few years.
A bespectacled man dressed in a pinstriped suit, he recalls how Mr Cosby returned to the neighbourhood when the new Richard Allen townhomes opened in 2003.
He speaks about Mr Cosby's generous funding for dozens of children's education and his contributions to the nearby Temple University.
The Temple "T" logo stands tall atop a building visible from the Richard Allen homes.
Mr Cosby, one of the Temple's most famous alumni, is often credited with helping to transform Temple from a local school to a nationally recognised university.
The school, just blocks away, is where he met Ms Constand while serving on the school's board of trustees.
In the wake of the allegations, Temple eventually joined a growing number of colleges and universities that revoked the dozens of honorary degrees he received over the years. He was also removed from the board of trustees.
Mr Cosby's presence on campus has mostly been erased, but university students like Olivia Jefferson, 25, remain conflicted.
"He was the ideal black father. He showed this image personally we didn't see in the black community often growing up," she says. "And all these allegations coming out, it's a betrayal."PHILADELPHIA – The Democrats continue to have an Israel problem.
On the sidelines of the Democratic National Convention here, Georgia Democratic Rep. Hank Johnson reportedly compared Israeli settlers – meaning Jews living in the West Bank or eastern Jerusalem – to termites.
Speaking at a Philadelphia meeting of the US Campaign to end the Israeli Occupation, a group that supports the boycott movement targeting Israel, Johnson made the offensive remarks.
He complained that “there has been a steady [stream], almost like termites can get into a residence and eat before you know that you’ve been eaten up and you fall in on yourself, there has been settlement activity that has marched forward with impunity and at an ever increasing rate to the point where it has become alarming.”
“It has come to the point that occupation, with highways that cut through Palestinian land, with walls that go up, with the inability or the restriction, with the illegality of Palestinians being able to travel on those roads and those roads cutting off Palestinian neighborhoods from each other,” Johnson continued.
“And then with the building of walls and the building of checkpoints that restrict movement of Palestinians. We’ve gotten to the point where the thought of a Palestinian homeland gets further and further removed from reality.”
The Anti-Defamation League reacted on Twitter by calling for Johnson to retract his “offensive, unhelpful characterization.”
.@RepHankJohnson: we call on you to apologize and retract this offensive, unhelpful characterization https://t.co/m4rus9nuqk — ADL (@ADL_National) July 25, 2016
Later on Monday, Johnson’s office released a statement claiming that “Congressman Johnson did not call Israelis termites but did say the settlement policies threaten peace and the two-state solution.”
“Congressman Johnson did not intend to insult or speak derogatorily of the Israelis or the Jewish people,” the statement added. “When using the metaphor of termites, the Congressman was referring to the corrosive process, not the people.”
This is the second Israel-related scandal tied to Georgia Democrats. Over the weekend, former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, whom Johnson was elected to replace, came under fire after implying on Twitter that Israel played a role in both the Nice and Munich terror attacks, based on the detail that an Israeli photographer was present at the scene of both incidents.
The report comes at a time the Democratic Party has been facing criticism within liberal pro-Israel circles for Hillary Clinton’s vice president pick, Virginia Senator Tim Kaine.
Kaine helped to generate support for the Obama administration’s nuclear deal with Iran by whipping senators into opposing a vote that prevented the Senate from blocking the deal.
Kaine also boycotted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress last year warning about the Iran agreement.
The Times of Israel reported on Kaine’s advocacy against Netanyahu’s address to a joint session of Congress in March 2015:
Kaine worked behind the scenes to try to delay the speech, but when that failed, was among the first Democratic senators to announce that they would not attend the address.
In a statement explaining his position, Kaine said that “as a long-time supporter of the US-Israel relationship, I believe the timing of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s address to Congress — just days before Israeli elections — is highly inappropriate.”
Arguing that holding the speech as planned would give an “appearance of US favoritism in a foreign election,” Kaine complained that “there is no reason to schedule this speech before Israeli voters go to the polls on March 17 and choose their own leadership.”
In an interview with this reporter, Alan Dershowitz, a staunch Democrat and emeritus law professor at Harvard University, stated Kaine boycott of Netanyahu’s speech to Congress was a “mark against” the candidate.
Still, Dershowitz maintained that the Clinton-Kaine ticket was “far better for America and for Israel” then the Donald Trump and Mike Pence ticket.
Aaron Klein is Breitbart’s Jerusalem bureau chief and senior investigative reporter. He is a New York Times bestselling author and hosts the popular weekend talk radio program, “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio.” Follow him on Twitter @AaronKleinShow. Follow him on Facebook.Security has been stepped up around political rallies and meetings in France amid heightened fears of a terror attack with just four days of campaigning until the first round of the fiercely contested presidential election.
The five main candidates have vowed to continue campaigning as it emerged that France’s police and intelligence agencies spent several weeks tracking the two men arrested on Tuesday and suspected of plotting an “imminent and violent attack” in the run-up to Sunday’s vote.
Officials say they are still investigating the men’s possible targets, but claim they were seeking to “have an impact in this [electoral] period” and had amassed an arsenal of weapons and bomb-making equipment, including 3kg of homemade explosive found in the flat where they were staying.
It was reported on Wednesday that Paris’ anti-terror court had opened a preliminary investigation into suspect Mahiedine Merabet, 29, on 5 April, after receiving a tip-off from British intelligence that he had tried to make contact with Islamic State (Isis) in order to send them a video expressing his support for the terrorist group.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Clement Baur, left, and Mahiedine Merabet. Photograph: Handout/AFP/Getty Images
The previous day Merabet had sent his identity card and bank card to the police station near his last known residence in Roubaix, northern France, along with a note, explaining: “Because of you, I can’t use them. I’ll hand myself in soon and we’ll talk. What do you, the police, want with me. Leave me alone, I’ve nothing to say to you.”
French elections: all you need to know Read more
Merabet was already on the security service’s radar after a December 2016 raid on the Roubaix flat, where an Isis flag and propaganda was reportedly found. He disappeared and his flatmate gave a false identity. It was only after talking to Merabet’s family in Marseille that police realised the second man at the flat was Clément Baur, 23, a Muslim convert. The two met in prison where they shared a cell in 2015.
Search warrants were put out for the pair, both on the Fiche-S, a list of those suspected of being a threat to national security.
Police stepped up the search on 12 April after intercepting a video, reportedly filmed in a Marseille apartment, that showed Merabet with an Uzi submachine gun, ammunition, an Isis flag and photographs of children allegedly killed in French and American bombing raids in Syria. The film’s title was: “The Law of Retaliation”, a police source told French journalists.
A copy of Le Monde newspaper with a front-page picture of the presidential candidate François Fillon and dated 16 March was also filmed.
The five main presidential candidates were immediately alerted and advised to increase security, both personal and around their political meetings.
The Paris prosecutor François Molins said the Tuesday the arrests of Merabet and Baur had been the result of “international cooperation”, but admitted investigators were trying to establish their planned targets.
As France’s interior minister announced “exceptional” security measures for the presidential campaign, the five main candidates responded by downplaying the threat and continuing electioneering.
The Socialist party candidate, Benoît Hamon, who polls place last out of the leading five, said he refused to make it a “campaign issue”, the conservative Fillon, currently in joint third place with the hard-left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon, said the threat would not make him “back down a single squared centimetre”.
A spokesperson for Marine Le Pen, currently heading the polls with the independent centrist Emmanuel Macron, said the arrests hours before Le Pen’s rally in Marseilles was “perhaps not a coincidence”.
With one-third of French voters still undecided and many others threatening to abstain, the margin of error in the opinion polls mean any permutation of the four main candidates – Macron, Le Pen, Mélenchon, Fillon – is possible in a second round runoff next month between the top two candidates.Judd Apatow tried his hand at stand-up Saturday night delivering a politically-charged set where the director went after President Donald Trump.
Best known for "Knocked Up," "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" and "Trainwreck," Apatow did not hold back during his set at the Regent Theater in Los Angeles. He was there to promote his new show on HBO "Crashing."
According to the Daily Beast, Apatow said when Trump was elected he felt like "a person about to get raped, but I didn't know how bad it would be." Now with Trump in office, he said, "I feel like I've just been raped and I just don't know if I'm going to get murdered."
A rep for Apatow did not return Fox News' request for comment.
But Apatow did not stop there. The Daily Beast reports Apatow went on to say he understands why Melania Trump is not living full time in the White House.
"Every day she’s not in the White House is a day she’s not getting f---ed by Donald Trump," the director said.
Apatow also went after Trump's youngest son, 10-year-old Baron.
"[Baron] f---ing gets it," Apatow said. "You see the look his face when Trump's talking?...People are like, 'Is there something wrong with him?’ No! He knows his dad’s a f---ing a--hole!"Contents show]
History
At age sixteen, Wendy and her brother, Marvin, graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. During the missing year, Wendy and her brother managed to attain jobs as caretakers of Titans Tower. For the last six months of that year, they re-built Cyborg.
Wendy was attacked by Wonderdog in the Titans Tower. As a result, she was left in coma and was taken to the Gotham General Hospital. Her father, The Calculator learned of her condition and in order to heal her, he decided to gather the fragments of the Anti-Life Equation.[1] However, Wendy recovered without the need of the formula, but the injuries inflicted on her left her paralyzed from waist down.[2]
She was later seen during a night where forty percent of Gotham were turned into techno-zombies controlled in part by the Calculator. Batgirl was pitted against the Batman Family and in the thick of the battle Wendy helped her get out of the fight using Oracle's intercom. Eventually, Wendy came to the rescue in the Batgirl-pod and the two of them fly a plane towards the Suicide Swamp. When Oracle was trapped in the Calculator's mind, Batgirl eventually made it inside to find and rescue Kid Eternity and Oracle. Wendy then crashed the plane she was flying into the maze of a house that belonged to Calculator. She was uninjured and after the feat, she decided to join Oracle under the alias of Proxy. [3]
Proxy would use a similar system to Oracle's to help the Bat-Family fight crime. One day, Batgirl asked Proxy to help her locate a mysterious criminal who stole equipment from WayneTech. Proxy located the headquarters and allowed Batgirl to confront the Insider.[4]
Powers and Abilities
Abilities
Genius-level Intellect
Weaknesses
Restricted Mobility: Wendy is paralyzed from the waist down, and stricken to a wheelchair, after being attacked by Wonderdog.
Trivia
Wendy and her twin brother Marvin are based on the characters of Wendy and Marvin who first appeared on the Super Friends animated TV show. The Wendy and Marvin of Super Friends were not related to each other.
Recommended Reading
RelatedYesterday, Clemens Gleich brought you Part 1 of his authoritative guide to the Autobahn, due to overwhelming success, today Part 2. If you ask how Clemens became Minister of High-Speed Transport Propaganda – stranger things happened in Deutschland. A formerly leather-clad radical was made Secretary of State, and the province of Daimler and Porsche has a green governor. Expect to be surprised! – BS
2. The Location
Many foreigners think that every Autobahn is basically the same, which can lead to a very unsatisfactory motor vacation, because it is easily possible to spend the whole length of it in absurdly limited sections and road works which means you might as well have stayed at home. There are some passages that not only are unlimited, but also have curvature radii that feel like a straight at 70 mph but tear your face off your skull (or your tires off the asphalt) at 170 mph. The A95 from Munich to Garmisch is a nice example (don’t go there on the weekends, when everybody and their mother will).
You could race down BMWs very own prototype test track: Enter the A92 leaving Munich, turn on the A3 towards Regensburg, at Regensburg go down the A93 towards Ingolstadt and Munich (A9). Rinse, repeat. You will see all those disguised next-gen BMWs and perhaps a few such Audis, too.
If you are looking for competition, visit the Kassel Mountains on the A7 (“Kasseler Berge” will give you Youtube-Clips galore, complete with infos on speed cameras on the limited bits). The Bahn through these hills is so steep that caravanists go a long way to avoid it for fear their underpowered bathrooms will be reduced to 20 mph or to going backwards very fast, disintegrating. This fact alone should tell you everything: few caravans, much competition, good road. To race the Kasseler Berge, follow the A7 from Bad Brückenau towards Kassel until you come to the Autobahndreieck Drammetal (A7 and A38 meet here). Yes, Google Maps is right: There are many miles in that bit.
Bring an amount of horsepower you would consider “too much” at home, otherwise you might leave the A7 a very frustrated man.
For pure, undiluted straight line speed visit the north of Germany where the landscape slowly peters out into the North Sea. A famous example of this experience of American motoring in fast forward is the A27 from Bremen to Bremerhaven: Going straight towards the horizon, towards the sea. Another good stretch are the 50 open km on the A7 from Rendsburg to Flensburg, Germany’s northernmost city, (in)famous for being the home of the points-on-your-licence database. If you don’t manage to max your car on these northern Autobahns, you need a slower one. Or bigger balls.
My personal favorite are the Autobahns of Eastern Germany. The East is a dark forested no man’s land that hasn’t changed since the Dark Ages, which is why it is also known as “Dunkeldeutschland” (“Dark Germany”). During the socialist occupation after the war, people were forced to live there at gunpoint, but when the wall came down, of course everybody with half an ounce of sense and two working legs left. Now, only ancient pensioners still haunt the ghost towns there, the rest has fled to Berlin or to civilized Germany (which funds the whole Berlin island setup).
As is customary, the government didn’t notice this and built infrastructure fit for two Irelands into the empty woods, financed by a special new extra tax cynically called “Solidaritätszuschlag” (solidarity surcharge). The Autobahns they built are gorgeous, empty and give me a feeling of my money well spent. The A2 from Magdeburg to Berlin is especially popular with tourists, because at the end of it, you are somewhere (Berlin) instead of nowhere (the rest of the East).
But my secret tip for you would be the A71 connecting Schweinfurt with Erfurt. It is still quite new, so it hasn’t made its way into the travel guides yet. You can go the whole length of it, the only limits being in the tunnelly bit. The tunnel stretches are a good place for a spot of R&R (relax and refuel), because there are nearly no service stations directly on the A71. Get off at Oberhof, race up an awesome hill course, pit stop, race down the awesome hill course, continue racing the A71. You can hold the pedal to the metal until it rusts into position – if you are brave or underpowered enough to leave it there in the many turns.
Another way of finding a good piece of Autobahn is asking a German who likes driving (i. e. any German) about his favorite segment. These favorites are everywhere, so one will always be near your lodgings.
3. The Rules
In Germany, we love rules. The only thing we love more than making The Rules is explaining The Rules to the ignorant, which I shall do now. Fear not, I will constrain myself to the rules concerning a happy holiday. As always, the rules are split into the official rules of the written law and the unofficial rules “you just know”. As the French expect visitors to know their history and culture and speak their language, the Germans expect you to know the unofficial rules without being told. You just know. Which is why I won’t tell you either.
But I’ll do something better, I’ll explain official rules only you will know, starting with the mysteries of the Kraftfahrstraße: The sign for an Autobahn is a white road on blue ground stretching into the distance, being crossed by a bridge (mnemonics: a big letter “A”). So when you see this but no limit signs, you are allowed to go as fast as you can afford. BUT (and not even many Germans know this) the Autobahn is not the only place in Germany where you can legally do that. Look for a blue sign with a white car front on it, it marks a “Kraftfahrstraße” (mnemonics: translate it literally into “poweerrr drive road”). If it has two lanes per direction OR a bit in the middle (bushes, concrete, doesn’t matter) and there are no limiting signs, you can go as fast as you want here as well.
These open roads residing between a Motorway and an A-Road are unofficially called Yellow Autobahns (“Gelbe Autobahnen”) because of the yellow instead of blue road signs, and you should cherish this information, because you can use it to shut up a German going on about The Rules in the pub at night. You can finish him off by adding that there is a Kraftfahrstraße sign at the entrance of the Nürburgring Nordschleife.
A rule I don’t have to remind the visiting speed tourist of is nonetheless interesting, even heart-warming: In Germany, it is forbidden by law to go so slow that traffic is hampered without a good reason (see §3 Abs. 3 Nr. 3 in our holy traffic bible StVO). Traffic will immediately be hampered the nanosecond you fall below the current speed limit. The law is not often enforced, but when it is, we celebrate like Americans when they have found another terrorist. Pray that the offender doesn’t pay his fine, as this will provide you with the rare opportunity to attend a (public) trial of a Peugeot driver where he will be condemned for his sins of slowness. The memory will last you a lifetime.
On a more serious note, I have encountered tourists having a debate about their alleged whiplash on the leftmost Autobahn lane, our overtaking lane. I’m afraid this is not tolerable behavior in Germany. In fact, it is a criminal offence over here (dangerous intervention into traffic). If you get screamed at by a policeman who kicks you so hard his jackboot will stay stuck between your buttocks and then writes fines full of numbers you didn’t know existed, you will have been very lucky.
If somebody gets seriously hurt because of such stupidity, you will go to prison for “not under one year” and still be a bit lucky because you didn’t get killed by one of the many 2-tonne projectiles you were standing in the way of. You’ll see the wisdom of our legislation as soon as you come across a standing (stupid) obstacle on the overtaking lane while doing 190 mph in your 911 rental. Okay, it might be your last thought, but there are worse last thoughts.
To discuss your fender bender or the finer points of whiplash, you’ll have to leave the Autobahn, as it is completely verboten to stop anywhere on it, including the hard shoulder. The hard shoulder is for real breakdowns and emergencies, of which a spirited whiplash discussion is neither.
To cheer you up again, let me tell you another officially legal and accepted use of the hard shoulder: acceleration. If your vehicle is too feeble to get up to motorway speeds on the acceleration lane, you are not only allowed, but expected to continue your acceleration on the hard shoulder until there is an acceptable velocity to enter the Autobahn like a Gentleman (i.e. fast). But try real acceleration before you resort to this, which rally legend Walter Röhrl describes thusly: “Acceleration happens when the tears of a deeply moved heart roll along horizontally towards the ears.”
4. The Time
The best time to visit our Autobahnen is in the summer, because we’ll all be gone on holiday then. Typically, a German gets 30 days of vacation a year and receives extra payment for this very vacation, so that he may leave his country for a while. It is much easier to love Germany from afar.
You can find tables on the Internet detailing the school holidays of all the German federal states you want to visit for an inkling of the remaining Autobahn traffic you can expect. Warning: At the beginning or the end of these school holidays you can forget to go anywhere fast on the respective Autobahn that provides the fastest way to the German federal state of Mallorca.
There are also many speed limits that are only effective by day. You could for example go from Stuttgart to Munich in well under an hour at night … or so I have heard. And of course you will have the motorway network to yourself during all major football matches with Germany in them.
Concerning the future of our motorways: You might have heard the German Green Party’s efforts to establish a general speed limit on the Autobahns. I can assure all you tourists this is something to yawn on and then forget. These efforts exist since before the Green Party existed. They have never gone anywhere. Green means GO!!!!!
You see, in general, Germans don’t care much about freedom. They will happily trade freedom for more order every time. But the Autobahn is the one exception. The freedom to drive as fast as we want is the only one we are prepared to fight for. To the German, speeding is like owning guns to the American. A general speed limit seems un-German to us, has a socialist stench, maybe even something French about it.
So I’m delighted to say that the unlimited speed of our Autobahns will be there for you as long as we German Autobahn Raser (a majority group) can still hold a weapon to defend your motoring holiday. Don’t worry about the cost: The German government collects nearly a Euro per liter as tax from your petrol bill and as I have said before: You will need A LOT of fuel.
Yours sincerely,
The German Ministry of High Speed Transport Propaganda
ACHTUNG: As our Canadian overlords have put us on a financial starvation diet |
condemnations of violence without recognising the regime as its main author and instigator. A sense of proportion has been lost.
Commentary about Syria has been reduced to generalised condemnations of violence without recognising the regime as its main author and instigator
This is what allows bien pensant liberals to condemn "all sides", the cynical to insist there are "no good guys", and the partisans to prefer "the devil we know". Through a false levelling of the moral plane, the apologists for Assad - "realist" or "anti-imperialist" - are able to shift the conversation onto political categories like "containment", "stability" and "security".
Stripped of moral content, the debates thus treat Assad as no worse than his opponents (who are inevitably conflated with IS), except he has the merit of a near monopoly on power (albeit with a little help from Russia, Iran, Hizballah, Iraqi militias, Afghan mercenaries,and Pakistani jihadis).
Facts are what separate judgment from justice.
Philosophical scepticism about the unattainability of truth needn't be allowed to cover for the devaluing of facts. In journalism, as in in law, it is still possible to gather what Hannarh Arendt called "brutally elementary data" whose "indestructibility" is indubitable.
Read more: Chomsky and the Syria revisionists: Regime whitewashing
What is happening in Syria is not a contest of equally valid claims. On one hand we have the denials of the regime, its Russian and Iranian allies, an assortment of ideologues, and a legion of conspiracists; on the other we have the considered judgment of reputable journalists, human rights organisations, UN investigators, arms inspectors, aid organisations, witnesses and the regime's own documents.
The function of lies is no longer to persuade; it is to challenge the primacy of facts
If there were any doubts about the regime's actions (excepting those manufactured by the regime and its apologists) the notoriously cautious UN would not have indicted it for "the crimes against humanity of extermination; murder; rape or other forms of sexual violence; torture; imprisonment; enforced disappearance and other inhuman acts".
And now that the world - including the UN - is preparing to rehabilitate the regime, there is no doubt that it is wilfully entrusting Syrians to a regime that by its own reckoning comprises genocidaires, murderers, rapists and torturers.
In her essay "Truth and Politics", Hannah Arendt relates the story of French prime minister Clémenceau having a friendly conversation with a German diplomat about responsibility for the recently concluded First World War.
"What, in your opinion will future historians think of this troublesome and controversial issue?" Clémenceau is asked. He replies: "This I don't know. But I know for certain that they will not say Belgium invaded Germany."
In the post-truth world, such certainties can no longer be taken for granted. Where people would sooner cushion their guilt in uncertainty than face the troubling implications of knowledge, truth becomes an encumbrance.
To arrest this moral atrophy and ensure justice then, it is necessary to restore the primacy of truth. Truth may be unattainable, but falsehoods remain vulnerable to facts. Destroying falsehoods then is our duty to truth and justice.
Muhammad Idrees Ahmad is a Lecturer in Digital Journalism at the University of Stirling.
Follow him on Twitter: @im_PULSE
Opinions expressed in this article remain those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The New Arab, its editorial board or staffNureddin Sabir, Editor, Redress Information & Analysis, writes:
Britain’s top Zionist lobbyists have launched a campaign to exempt criticism of Israel from the right to free speech.
The lobbyists, who include the Jewish Leadership Council, the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the Union of Jewish Students and the UK’s Zionist ambassador to Israel, Matthew Gould, are angry at plans by the University of Southampton to hold a conference on Israel and international law.
According to the university, the conference, the brainchild of Israel-born Oren Ben-Dor, Professor of Law and Philosophy at Southampton,
will be the first of its kind and constitutes a ground-breaking historical event on the road towards justice and enduring peace in historic Palestine. It is unique because it concerns the legitimacy in international law of the Jewish state of Israel. Rather than focusing on Israeli actions in the 1967 occupied territories, the conference will focus on exploring themes of legitimacy, responsibility and exceptionalism, all of which are posed by Israel’s very nature.
The conference, the university continues in a posting on its website,
aims to explore the relatedness of the suffering and injustice in Palestine to the foundation and protection of a state of such nature and asks what role international law should play in the situation. It will take place over a whole weekend and will involve leading thinkers: scholars from law, politics, philosophy, theology, anthropology, cultural studies history and other connected disciplines. Key speakers and various panels will diagnose the legal position with regard to the nature of Israel thus enabling a much needed platform for scholarly debate and disagreement.
Scholarly debate about Israel, however, is out of the bounds of freedom of speech, including academic freedom, according to the Israel lobbyists, who say that to subject Israel to such academic scrutiny is “to surpass the acceptable”, the right wing Israeli newspaper, the Jerusalem Post, reports. They accused the conference organisers of seeking to “blacken, demonise and delegitimise” the Zionist state, which continues to defy international law and stands accused of grave war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The Zionist lobbyists have resorted to familiar bullying tactics to force the University of Southampton to ban the conference.
According to the Jerusalem Post, Southampton’s refusal to give in to Zionist pressure “was cited at a private meeting held last month between top [Jewish] communal leaders and four vice-chancellors from Universities UK”, an umbrella group representing all UK university heads.
It said that the “Jewish representatives”, who included ambassador Gould, “tried to frame a debate as to where the line is crossed between freedom of speech and discourse which affects Jewish academics and students on UK campuses”.
By framing the issue in this way, the “Jewish representatives” deliberately conflated the interests of British citizens of the Jewish faith with those of the state of Israel – a common ruse used by Israeli hasbara, or propaganda, agents to silence criticism of Israel.
At the time of writing, the head of the University of Southampton’s Law School, Hazel Biggs, has refused to buckle to the Zionist lobbyists’ bullying. Whether or not she can remain steadfast until the conference takes place on 17-19 April is an open question, especially since the Zionist campaign has now been joined in by several Israeli stooges from the UK parliament.
Gilad Atzmon adds:These are super amazing Final Fantasy XIII FF13 Lightning cosplay tutorial,which are from Ruby-Hime!If you have been looking at different ways to make armor, and this will be your favorite Final Fantasy cosplay tutorial,super helpful for beginners!And you can use this type of craft on other cosplay armor as well.
How to make Lightning cosplay armor?
I started the Lightning cosplay armor by making a wire frame that had the general shape I wanted.I used my own body to help shape it to fit me just right.Utility wire and hot glue.And the wires I use are 9 guage galvanized Multi-purpose wire.It’s pretty heavy duty wire and was a pain to cut with normal wire cutters and manipulate into the shapes I wanted.But with it being heavy duty it’s also proven to be quite durable.
From there I proceeded to glue Raitoningu cosplay pieces of cardstock paper over the frame…
After gluing all the paper I cut and glued pieces of craft foam for the raised areas.And the grey stuff is craft foam,I think it was 2mm thickness there,cheap to buy from any craft store in 11×12 sheets.
For the bird part of the Lightning cosplay armor,I made a pattern on cardstock and traced ot on craft foam then glued the pieces together.I did not attach the bird to the armor until after painting.
For the round thingies of the Lightning armor,I just cut out a round piece of poster board,glued a small piece of foam in the middle then a large round one over it to give it a raised effect.Then cut the pointy parts and glued them.
Finished the piece,spray painted silver.Gold pieces were glued on after sprat painting.I realized I didn’t take pictures during the neck piece…I took a piece of poster board,glued foam over it and added foam for the raised parts.There’s a wire along the middle inside to help keep it shaped.
How to make Lightning Armlets?
I started with making pattern outlines for each layer,4 in total.I figured the largest measurement by measuring from just above my elbow to just below my wrist,each layer down gets slightly smaller than the one above it.
After making a pattern for each layer I cut them out and traced them onto premium poster board,2 of each size.I made the visible crease down the middle by very slightly cutting into the back side of each piece and folding along the cut.
I hot glued each layer together form top to bottom while using my arm as a sort of mold to get it curved just enough.I also glued a short utility wire underneath to help it keep it’s shape/For the raised section at the points I did a lot of guess work and just cut paper in shapes that looked right and glued them on…
For the parts near the elbow of Final Fantasy Lightning armlets,I just cut out a rectangular price,slightly wider than the top layer.as well as 4 extra strips to make the smaller raised parts and glued them all on.
For the spikes..I started with 2 wired going down the middle of each for a base. As for the paper.I just cut pieces of poster board for most of it and craft foam,grey,by eye…Unfortunately I can’t help more than that.They were trial and error and headaches for me.
The finished Final Fantasy Lightning armlets were primed and spray painted silver
Final words
And if you want to make your own Final Fantasy XIII FF13 Lightning sword as well,here is a very helpful resources for you.
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This integration brings these apps together in two ways. First, it lets you map a project in Zoho to a channel in Slack. Zoho Projects will automatically send notifications like ‘Task Completed’ and ‘Bug Added’ to your Slack channel.
Second, it lets you perform project actions within Slack using slash commands. For example, if you’re working on a ‘renovate office’ project and want to create a task called ‘polish furniture’, simply type the below command in your Slack window.
/zprojects +t polish furniture ~renovate office
Type the below line to see a full list of such commands.
/zprojects -h
By receiving updates on chat, you can reduce the number of email notifications. Additionally, a dedicated chat channel for a crucial project can help managers keep track of updates more closely. To learn how to set up and work with this integration, click here.
It’s important to remember that chats can be intrusive. Before configuring a notification to be sent to a channel, consider whether or not everyone included in the chat needs to be informed of this update.
You can control what updates you want to receive in the email notifications tab under settings. You can also choose to receive daily, weekly, or monthly digest emails of any pending activities. Admins can also receive periodic mails that list unassigned activities across all projects.
Finding the right balance between email and chat notifications will help you stay updated on all of your projects without being disturbed.
Check out the new Slack integration inside Zoho Projects today!As it currently stands, whether we like it or not, Chinese opinion has the power to dramatically affect the price of bitcoin. We have seen prices rise and fall in direct response to how bitcoin is being received by this one country. The question is why. Yes, China is an emerging superpower, but the extent of the power this nation holds, remains in dispute.
Every 6 years, the World Bank conducts the International Comparison Program, which compares living standards across countries globally. Using 2011 figures, it is expected that the Chinese yuan will surpass the U.S. dollar in 2014 in terms of purchasing power. The purchasing power of the Chinese yuan (renminbi) is already much stronger than current exchange rates reflect. At current market exchange rates, the Chinese economy is only 60% the size of the US economy, but this may be an inaccurate reflection of their power. The Chinese government is reluctant to acknowledge their success. It seems preferable for Chinese officials to downplay these achievements in favour of retaining their status as a developing nation. It is only because of her status as a developing country that the giant chimney that is China avoids penalties for being the largest producer of greenhouse gases. Additionally, as the largest economy, China would potentially be forced to take on additional financial obligations and tackle issues regarding world trade and climate change.
The International Comparison Program suggests the yuan will soon surpass the US dollar in terms of purchasing power, but additional sources also feel that the yuan is set to replace the US dollar as the world currency. Evidence appears to suggest that gold reserves are moving from west to east, with Chinese vaults steadily filling with enough gold to back the yuan, as an alternative world reserve currency. Whether China really wants to take on the responsibility of this position remains unclear. With the title of world reserve currency holder comes great responsibility on a global level. Regardless of whether or not the yuan does become the next world reserve currency, it is the uncertainty of that fact that ultimately spurns the bitcoin price pitches we are seeing. Whenever China makes any major decisions regarding the digital currency, speculation over China’s global economic position resurfaces.
China’s future Far From Certain
The uncertainty surrounding the future of the dollar, combined with mixed signals from China has a somewhat destabilizing affect. We have seen reports highlighting how the dollar and the yuan are struggling. It started with a mammoth stimulus package, following the collapse of Lehman brothers in 2008. While the rest of the world appeared to stagnate, China injected £400bn into her economy and kick started the current boom. Since then, the growth and urbanization of China has proceeded at breakneck speed, with a spending binge rapidly plunging China into debts of over 200% GDP, since 2008. While the jobs and standard of living have improved with the stimulus, it cannot be maintained and like the US, tapering will be required. In both cases, the tapering itself may lead to revolts, as standards of living become more difficult to maintain. Bitcoin came to pass because of these issues. But, as we know, the currency needs to be accepted and adopted for it to work, and that will take time. In a trend report by Sparks and Honey a valid point is made:
“Alternative currency will gain momentum with the stretching of financial, political and social institutions, as well as inequality. Potentially meaningful cultural shifts could included large spikes in unemployment or the rise of war.”
This stretching is leading people to seek ways around the systems in place. Bitcoin is an alternative challenger as a currency for the world, yet obviously, not nearly as powerful as the yuan or the dollar right now.
Regardless of what happens, the price of bitcoin will remain volatile, but perhaps only until SOMETHING concrete happens. Should the Chinese economy collapse due to spending overdrive what can the Chinese turn to? Bitcoin? The same question may be asked if the US defaults or collapses and China takes up the mantle as reserve currency holder. The issue then becomes the acceptance of bitcoin by the PBOC. If China succeeds and fills her empty cities while bitcoin is stifled, then the opportunity missed will be immense.
China is potentially the new leading global economy, with a much larger population of 1.3 billion people, all with the potential to use bitcoin, With this fact alone in mind, whether bitcoin is used to further grow the economy or as a backup alternative should times worsen, China will continue to throw her weight around. Access to bitcoin by the Chinese is incredibly important for the global bitcoin community.
Share your opinion on the importance of China’s role in the world of Bitcoin in the comment section below.AAP leader Kumar Vishwas AAP leader Kumar Vishwas
Mallika Sarabhai Mallika Sarabhai
A day after party colleague Mallika Sarabhai slammed him, Aam Aadmi Party leader Kumar Vishwas on Tuesday hit back questioning her contribution during various protests in Delhi in the recent past.Asking the danseuse- cum- activist to restrain from making statement against him, the satirist- turned- politician said, " Where was Mallika when I was fighting with the police after the rape of Gudiya, a minor girl, in Delhi in April? The police were beating me.Where was she when I was raising a movement against the coal scam? She should look at herself before questioning me on any issue." Quoting an old video footage in which the AAP leader was heard saying that Modi is " a Shiva who is cleaning the world of poison", the danseuse, who joined AAP less than a week ago, questioned the ideology of Vishwas." I believe that AAP is a party where there is transparency and each individual has the right to question another individual? if Kumar admits that those are his own views." Sarabhai had also said that Vishwas comes across as sexist and anti- gay, and has an anti- minority point of view, and at the same time praises Modi.Replying to her charges, Vishwas also claimed that Sarabhai was never interested in fighting for any cause and is not answerable to each of the AAP members, " She is among those one crore people who are joining the AAP. I don't need to react over the views of one crore individuals about me." Earlier, while replying to a question whether his party was in favour of taking the support of the BJP, even though the Congress was supporting AAP in Delhi, he said, " We don't mind taking issue based support from any party.Our issue is cheap electricity and free water. Those who are willing to support these issues can be acceptable." While explaining why he has decided to challenge Congress vice- president in his Lok Sabha constituency, he said, " I want to destroy the arrogance of Rahul Gandhi. Indira Gandhi was equally arrogant till 1980. But she improved when Raj Narain defeated her in Rae Bareli.A few months ago I wrote a blog post titled Electron vs nwjs which has gathered quite a bit of traffic. I have spent the past five months building sizable apps with both projects (to be clear: different apps) and I feel as though I have some excellent clarity into the things I both like and dislike about Electron and nwjs — as well as my current approach to building apps in each.
Note: everything that follows is completely anecdotal. I’m just some guy who builds software and rants about it on The Internet; trust my advice and experience at your own peril.
OSS Activity
As I mentioned in my prior post, Electron is still my preferred project. One of the things I really like about Electron is the pace at which new releases are coming — there have been 10 releases since the end of September! The project is quite stable despite that pace, and bugs appear to get fixed quickly. The dev team is also very active on the GitHub issues.
By comparison, nwjs only has two releases since I wrote my original post. Some rather important (IMO) bugs have yet to be fixed in v0.12.x.
Release activity may not always be a sign for “the better choice”, but considering that GitHub maintains Electron I think it’s a solid reason to lean that direction right now.
The nwjs docs on GitHub also seem to be fairly outdated. They regularly refer to “node-webkit”, which hasn’t been the project’s name in nearly a year.
Winner: Electron
“Securing” Source Code
At a high level, Electron and nwjs are exactly the same thing. They both enable you to package a web application (plus some Node.js back-end stuff) into a standalone desktop application. There are some nuances between the two with regards to how “context” is derived, the general APIs that govern windows, menus, etc… but for the most part, the only significant difference between the two projects boils down to one feature: the ability (or lack thereof) to “secure” your source code.
nwjs offers the ability to protect JavaScript source code with a v8 snapshot. Electron does not.
I have already gotten into an argument with the Electron contributors about this topic. In my opinion, this single feature is the only reason why developers will choose nwjs rather than Electron… yet they seem pretty disinterested in pursuing the idea.
Their argument has merit – the v8 snapshot isn’t true source code security, it’s just well-obfuscated code — and it comes with a sizable performance hit. But if the only alternative is to leave source code completely clear, developers would much rather choose the illusion of security for proprietary applications. I think it’s a no-brainer to add that feature; they disagree. For now.
Winner: nwjs
Build Process: Grunt
For my own projects I frequently use Grunt to do of the local build things — it’s really easy to setup, and it really helps create “production” versions of your applications. Both Electron and nwjs have very helpful Grunt packages available on npm and GitHub.
The ones I use for Electron:
grunt-exec : Running command-line tasks is incredibly useful
: Running command-line tasks is incredibly useful grunt-contrib-uglify and grunt-scram : Remember how Electron doesn’t have a v8 snapshot or any mechanism to secure your source code? A combination of UglifyJS and scrambling the results will at least deter most people from spying on your souce code. (THIS IS NOT SECURITY!)
and : Remember how Electron doesn’t have a v8 snapshot or any mechanism to secure your source code? A combination of UglifyJS and scrambling the results will at least deter most people from spying on your souce code. (THIS IS NOT SECURITY!) grunt-contrib-copy : Helpful for copying files/folders around the file system
: Helpful for copying files/folders around the file system grunt-string-replace : Helpful for updating build numbers and other things
: Helpful for updating build numbers and other things grunt-electron: The real meat of the build process. Specify the desired name/version/platform you need for a production app. Even includes the.asar compression for your app folder.
The ones I use for nwjs:
grunt-exec : Running command-line tasks is incredibly useful (same as I did in Electron). Specifically,
: Running command-line tasks is incredibly useful (same as I did in Electron). Specifically, grunt-contrib-copy : Helpful for copying files/folders around the file system (same as I did in Electron)
: Helpful for copying files/folders around the file system (same as I did in Electron) grunt-contrib-concat : Helpful for many things, but most notably if you need to concatenate many JS files before you “secure” them in a v8 snapshot
: Helpful for many things, but most notably if you need to concatenate many JS files before you “secure” them in a v8 snapshot grunt-nw-builder: Similar to “grunt-electron” in that it produces the desired name/version/platform for a production build.
For example, to create the v8 snapshot you might do the following:
grunt.initConfig({ exec : { nwjc : { cwd : 'build/nwjc', cmd : 'nwjc app.js app.bin' } }, concat : { nwjc : { dest : 'build/nwjc/app.js', src : [ 'app/js/fileA.js', 'app/js/fileB.js', 'app/js/fileC.js' ] } }, nwjs : { options : { platforms : [ 'win32', 'win64', 'osx64' ], buildDir : 'build/platforms', version : '0.12.3', //macIcns : '', //winIco : '' }, src : [ 'build/production/**/*' ] } }); grunt.loadNpmTasks('grunt-exec'); grunt.loadNpmTasks('grunt-contrib-concat'); grunt.loadNpmTasks('grunt-nw-builder'); grunt.registerTask('default', [ 'concat', 'exec', 'nwjs' ]);
The last step here (“nwjs” target) assumes some other things are in my build/production folder, but you get the idea.
My Grunt setup for Electron is nearly identical, minus some nuances in things needed for the individual projects.
Winner: tie
Startup Time
While I didn’t try to specifically time the startup process in both of my apps, I will say that Electron started noticeably faster on OSX and Windows — both locally during development, as well as my production builds.
Oddly enough, my Electron app is considerably more complex than my nwjs app. The nwjs app did use a v8 snapshot (which has a known performance hit), but even running the app locally without the v8 snapshot it seems much slower to startup.
Winner: Electron
What is your Experience?
Remember: I’m just some guy who builds software and rants about it on The Internet. Your mileage may vary significantly with these projects, but barring the need to “secure” your source code I would choose Electron every time.
If you have built apps with either of these projects I would love to hear more about your thoughts and experiences!Pine Bonsai in the Midwest USA by Douglas K. Hawley MD, Cincinnati, Ohio It is with good reason that the Japanese have sometimes referred to pine as the king of bonsai. They respond very well to training techniques, and adapt well to bonsai culture (so well, in fact, that they may live longer as bonsai than they do in the wild!). Their appearance is majestic. And the ancient pines in nature have served as models for the development of the classic rules and stylistic tendencies in bonsai in general. Specifically, pines have served as the style models for bonsai, with downsloping lower branches alternating from outside curves with well-defined foliage planes eventually culminating in a broad rounded apex. Uh-oh, I can already see some of you bonsai naturalists with fumes coming out of your ears, thinking man, that's the worst thing that ever happened to tropicals and deciduous; I'd rather get a root canal than see another pine-styled maple! My only response is that if you prefer lollipop or shrub-in-a-pot style, there are plenty of models for this in most of our midwestern back yards. But when I really want to see a tree that looks like an ancient humanesque caricature-like piece of art, give me a pine! Pines are evergreen needle conifers of the genus Pinus. There are over 100 species of pinus, essentially all from the Northern Hemisphere. Although some will grow in subtropical or warm climates, none are truly tropical; thus, as bonsai, they are all outdoor plants. Although all will survive in bonsai culture, some are much more suitable than others due to needle length, response to pruning/pinching, internode length and growth rate. Almost all pines can survive throughout most of the Midwest area, but some may require pampering. My discussion will include both the classic Japanese pines as well as the pines of the western world most suitable for bonsai; but all will be pines that we can easily keep alive as bonsai in the Midwest. GROWTH PATTERNS First, a few basics are in order, with no intent to insult all of you experts. All pines grow in the same pattern. New buds turn into candles, which then open up into shoots covered with needles. These shoots are arranged in whorls, i.e. one to a dozen or more shoots arising all from the same point. The tip of each shoot the puts out more buds which develop into candles for the next year's whorls of growth. Some pines will backbud if pruned into the last one or two year's branches, but not always reliably. They will never break back if cut back into old wood beyond where needles are present, but rather that branch will simply die. The needles themselves grow in groups called fascicles. Most pines have fascicles of two needles, three needles or five needles. Those which have five-needle fascicles are often referred to as five needle pines, white pines, or soft pines. Those with two or three needles per fascicle are sometimes generally referred to as hard pines or black pines. Most pines display considerable apical dominance, i.e. the tendency for the portion of the tree at the top or the end to have the most vigorous growth. This is important to realize in bonsai culture, as much of what we try to attempt to do is to equalize the strength in all parts of the tree. Thus, we constantly have to be more brutal to the upper and outer portions of our trees. TYPES OF PINES Pinus thunbergiana - Japanese Black Pine - Kuro matsu. A two needle pine. Hardy zones 5-7(8). Needles naturally around 5" but reduce dramatically in bonsai culture. Excellent response (perhaps the best and most predictable of any pine) to classic Japanese pruning and needle reduction techniques. Fissured bark. Back buds modestly well. Needs moderate winter protection - medium sized bonsai will survive 0-10 degrees F if temperatures are steady and there is complete protection from wind and sun. Will do well in warmer areas too. Pinus thunbergiana var corticosa - Cork bark Black pine - Nishiki matsu. (2 needle) Cork bark varieties, actually a large number of different variants. The ones with thick white candles are much more vigorous than ones with reddish teardrop shaped candles. In Japan these varieties are classified according to the pattern of the cork bark, with those developing angled wings being more desirable. Some varieties, notably Kyokko and Fuji can be rooted with cuttings, unlike any other pines. These pines are somewhat more difficult, being fragile, less hardy, and more susceptible to fungal diseases than regular black pine, however can be grown very successfully in the Midwest. They require very significant winter protection e.g. coldframe or unheated garage kept in low to mid thirties or higher. Pinus parviflora (pentaphylla) - Japanese white pine, Japanese five-needle pine - Goya matsu. (5 needle) - small attractive needles, probably the smallest and most attractive needles of any five-needle pine. Dense but somewhat slow growth. More vigorous when grafted onto black pine roots, and most specimens available in this country are grafts imported from Japan. A few cork or rough bark varieties exist but are rare. All varieties require some winter protection but prefer colder climates overall. Pinus syvestris - Scotts pine. (2 needle) - popular in USA and especially in the midwest. Trunk is attractive and thickens rapidly. Needles are much smaller than black pine. However it does not reliably respond to candle pruning with new growth, and new shoots grow horizontally instead of upright, giving it a somewhat unkempt appearance. Tolerates cold in general, more so than Japanese black pine, but there are varieties developed to grow best in each of zones 3-6. Pinus rigida - Pitch Pine - Amerika sanyosho. (3 needle) - An underused pine. Native to our area. Hardy zones 4-7, three needle pine. Buds back extensively, even on old wood. Needles not quite as dense as Japanese black pine, but responds exceptionally well to needle reduction techniques and can be induced to put out several or more generations of new growth in a season. Pinus virginiana - Scrub pine. (2 needle) Native to our area. Two needle pine with characteristics otherwise very similar to pitch pine. Trunk thickens more slowly. Responds extraordinarily well to pinching and needle reduction techniques. Slightly warmer natural habitat that Pitch pine so requires moderate winter protection. Pinus ponderosa - Ponderosa pine. (3 needle) Many fabulous ancient twisted trunk collected specimens have made this a popular pine in USA. Grows fairly well in this area but very prone to borers, which may cause death of tree without warning. Buds back with actual cutting needles in half, but doesnít respond well to candle removal, and candles are almost two short to pinch. Thus, it is difficult to control the balance of vigor and weak branches tend to become weaker. Large trees require little or no winter protection. Pinus mugo - Mugho pine. (2 needle) hardy to zone 2 which grows very well here. Has natural bush like growth, so it has very little apical dominance. Older trees tend to have long arms and younger trees don't thicken up quickly, so really good mugo bonsai are rare. Responds poorly to candle removal. Needs almost no winter protection. Pinus densiflora - Japanese red pine - Aka matsu. (2 needle) Similar to Japanese black pine but with weaker growth, looser arrangement of needles, and less ability to tolerate vigorous pruning techniques. Appearance considered more feminine or delicate. Requires winter protection. Pinus banksiana - Jack pine. (2 needle) Native to the northernmost parts of our area, but will grow well as bonsai in zones 2-6. Very short needles, somewhat more widely spaced than Scotts pine but similar. Response to Japanese black pine techniques is not reliable. Needs only wind/sun protection in winter. Pinus strobus - Eastern white pine. (5 needle) Native to our area, and extensively planted as lanscape in Midwest. Hardy zone 2-7, and the most shade tolerant pine. Unfortunately, this is one of the least satisfying pines for bonsai. Needles do not reduce, it does not like to be pruned at all, and it retains a juvenile appearance to the bark until it is literally ancient. It is sensitive to overwatering but not tolerant of underpotting. Key branches may die without reason, spoiling the design. Good luck. Many other pines can be grown as bonsai in this area including loblolly pine, sand pine, lacebark pine, Austrian limber pine, Mexican white pine, Swiss stone pine, etc etc. All these have some different features. Paradoxically, bristlecone pine, twisted and century-old in nature, does poorly as bonsai. PRUNING, PINCHING AND DE-CANDLING There is a major difference in the response to pruning and pinching between the five needle pines and the others. They bud back less easily, tolerate candle removal poorly, and do not reduce their needle size as readily. Thus, among five needle pines, types which already have dense growth patterns short internodal spaces and short needle length, such as Pinus parviflora (Japanese five needle pine) are much preferred over those with the opposite characteristics, such as Pinus strobus (Eastern White Pine). The primary method of pinching five needle pine is to reduce the candles to 1/2 to 1/3 of their initial length in mid spring, just before the needles begin to open. This should be done over a two or three week period, starting with the strong (upper) candles, and ending with the weak (lowest and inside) candles. Note that this sequence is the opposite as with two/three needle pines, described below. Among the two and three needle pines, there is a fairly wide variation in the response to needle reduction and pruning techniques. With some, such as Pinus thunbergiana (Japanese Black Pine) Pinus rigida (Pitch pine), and Pinus virginiana (Scrub pine), marked needle reduction and multiple generations of stimulated new growth can occur in a single season in response to pruning and pinching. In contrast, others, such as Pinus ponderosa, Pinus nigra (Austrian Black pine) and pinus leucodermis (Bosnian pine) simply stop their growth until next season in response to pinching. With all two and three needle pines, candle work is usually done over a two to three week period. Unlike five needle pines, start with the lowest/weakest branches, and end with the upper/strongest. This gives the weaker candles a head start. The exception is Muhgo, which has no apical dominance and therefore can be done all at once. First, candles may be pinched by 1/2 to 1/3, just before the needles open. Typically this will be in April or May. If you also plan to de-candle, don't pinch back the weakest at all. De-candling is exactly what it sounds like: Remove the entire new candle; all of them! Right down to the point of the previous years growth. Do not leave even a stub from this year's candle. This should be done when the needles have completely opened, from mid June to early July, and should be done sequentially, weakest to strongest as noted above. This may be done with the following pines: Japanese black (corkbark only every other year); Japanese red; pitch; Virginia (scrub); sand; and vigorous lacebarks and loblollies. You can try it on all the other two and three needle pines safely, but in most cases they just put out buds which donít open into candles until the following year. The result of successful de-candling is that the pine then puts out a larger number of brand new candle at the cut tips. All of which will have more compact growth and shorter needles. These should be reduced in number to two per tip once they are large enough to accomplish this. Occasionally, these new candles will be long enough that the strongest need to be cut back. Pines should be fertilized heavily the autumn and spring before decandling. Note that the length of the needles can actually be controlled to some extent by the timing of de-candling. Early de-candling (e.g. mid-June) yields stronger, longer needles; later (e.g. early July) yields shorter needles. Watch out with doing it too late, though. I've had Japanese black pines with no needle longer than inch. They look great through the fall and winter, but put out dangerously weak growth the following season, precluding de-candling for two years. None of these methods necessarily apply to Ponderosa, nor does anyone really know what to do with them! Incidentally, |
-thinking moral-emotional intuitions are followed by rationalizations arising from slow-thinking processes. Attention to the moral dimension will make explicit an especially important choice: whether to prioritize assistance to high-risk youth, at possible harm to low-risk youth, or the reverse.
The Harm Reduction Debate
It is sometimes forgotten that the prevailing response after the release of the 1964 Surgeon General's report (US Department of Health, Education and Welfare 1964) was to embrace harm reduction (Kozlowski and Abrams 2016; Rabin and Sugarman 1993). The American Medical Association and the Consumer's Union advised smokers to switch to pipes or cigars to reduce risk. The National Cancer Institute partnered with the industry to develop safer cigarettes, and the Federal Trade Commission adopted tar testing to encourage smokers to choose “lower-tar” cigarettes. Later, in an innovative countermarketing move, Kenneth Warner coined the accurate trope that “cigarettes are lethal when used as intended and kill more people than heroin, cocaine, alcohol, AIDS, fires, homicide, suicide, and automobile accidents combined,” which the American Cancer Society (1987: 20) popularized as a lobbying theme. By the time lower-tar cigarettes were finally recognized as not being lower risk because smokers maintained exposures to toxins (Tobacco Control Research Branch 2001), many in tobacco control had rejected harm reduction and were arguing that the battle to end tobacco use would be won without such policies (Kessler 2001; Pertschuk 2001).
More recently, the surgeon general has acknowledged that by far the greatest burden of disease and disability arises from combustible tobacco products, especially cigarettes, and that moving consumers away from this type of tobacco/nicotine product is desirable (Office of the Surgeon General 2014). Other tobacco products such as smokeless tobacco (particularly, low-nitrosamine Swedish snus) and nicotine products such as vape or electronic cigarettes are not safe but are upward of 90 percent less harmful than cigarettes (Nutt et al. 2014; RCP 2016). The case for lower risk for individual users is well established. For example, smokeless tobacco does not lead to lung cancer or other respiratory diseases, which account for most cigarette-caused deaths (e.g., Scientific Committee on Emerging and Newly Identified Health Risks 2008).
Harm reduction nevertheless is still opposed by arguments that it will legitimate some products and lead to an increased number of people using those less harmful, but still harmful, products. Advocates for harm reduction respond that the net effect on public health is highly likely to be positive (Kozlowski et al. 2001; Levy et al. 2016). In these ongoing debates (Sweanor, Alcabes, and Drucker 2007), many of the arguments involve projecting highly uncertain trends. Those projections are influenced by moral psychology.
Morality, Health, and Youth
Kenneth Warner has observed “a distinctly puritanical streak within the public health community that would rebel against any notion that there should be any alternatives to ‘Just say no’ when it comes to nicotine—and especially any alternative that might involve the tobacco industry as participant in the solution, as opposed to just being the problem” (quoted in Pertschuk 2001: 259). Similar moral arguments can be seen in examples from alcohol prohibition in the United States (Levine and Reinarman 1991). Morone describes moral panics as drivers of prohibitions and identifies the threat to youth as fundamental: “It's a moral classic: Dangerous people threaten our innocents. Prohibitions generally rise up the political agenda with gothic stories of the first sip, puff, or snort. The bad companion lures foolish youngsters to their terrible fate” (Morone 2003: 477).
The 2009 tobacco law giving the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) jurisdiction over cigarettes sought explicitly to prevent any use by minors (Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act. Stat 1776. United States Code [2009]). Policies to protect youth respond to the fact that most smokers start as minors (Office of the Surgeon General 1994). But the argument that protecting kids would be popular convinced President Clinton to pursue the FDA regulation of tobacco (Kessler 2001). Adults are seen as responsible for their decision to smoke, but children who start smoking and become addicted are not viewed as responsible and must be protected.
Moral Psychology
Moral psychology (Haidt 2007) has roots in the anthropology of morality across cultures. In addition to the generally recognized values (or moral intuitions) of (1) minimizing harm and showing care for others and (2) fairness and justice, three additional themes are important: (3) concern for in-group loyalty, (4) respect for authority, and (5) concern for sacredness or purity (Haidt 2007). Research has shown that individuals differ in the importance they place on the five themes and that, for example, liberals care relatively more than do conservatives about the first two and relatively less about the last three (Haidt 2007). More recent research finds that libertarians are distinct from liberals or conservatives. Libertarians stress a sixth value of endorsing liberty as the dominant guiding principle (Iyer et al. 2012). A further, essential part of moral psychology leads human beings to respond quickly with moral intuitions, producing moral emotions, such that when rights (fairness/justice) are violated we get angry, when community standards are violated we are contemptuous, and when our sense of the sacred becomes contaminated, we are disgusted.
Such fast-thinking emotional responses might subsequently be rationalized through slow-thinking processes (Kahneman 2013). Yet even if time and sufficient evidence exist to conduct a complete assessment, people, even scientists, are not really good at it (Kahneman 2013; Reyna and Lloyd 2006). Such problems usually engage hypotheticals and the unpredictable, with worrying slippery slopes to imagine ahead. Complete cost-benefit analyses are very difficult. Measurement choices—such as how to weight years of life lost or which measures of morbidity to use—are burdensome and contentious. Other research supports moral psychology's view of rapid, emotionally dominated mental processing (Kahneman 2013; Sunstein 2005). Fuzzy-trace theory holds that gists of information (intuitions), more than detailed knowledge, shape decisions (Reyna and Lloyd 2006). Such simplifying gists have been identified in both youths' and adults' processing of information about health risks (Brainerd and Reyna 2015). Even health professionals with advanced training and experience employ such gists rather than more detailed understandings (Reyna and Lloyd 2006).
For our purposes it is unnecessary and unwise to label people's moral philosophies. Yet we should recognize that each of the six attitudes identified by the sources is held strongly, more or less, by both ordinary citizens and experts. One reason for pursuing tighter restrictions on children is because violating their liberty to choose is more acceptable. Children are believed to have diminished responsibility and independence. The prevailing views on prohibiting tobacco use by minors can make it seem ill-advised, even disgusting, to propose supporting their use of much less harmful products. Moral psychology helps us understand such initial reactions.
Moral Psychology and Protecting Different Groups of Minors
Federal law states that “the use of tobacco products by the Nation's children is a pediatric disease of considerable portions” and adds that “virtually all new users” are under the minimum legal age to purchase” (Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act. 123 Stat 1777. United States Code [2009]). Nevertheless, only a minority of young people become tobacco users, and they tend to differ from nonsmokers in other ways as well.
Rebellion and risk-taking are so-called common-liability characteristics (discussed below) that promote youths' adoption of many activities that adults would prefer to discourage. Many minors do engage in bad (“sinful”) behavior involving alcohol, tobacco, other drugs, and sexual activity (Morone 2003). For example, in 2015, 34.7 percent of tenth graders reported ever having used an illicit drug, 28.6 percent reported ever having been drunk, and 19.9 percent reported ever having smoked a cigarette (Miech, Johnston et al. 2016). High-school dropouts are much likelier to smoke (Tice 2013). Young individuals with mental illness are much more likely to be smokers than are those without mental illness, and these young smokers may be self-medicating with nicotine (DeHay et al. 2012). Among young people with conduct disorder, 72 percent were monthly smokers, compared to only 21 percent of monthly smokers who had no mental disorder (Lawrence et al. 2010).
Zero tolerance policies therefore have been better at protecting “good” children who are on track to attending college; avoiding alcohol, marijuana, or tobacco; abstaining from having sex; and generally exhibiting good behavior. In contrast, harm-reduction polices would be more relevant to “bad” youth who leave school, get drunk weekly, smoke marijuana and tobacco every day, are sexually active, and are generally misbehaving. A policy that tries to keep the innocent pure can be in outright opposition to the mitigation of the risks for the misbehaving. Withholding nicotine vaping may be irrelevant to many of the well-behaved youth who have no interest in or a low risk of using; however, nicotine-vaping products may be the best one can do to reduce the health risks for misbehaving youth. Support of or opposition to these policies does not necessarily rest on the careful assessment of extensive, high-quality evidence but can arise from emotional responses and fears linked to the different potential effects (Alderman, Dollar, and Kozlowski 2010; Kozlowski 2013).
The argument that tobacco/nicotine products are not safe (Kozlowski and Edwards 2005), absent any indication of how dangerous they are, is essentially a claim about contamination. All tobacco/nicotine products would pollute the purity of the “good” children. The violation of this fifth moral psychological value leads to disgust at the prospect of a good child using such a product, and for some, the possible reduction in harm to the bad child using a less harmful product cannot override the feeling of disgust. Ideas about contamination also lurk near the surface of concerns about causal drug gateways. The concept of gateways has powerfully mobilized the disapproval of less harmful products (Bell and Keane 2014; Kleinig 2015). “Stories of the first sip, puff, or snort” are powerful and through the lens of moral psychology represent the first instance of contamination.
Associations between the use of different products may be caused not by a gateway sequence but by a common-liability effect: that the context of the individual or tendencies to engage in riskier activities drives the association. In other words, it is not the product so much as the person or the environment that causes patterns of use (Vanyukov et al. 2012). But individuals whose moral psychologies emphasize purity will be influenced by research that demonstrates even minimal “contamination.” For example, recent research on possible gateways from vaping to cigarettes in youth has turned on evidence such as “at least one puff on a cigarette” rather than any evidence of established regular smoking (Leventhal et al. 2015; Primack et al. 2015). The evidence supporting causal gateway effects that would be large enough to significantly influence population health, however, is slim and unconvincing (Kozlowski 2007; Kozlowski and Abrams 2016; Kozlowski and Sweanor 2016; Kozlowski and Warner 2017; Saddleson et al. 2015). Small prospective studies finding that a minority of the very few young never-smokers who try vaping go on to experiment with cigarettes (Barrington-Trimis et al. 2016; Huh and Leventhal 2016; Leventhal et al. 2015) are not persuasive. This is true especially in the face of secular trends that show historic decreases in cigarette smoking associated with increased vaping (Warner 2015; Warner 2016), two-thirds of which uses flavors only and does not include nicotine at all (Miech, Patrick et al. 2016). The use of smokeless tobacco in Sweden has been well studied and judged not to be a cigarette gateway (Scientific Committee on Emerging and Newly Identified Health Risks 2008).
Moral beliefs that emphasize in-group loyalty and respect for authority also tend to support prohibition for minors: protecting Us from Them. The protection of one's community (Us) from invasion from the outside (Them) is a moral tradition (Morone 2003). Within moral psychology, one would show contempt for failing to protect Us from Them. In that most of the current public health leaders likely either no longer are or never were tobacco/nicotine users and are inclined to vilify the tobacco industry, a prevailing sense of authority would likely align with zero tolerance. Any users of tobacco/nicotine are an external threat to a community aspiring to end such use (Warner 2013).
At the extreme, deviant youth may be viewed as Them and beyond the help that is protecting the good youth. As Morone writes, “The bad companion lures foolish youngsters to their terrible fate” (p. 477) and so is part of the problem. Deviant youth can also be seen to “deserve” what they get from the natural negative consequences of their behavior (Portes, Dunham, and Williams 1986). Harm-reduction measures can be feared as a spur to bad behavior because they reduce negative consequences. All in all, many moral emotions support a prohibition approach that purposefully or not favors “good” children over “bad” children, and this represents an influential bias that needs to be assessed for whether it promotes net public health or reduces it.
Experts who place relatively greater value on reducing harm to others (the first moral psychological value), and who at the same time value purity relatively less, can view moving high-risk youth to less harmful products as virtuous. Those who stress liberty would also be inclined to provide choices to high-risk youth who are misbehaving. Anger can be the emotional response to those who oppose harm reduction. Although I do lean toward harm reduction, even for youth, this article should not be viewed as trying to hide behind moral psychology to offer a kind of rebuke of the opposition. On all sides of the harm-reduction debate, we are tangled within our own matrices of values (Kozlowski 2016a).
Doing Better in Policy Decision Making: Considering Differing Moral Foundations
It is hard to know how much harm-reduction for one high-risk child would be equal to harm-prevention for one low-risk child, especially when anxious estimates may influence calculations more than reliable measures. Of course, slow thinking and deep analysis can be applied to policy choices and help improve them (Greene 2013). Techniques are available to reduce reliance on gists and promote more objective decisions (Reyna, Weldon, and McCormick 2015). But the research has shown that there are multiple compelling gists that “distract competent reasoners from correcting their processing errors” (Reyna and Lloyd 2006: 192). More thoughtful analysis as well as more scientific evidence can be used to try to oppose biased cognitive processing. Digging deeper into issues and the degrees of costs and benefits related to positions creates the potential for compromise between polarized positions (Fernbach et al. 2013).
Appreciating that quite different patterns of moral foundation can be at play, each deserving of respect, may be a first step toward more deliberative analyses of issues. Moral psychological profiles are a matter of relative emphasis. Few individuals have complete blind spots with respect to any of the six values, but our priorities do differ. If we avoid the trap of using less conscious, fast-thinking moral judgments to implicitly choose between helping the “good” and “bad” youth, we may find policies to help both. But we have to be willing to do so.
In spite of the willingness of deviant youth to disregard restrictions, accurate information on major differential risks might nevertheless influence their patterns of use (Kozlowski and Sweanor 2016; Kozlowski and Sweanor 2017), as would differential taxation according to risk (Chaloupka, Sweanor, and Warner 2015), or using product risks to set the legal age of purchase (Kozlowski 2016b). Thus, one should still support a policy of prohibiting any tobacco/nicotine product use (and “good” youth will comply) while also supporting policies that give clear signals about or incentives for lesser product risks (and “bad” youth could be helped). Research has shown that tobacco control policies that have a positive effect on adults also affect youth cigarette use (Tauras, Huang, and Chaloupka 2013). Adolescents do react in ways similar to adults when presented with risk information (Steinberg 2008). Mistaken beliefs about reduced risks from “light” cigarettes likely have contributed to such cigarette brands becoming the best-sellers among youth as well as adults (O'Connor 2005).
Policy makers should attempt to go beyond powerful moral intuitions for protecting children to consider the net costs and benefits for all youth—from lowest risk to highest risk. From a public health perspective, the emphasis should be more on disease prevention and health promotion than on morally biased perspectives. This applies to a broad range of harm-reduction issues, not just tobacco. In the often equally controversial area of sex education in schools, evidence is growing that comprehensive programs can be developed to increase both the number of students who abstain (helping the “good”) and who practice safer sex (helping the “bad”) (Weed 2012). More complex policies that target the particular needs of different youth may be crucial. In the end, consciousness about moral psychology may help us resist having our moral intuitions creating a kind of “evidence” that we rely on too much when developing policies to promote population health.
References
Copyright © 2017 by Duke University Press
2017Alfred Morris is on borrowed time in Dallas.
The Cowboys will try to trade the veteran backup to running back Ezekiel Elliott, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported Thursday.
Morris, 28, is due to collect $1.2 million in the final season of the two-year, $3.5 million contract he signed last season.
Although the former Redskins Pro Bowler looked rejuvenated in training camp and in spot action behind Elliott early last season, he finished 2016 averaging a meager 3.5 yards on 69 carries.
By the time Darren McFadden returned from an elbow injury in December, Morris was on the outs.
Why are the Cowboys moving on from Morris? As an early-down power back with a limited skill set, he needs a steady diet of carries to justify his contract as well as his roster spot.
Coach Jason Garrett made it clear Thursday that he's not looking to reduce Elliott's workload on the heels of one of the most outstanding rookie seasons in NFL history.
Rather than under-utilizing Morris, per the Star-Telegram, the Cowboys would prefer to bring back unrestricted free agents Darren McFadden and Lance Dunbar for change-of-pace and spread-formation opportunities.
Morris is a declining one-dimensional runner with an average of 3.67 yards on his last 271 carries. If Dallas manages to unload him, it will likely be for a conditional late-round draft pick.Wednesday December 23, 2015 07:20 PM
Kelli P. Miller received three years of probation. A Berks County judge wants Miller to keep working to repay the organization.
Reading, PA —
A Muhlenberg Township woman convicted of stealing money from a youth sports organization for her personal use apologized in court Wednesday, saying she will work hard to restore what she took.
Kelli P. Miller fought back tears in a Berks County courtroom as she said she wanted to be a good example for her four children.
"I want to show them that if you make a mistake, you have to accept it and you have to move on," she said. "I don't want them to remember me as this, because this isn't me."
But Judge Madelyn S. Fudeman reminded Miller that she could have stopped at any point during the roughly two and a half years in which she stole from the Muhlenberg Township Athletic Association while serving as the organization's treasurer.
"Over those two years you had the ability or certainly the opportunity to say this was wrong," Fudeman said. "It's a violation of the public trust. It is reprehensible and it's just a sad statement for our community to have circumstances like this."
Fudeman sentenced Miller to three years of probation and to pay $28,628 in restitution for the funds she stole. Fudeman said she believed Miller was genuinely remorseful and wanted her to continue working full time in order to make restitution.
Defense attorney Allan L. Sodomsky said Miller was prepared to make a $15,000 payment immediately following the sentencing hearing.
Miller, 40, of the 1200 block of Frederick Boulevard, previously pleaded guilty in April to theft and receiving stolen property.
The sentencing in the case was deferred numerous times as Sodomsky and Assistant District Attorney Colin R. Boyer worked out the proper restitution amount in the case.
Police initially reported that Miller stole $61,500 from the association, but Sodomsky said some of that money was actually utilized for legitimate purposes for the organization.
The Muhlenberg Township Athletic Association is a nonprofit organization formed more than 50 years ago to provide a variety of youth sports programs to children in the township. Sodomsky said Miller got involved with the organization as a good deed, but allowed financial issues to get the better of her.
The current president of the association, Donald Raifsnider Jr., was present for the hearing but did not wish to speak. Sodomsky said he understood that neither police nor the association wished to see Miller sent to prison.
According to authorities, the theft was discovered in June 2014 when an association board member attempted to make a purchase with the association's Sam's Club card. The card was rejected because of a large unpaid balance on the account.
Board members soon found discrepancies in that account and two bank accounts that Miller handled, prompting association officials to hire a forensic accountant to review their financial records.
The review found that Miller made unauthorized withdrawals from the accounts between April 2011 and September 2013, several of which were for personal purposes.
Contact Stephanie Weaver: 610-371-5042 or sweaver@readingeagle.com.This is big news. I just got off a conference call with Richard Cordray, the Attorney General for the state of Ohio. He has filed a lawsuit in Lucas County (Toledo) Common Pleas Court against GMAC Mortgage and their parent company Ally Financial, in a suit which names Jeffrey Stephan, the infamous “robo-signer” who signed off on up to 10,000 foreclosures a month across the country with affidavits, without verifying the information in the foreclosure documents. The lawsuit alleges fraud on the part of GMAC, along with violations of the Ohio Consumer Sales Practices Act, in filing false affidavits to mislead the courts in what they describe as “hundreds” of Ohio foreclosure cases. And, the Attorney General is treating every single false affidavit filed in an Ohio court as a separate violation, with a fine of up to $25,000, plus additional restitution for the homeowner of an unspecified amount.
This is a major lawsuit, and as Cordray told reporters, “We’re at the beginning of this, not the middle or end, and we’ll see where it leads us.” For context, approximately 450,000 foreclosures have been filed in Ohio since 2005, and potentially all of them used this robo-signing process. At the outer edge of this, if every one of those foreclosure processes is seen as a single case of fraud, the fines for the entire lending industry would add up to $11.25 BILLION dollars, just in the state of Ohio, not including the extra restitution for homeowners.
I don’t think that’s necessarily going to be the end result of this, but for the moment, Cordray is suing GMAC, and all he has to prove is that the lender knowingly presented false affidavits and false documents to the court. Even the hundreds of cases he suggested GMAC committed fraud in would amount to a significant fine.
What’s more, Cordray sent letters seeking meetings with the other four top lenders in the state – Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Citi and Wells Fargo – to discuss their use of robo-signers and how they plan to remedy the practice. He certainly sounded like someone ready to include them in future lawsuits.
“It is now becoming clear that fraud, deception, and an utter disregard for accuracy are in part to blame for our national foreclosure disaster,” Cordray said in prepared remarks. “What we are seeing and hearing strikes at the very foundation of the rule of law in our court system… Clearly any fraud or deception that has contributed to this state of affairs must be stopped, and those responsible must be held accountable.”
In addition to seeking penalties from GMAC in the lawsuit for their violations of state laws and perpretration of fraud, Cordray wants a “preliminary and permanent injunction” against all foreclosures by GMAC in any pending case. If he were to file future lawsuits – and I believe he will – he would move to do the same in those cases. That would effectively end all foreclosure proceedings in Ohio, a judicial foreclosure state. [cont’d.]
This was the most powerful part of Cordray’s statement:
“The actions by lenders that I am talking about today show gross disregard for the integrity of this legal process and for the private property rights of homeowners. We are talking about lenders and servicers treating foreclosure not as a legal proceeding that deserves the careful attention of the property owner, the servicer of the mortgage and the courts, but rather as a production line making widgets, that accords foreclosures little deliberate accuracy that the law – or for, that matter, basic courtesy and common sense – mandates be given to such serious matters.”
Cordray said he was in contact with other Attorneys General across the nation about this matter, and that there is “deep concern” nationally about these practices.
Importantly, filing a lawsuit will enable a discovery phase, where more instances of fraud could be uncovered inside GMAC and potentially industry-wide.
When challenged by one reporter about the fact that the borrowers were in fact delinquent and that merits some action on the part of the lender, Cordray struck back. “What each side merits is that proper legal processes be carefully followed… If we would file a case with an affidavit we know to be false, that is seen as a very serious matter by the court. I don’t see why this should be taken any more lightly.”
Again, you can read the entire lawsuit here. Cordray has three other lawsuits pending against other loan servicers, and just got a favorable ruling against HomeEq Servicing which will allow that case to go forward.Each morning, Elizabeth English tackles another form. Another phone call. Another medical bill.
Three months ago, the 28-year-old University of Texas student was struck while riding her bicycle home from school. She couldn't brace herself for impact, but she remembers catching a glimpse of a nearby bus stop from underneath the Dodge Ram that hit her, and that continued to barrel down Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.
The trauma to English's body was devastating. Though she was able to protect her head, her back and lower body were rubbed raw as she was dragged 2,000 feet. When she finally dislodged from underneath the truck, lying in a pool of blood, there was no skin left on her back to cover her spine. Her right leg would eventually be amputated.
Mo Aziz, English's lawyer, routinely handles cases involving catastrophic injuries, and, like some of English's doctors, said it is one of the worst he's seen. "She is a young girl who had a very promising future," he said, "and her life will never be the same."
The driver, Artemio Avila, was arrested the next day by an off-duty Austin Police Department officer. He remains in county jail on a charge of failure to stop and render aid. In May, he was served a lawsuit requesting damages to pay for the more than $1 million in debt English has accumulated in the last few months. Still, Avila was not the owner of the truck, and all his cousin had was a $30,000 liability policy. English also had an underinsured motorist policy – worth $100,000, according to Aziz – which he emphasized doesn't come close to paying for the physical and financial toll this crash put on English.
Numbers like the $500 million price tag the city's Vision Zero report associates with injuries and fatal crashes in Austin every year do little to illustrate the impact to someone's life in this kind of situation. English, who has a B.A. in political science, currently lives in the shadow of that statistic, but she hopes one day she will be able to educate the community about pedestrian and cyclist safety. Part of that is addressing the bad driving behaviors that the Vision Zero report said cause nearly 80% of crash fatalities. (In English's case, the driver was questioned about driving under the influence, but wasn't apprehended until the next day. By that time, blood alcohol testing was pointless.)
Especially in the short term, the Ohio native's financial situation is dire. Before the crash, English waited tables while she worked on the prerequisites for med school, which she considered pursuing at UT's Dell Medical School. Right now, although she's "champing at the bit" to get back to school and start her life over, the reality of her recovery has finally sunk in.
"There's hundreds of dollars of medicine I'm on every month," English said. "I'm super happy and positive, but like, shit – the reality is really tough."
"It's like, you're gonna get the $30,000 the driver's cousin had on the vehicle," she continued. "That's not even one of my bills. I'm dealing with the in-the-moment as much as I can.... Now that I'm feeling better, I'm eager to move on and get back to life. I had a candy craving today and I'm like, 'I need to go to the store and get a candy to feel better.' It just seems so wrong."
English didn't have a sweet tooth before the crash. She was an active person who walked the 45 minutes from her Eastside home to school at UT. She had lights on her bike, wore a helmet, and had never been in any kind of accident before. Now she gets winded making chocolate chip cookies in her kitchen, which is small enough for her to traverse without much help.
Media reports and people in the community who have interacted with English since the crash note how positive and upbeat she is considering all she's been through in the last three months. While she is both of those things, she also deals with growing anger about what happened, and the financial and physical impact it will have on her for the rest of her life.
And in terms of the emotional aspect, English counts it as "another cost" she isn't equipped to handle at the moment. Part of her daily task list is trying to secure funds for a prosthetic leg that English hopes will allow her to return to school and realize her dream of becoming a psychiatrist. The possibility that it could take more than two years to materialize is daunting.
"We're working with CommUnityCare to get some of this other stuff," she said. "I have a pro bono urologist and this plastic surgeon – and pretty much [those are] the only two doctors I have. I need a primary care physician, but I lost insurance because I can't serve anymore, and I had it through my job. While you wait for Medicaid, you can't really have insurance. Because if you have insurance, they won't give you insurance."
Securing additional insurance beyond Medicaid, English said, is "going to be a huge next step for me being able to continue with the American dream."
As with Vision Zero's goal to eliminate all traffic fatalities, the American dream right now seems far out of English's grasp. Yet, though she may be discouraged, her resilience shone when discussing a video she'd seen of a double amputee riding a bike.
"I will probably ride down bike trails in the woods without cars near me," she admitted. "[But] being active is what I want. It's a richer life."
To donate to English's medical expenses, visit www.gofundme.com/bethenglish. View the Facebook page that chronicled her recovery at www.fb.com/bethenglishrecovery.
Editor's note: An earlier version of this story referred to English's pro bono neurologist, when in fact she has a pro bono urologist.Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings.
Aug. 23, 2017, 7:11 PM GMT / Updated Aug. 24, 2017, 3:04 PM GMT By Adam Edelman
It’s a tale of two Trumps — and the president is just fine with it.
President Donald Trump admitted Thursday he applies different "tones" in speeches to different crowds, explaining in a pair of tweets why he changed up his style while bashing the media for reporting on it.
"The Fake News is now complaining about my different types of back to back speeches. Well, there was Afghanistan (somber), the big Rally........(enthusiastic, dynamic and fun) and the American Legion - V.A. (respectful and strong). To bad the Dems have no one who can change tones!" he said.
Sen Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., suggested there was a method to what he characterized as Trump's "insanity."
“He goes to Phoenix and kind of goes nuts on stage, but that’s Donald Trump,” Graham said Thursday on Hugh Hewitt’s radio show. “He’s a street fighter from New York, and nothing’s going to change.”
But Graham, like Trump, also poked the media for observing the phenomenon.
“The media has gone absolutely insane over his insanity,” he said.
Graham's comments and Trump's tweets came a day after the president gave several wildly different speeches over the course of a few days.
On Wednesday, less than 24 hours after he lashed out at the media and members of his own party in a largely unscripted and lengthy tirade in Phoenix, Trump, in a staid speech to the American Legion, stuck closely to the teleprompter — and abandoned any attacks.
The president preached unity by telling the prominent veterans group the U.S. should follow its example "to overcome the many challenges that we face."
"We are here to draw inspiration from you, as we work to renew the bonds of loyalty that bind us together as one nation and one people," Trump said at the American Legion’s national convention in Reno, Nev.
"We are here to hold you up as an example of the strength, courage and resolve our country will need to overcome the many challenges that we face," he added.
The rest of the speech Wednesday went pretty much just like that.
His nationally televised address to the nation on Monday night, when he announced what he called a new approach for the U.S. war in Afghanistan, also revealed an unfamiliar Trump. The president used his prime-time speech to admit he was reversing on on his campaign promises to pull out of the war-torn country.
But on Tuesday, it was a very different Trump, once again.
Trump delivered a barn-burner at the Phoenix campaign rally, appearing to deviate from the teleprompter for long segments as he angrily threatened a government shutdown if his border wall isn’t funded and repeatedly attacked the media for its coverage last week of his remarks — which drew widespread condemnation — about the recent deadly violence in Charlottesville, Virginia.
The president lambasted news outlets for giving "a platform to hate groups" and he called journalists "bad people" who are responsible for "division in our country." Trump also indirectly criticized both of Arizona’s Republican senators — John McCain, who is battling brain cancer, and Jeff Flake, who is facing a tough re-election.
And Trump strongly hinted he might pardon controversial former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who was found guilty of a misdemeanor for ignoring a judge's order not to detain suspected undocumented immigrants.
That more than hour-long Phoenix appearance further underscored the Trump's unpredictability when in front of an enthusiastic crowd. But by Wednesday, he was in full presidential mode.Only software engineer was placed above the actuarial profession in the careers advice service’s ranking of the 200 best and worst jobs out there this year. The ranking was based on physical demands, work environment, income, stress and hiring outlook and used data from sources such as the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.
CareerCast said an actuary ‘interprets statistics to determine probabilities of accidents, sickness, and death, and loss of property from theft and natural disasters’. The occupation scored well for its hiring outlook, with very low levels of stress and physical demands.
Other financial services-related roles also ranked well in the list, with financial planner (ranked fifth) and mathematician (ranked tenth) both also figuring in the top 10 best jobs in 2012.
However, accountants ranked only 47th in the list, with a noticeably less rosy hiring outlook than their actuarial colleagues.The ACLU of Southern California announced Wednesday that it had reached settlements with the city of Glendale and the school district on behalf of eight Latino students who alleged officials engaged in racial profiling and illegal searches during a 2010 incident at Hoover High School.
On Sept. 24, 2010, more than 50 Latino students were allegedly detained by Glendale and Los Angeles police officers who questioned them about possible gang affiliations. The students were also allegedly forced to pose for mock police mug shots.
In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles in 2011, the ACLU alleged officials targeted Latino students because of their race and that there was no evidence students were violating laws at the time they were questioned.
According to the settlement agreements, the city agreed to pay $50,000 to the ACLU of Southern California Client Trust Fund and Glendale Unified and its defendants agreed to pay $50,000 to the ACLU Foundation of Southern California.
Claims against the Los Angeles County Probation Department and the Los Angeles Police Department are still pending "for their involvement in planning and executing the round-up," according to the ACLU.
"Unlike most cities, police departments or school districts, Glendale did not try to sweep this under the rug," said Bert Voorhees, who served as an attorney for the plaintiffs with the ACLU.
David Sapp — an attorney for the ACLU of Southern California — also commended the school district and city of Glendale for "using this incident as an opportunity to review |
his inclusive outreach.
PTI
Firstpost is now on WhatsApp. For the latest analysis, commentary and news updates, sign up for our WhatsApp services. Just go to Firstpost.com/Whatsapp and hit the Subscribe button.Hello again, and a chilly November's greetings from all of our well-bundled team in 'now-Maryland-based-still-has-that-new-car-smell' Conifer HQ!
As many of you know I've been promising the past several months that we'd talk some schedule and release date soon (sometimes referred to as simply, "that thing roughly 95% of AtG followers are actually most interested in"). Well now's might be a good time to buckle up because, at long last, this is the update in which we'll finally be announcing a release date and along the way also dives head-first into a few big 'lightning rod' topics.
As you should probably expect by now, this article is fairly long and will involve going on a bit of a ride to the philosophical side of game development. However, I also know a large number of folks have better things to do than spend an hour hearing me ramble on inside their head, so if all you're looking for are the facts just skip down to the "Roadmap Breakdown" section a dozen or so paragraphs down from here.
In the next section though we'll kick things off by first looking back at the original release date "estimate" of June 2014 (!) we decided to target just prior to the Kickstarter campaign, along with *how* it's not just possible but fairly easy to come up with a date that's so absurdly off that two-and-a-half years later appears almost farcical. After that we'll skip ahead to the present and the meat of the update in which I lay out our new and basically-finalized roadmap, the process that went into creating it, and why it's actually worth putting some faith in despite its creator also being the same guy that whiffed badly at basically the same pitch only a few years earlier.
From there we'll look at a few specific elements like AI, iteration, and bugfixing that for different reasons each deserve a closer look, followed by a look at some more high-level "business-y" considerations that should always be taken into account when deciding on a release date. We'll wrap things up by providing a more granular breakdown of AtG's budget and how the hell we can actually afford to spend almost five years on this thing, and why even if impossible-to-predict bumps in the road do appear out of the blue you can have confidence in the fact that I'll always be driving this thing and doing everything in my power to make AtG the best game I can - right to the very end.
.
Pitfalls of Prognostication
In looking back I'll start by saying that I didn't really want to give out any dates at all, as I tend to be naturally pretty conservative on the production side of things. But given that the chance a crowdfunded project fails to deliver is always quite high the folks at Kickstarter understandably frown on taking a "hey, it'll be done when it's done" approach. And so we all dance for the overlords of that most-important month and do our best to come up with a release date we legitimately think is reasonable. Of course we already know how that turned out with AtG specifically, but the same is true of virtually every game project that's had a Kickstarter page to their name. But why is this the case?
Uncertainty is one of game development's most recognizable characteristics, and especially so the earlier in a project you are. Games are basically an interactive form of art, and this results in a development process which actually differs pretty significantly from that of most business and productivity software. Schedule be damned, if your game just ain't fun your only two options are either (A) spending whatever still-unknowable amount of extra time and money it takes to make it fun, or (B) you simply bite the bullet and release a bad game. Don't get me wrong, scheduling definitely has an important role to play in this business. But the unsolvable paradox is that until all of your game's "big questions" are answered 99% of numbers and dates you try to give meaning will end up being wrong - and as we've seen often laughably so.
Back when AtG was announced in February 2013 the game was little more than a basic playable prototype and had enormous holes that became obvious right from the moment you started a game. Although the prototype already contained a respectable amount of meat on its bones compared to others on Kickstarter because we were making a massively-complex strategy game this "head start" vanished very quickly.
The limitations having a team comprised of just a single full-time developer was something else I failed to fully appreciate at the time. That's probably something that would have been more obvious to other developers and even industry outsiders given that the vast majority of my career has been spent as one of or the only designer and gameplay programmer on massive, complex games. And it's not really the process of *building* the game that I underestimated so much as everything else. I spend a huge percent of every week answering emails, writing documents, filling out and following up on paperwork, reading feedback, and so on. It's definitely my intention to bring in some help on that front for the next game, but given AtG's budget it's simply something I have to deal with as best I can.
And to be fair, by far the biggest contributor to AtG so greatly overshooting that original date was performing what can basically be thought of as brain surgery on the absolute most fundamental aspect of the game design - and not only that, but doing so almost two years into development, which is the point when many other small strategy games are *released*. It's impossible to say for sure but I would estimate that the Clans feature will end up adding at least a year and a half to the project, and while that is a pretty huge number given how intertwined Clans are into every single nook and cranny of the game design coupled with how much it improved the game I honestly don't regret that decision at all. Making such a fundamental change to the design was obviously my decision and in spite of the cost I have no doubt it was the right move. As I've said in the past, AtG is a game like any other and that means it's inevitable you're going to run into some core issues that simply take time to fix.
The development side has been a truly enormous amount of work as well, with nearly all of it being self-imposed (which is technically true of *everything* when you're an indie, but whatever). AtG is innovating on numerous fronts and not just strictly in terms of gameplay. I'm obviously especially proud of AtG's tooltip system but there are many less obvious examples as well, like a realistic map generation system, a fairly complex graphics pipeline to produce the game's unique watercolor look - each of which having cost a big chunk of time, and our plans for diplomacy, the tutorial system, and modding all being similarly ambitious. Aside from the lack of multiplayer and the obvious difference on the graphical front AtG actually has a scope roughly the same as Civ 5 if you count up the wide variety of systems each contains. I don't remember exactly how many programmers we had on Civ but it was somewhere in the neighborhood of 20, which is obviously a little different from what Conifer can muster!
No doubt some folks would just say it's obvious that taking on a project of such an enormous scope with the equivalent of a single full-time programmer (after adding in part-timers and deducting the time I spend on non-development tasks) is just simply foolish, end of story. And if for some reason the game never ships or turns out to be crappy I'd have a hard time arguing it. But achieving that is not only something I want to do but strongly believe we *can* do - with enough time, of course. That has certainly been part of the core for one of the most important lessons I've learned on this project, one which I'll go into more detail on the next section: don't even bother with milestone dates until you have a complete understanding of how much work you're talking about. That's obviously more than a little tricky if you're working with a publisher or your game is crowdfunded, but it's something I'm at least hoping to try and apply next time around.
But that's probably enough lessons from the past - we started there to help give you an idea of some of the factors I'm thinking about once we start discussing slightly more important stuff like, well, the roadmap and a release date!
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Line in the Sand
With the Kickstarter campaign now barely even visible under almost three years of Internet dust I know with each passing month it's become increasingly difficult to ignore that big pink elephant in the room yelling "So when the hell is this stupid game actually going to be done anyways?"
And given that the only word for well over a year now has been the same official line of "it'll be done when it's done" there's good reason to wonder about such things. As I noted above there's just so much uncertainty early in development that there's almost no chance any dates you come up with will end up matching reality, and while a long development cycle that feels like it's never going to end ain't exactly great it's much better than announcing a date and getting everyone's hopes up only to come back later and say "just kidding" (we obviously did so back when it was clear we weren't going to hit that June 2014 date, but I definitely learned my lesson after that!). Not only are delays unprofessional and therefore not the kind of thing I ever like to do, but doing so also burns bridges - most of the time ones you'll never find out about. Sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do, but fortunately that's a trade-off I'll never have to make as a self-funded indie.
Eventually though the time does comes when you need to start locking things down and figuring out how to best get your baby out the door with as soft a landing as possible. AtG no doubt looked like it was in development purgatory for quite a while as we spent time iterating on major systems, but we've now reached the point where we need to shift from creating to polishing. Deciding when to make that cut off date is based on a number of factors that include rough schedule projections and how much money you have left, but at the end of the day it has to be a gut call. I'm happy with where AtG is overall, and so I decided now was the time to pull that lever. And it's a meaningful one too, because in announcing a date I'm putting everything on that, and with a fixed amount of time remaining you really have to prioritize how much time you spend on what.
Without further ado, let's move on to the next section and the star of today's show: the schedule!
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Roadmap Breakdown
After building a comprehensive list of remaining tasks then organized into milestones roughly a month part we can now announce that At The Gates will be released in Q1 2017. Yes, we still have a long wait ahead of us, but it was not picked arbitrarily and we explain below all of the factors that led to it being clearly the best option, and we'll start by looking at the official milestone schedule:
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[ LINK TO ATG SCHEDULE GOOGLE DOC ]
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The basic philosophy is to frontload more difficult and iteration-time-intensive tasks to earlier milestones, and adding those we either know for certain won't take long or are lower priority to milestones at the end, just in case something does come up and we need to put a feature or two on the chopping block. There are a few other things worth talking about, but those will be covered in sections of their own below.
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You might be wondering why the official release date is merely "Q1" rather than a more exact date given that we've actually planned exact dates all the way out to "Gold" on January 30th of 2017 is because of something we've already talked about: uncertainty. But in this case it's not something related to game design or bugs, but the nature of the business. Let's say we picked something like February 28th far in advance and commit to not changing it. It's very common for Valve to give someone a call a couple months in advance and say something like, "hey, we have a big sales window open during the week of February 8th, so if you release your game then we'll put you on the front page of Steam for the week". Since Steam opened the floodgates the value of simply being on Steam has greatly diminished, while that of being on the front page has skyrocketed, so whether or not you're able to secure that sort of promotion can result in a difference of tens of thousands of sales and hundreds of thousands of dollars.
(I'm going to be taking a lot about sales numbers in this section, and although I know a lot of players couldn't care less about that sort of thing, keep in mind when a company makes more money the fans of that company also benefit because ultimately the healthier the company the more likely they are to continue making new games for you to enjoy.)
So how did we even come up with Q1 in the first place? The quantity and amount of time needed to complete all of the tasks on our list gave us a pretty good ballpark number, but several other factors that really helped us narrow it down even further.
For one, you never want to release a game in December. That might sound like an odd rule, but it's a pretty universal rule within the industry. By December a lot of people have used up their discretionary budget on gifts and are now looking to be more frugal. We're obviously not talking everyone here, but even losing a small percentage of sales that might not seem like a big deal can add up to a huge amount of revenue, and especially for an indie developer every little bit counts. If all you need to do to avoid losing that percent is shift your release date a few weeks it's basically always a good idea.
Another strike against December and also November comes on the PR side of things. A large percentage of the biggest games released each year land in October and November ahead of the Christmas shopping season. While someone's initial comment might be so what, as it's not like there's a whole lot of competition between the latest Call of Duty game and AtG, but in a way there actually is. Magazines and websites which review and talk about games are another important part of maximizing a game's sales. While it's easy to just think of companies as faceless, impersonal entities they all have employees, and there are only so many individuals available to create previews and reviews at a time. Were a small indie strategy game like AtG to land in the middle of the rush it would likely end up on everyone's back burner and eventually just forgotten.
And even the largest publications that are more likely to have bandwidth and those specifically dedicated to hardcore strategy games can't be relied on, because December is when a lot of folks in that line of work take a bunch of vacation time in order to unwind after working nights and weekends for the past month in order to hit their deadlines. Of course even if you do get lucky and someone is willing to review your game it's very possible the individual chosen to do so has already been completely burned out and may not be particularly excited to play your game.
Competition on the sales side is also an important factor to consider. This usually brings to mind specific titles similar to your own produced by rival companies, but you can also look at trends and use them to make educated guesses. Autumn is always a busy time for game releases even in the strategy genre, and the last thing you want to do as a small fish is launch your game around the same time as a similar game you can be sure a ton of people will be playing, such as Civ. Fortunately though, the powerhouse franchises like Civ and Total War tend to follow fairly-reliable release schedules, and you can be pretty sure September and October will be landmines most years.
So to bring things back to AtG we can take December off the board entirely, November isn't a whole lot better, and even the two months before it are risky. So just based on these strategic factors the two release windows that would make the most sense would be Summer 2016 and Q1 2017. Given that the former would have cost us a whopping six months of dev time you can see why I came to the conclusion of Q1 2017 being the clear winner.
At this point you might be rolling your eyes at the fact that deep down I'm basically just than a dirty publisher in disguise. And to a certain extent I am, I suppose, but the same is true of every game developer - it's simply a question of how much or little each one actually talks about the money side of the business. Being an indie affords me a lot of perks like, well, talking freely about these sorts of topics as well as being able to prioritize quality over profitability, but even the smallest studios need to be making money in order to survive, and those who ignore that are unlikely to stay in business long. Trust me, I'm no bean counter and as I said above I'd much rather be programming or I play testing some new balance tweak than min-maxing profitability spreadsheets, but as is true of most things in life balance is the key.
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The Price of a Good AI
Having covered the release date itself pretty thoroughly now I'd like to shift gears and dig into some specifics within the schedule, the first of which being the AI.
One of the first thing you might have noticed is that a good chunk of the total time is taken up by AI tasks, and there's a reason for that. I talked about the basic blueprint for AtG's artificial intelligence in an update from a couple years ago, and while much of it is still relevant since then my AI development philosophy has undergone yet another "evolutionary leap", and one that might be different from all others over the past decade in that being the simplest, most far-reaching, and has the potential to define all of my AI work from here on out.
As with scheduling, planning can still be quite helpful when, say, designing the architecture of an AI system so you end up with a flexible framework to build off of, but the realization I had is that the real difference-maker is what I call "bottom-up iteration", or in other words, "What is the AI's biggest weakness right now? Okay, let's fix that. Rinse. Repeat."
I'll go into a lot more detail in the next update that will be about AI, but the take-away for right now is that the only way to end up with a good AI is via brute force, which in programming terms means *lots* of time.
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The Subtle Significance of Iteration
Our next element is actually the opposite of our previous one, at least in that it's completely absent: iteration.
When making or evaluating a schedule it's easy to fixate on tasks that can be easily quantified in a list, have a checkbox checked off for, or immediately stand out as problems, but the real time sink in game development doesn't actually involve making pieces but about figuring out how they actually *fit* together - and especially so when working in the strategy genre. Because iterative improvements like pacing and balance are so hard to quantify all you can really do is be diligent about setting aside time for it, and this is why you'll see "Polish" listed again and again for gameplay the last few milestones.
While I don't mention anything specific in the schedule doc, I do have another list where I keep track of things I know I need to take a look at. Here are a few examples:
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Food Pacing + Economic Pressure
Deposit Distribution + Migration Pacing
Profession Balance
Tech Tree Pacing
Military Unit Balance
Combat Pacing & Feel
Strategic Variety
Ensuring Clan Traits Feel Positive
Roman Event Pacing and Feel
Map-Wide Weather Pacing
Difficulty Tuning
Managing Economic Complexity
Deposit Spawning in the Late-Game
Incentives to Pursue Naval Strategies (e.g. Islands Filled with Goodies)
Non-Violent Interactions with Neutral Structures
Incentives to Cooperate With Rome
Incentive to Fight Rome Early
Pacing of Rome's Decline
Instilling Rome with a Sense of Majesty
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Just to help illustrate the kind of rabbit hole a designer can end up in let's dissect a slice of AtG's game design that might at first appear relatively simple and straightforward, but has already consumed several weeks of brainstorming and iteration and will probably require several more tweaks before all is said and done: distribution of resource deposits.
The simplest possible implementation would be to simply do some rand rolls and grab tiles and deposits out of a hat and pair them up in whatever manner amuses the fates. But what if someone starts without a single source of food nearby, and starves before seeing their second winter? Well, that's bad, so okay, let's put in some logic to make sure there's always food nearby. But how should THAT work? Do we simply plop a single source of food nearby and leave everything else untouched? Now it's more likely we run into the opposite problem, where a player has so MUCH food that the game becomes so easy you'll succeed and win no matter what you do - which for most people kind of defeats the purpose of playing a strategy game at all.
Okay, after chewing on this dilemma for a bit and iterating on our logic several times we now have something that allows for unpredictable variety, but not so much so in either direction as to make the game unfun. Great! But what happens after a player uses up the resources near their starting location and starts branching out? Now we find the randomness that had been working against us earlier is back with a vengeance. A player who tries to migrate away from their homeland might find a vast wasteland in every direction and eventually starve to death just as before.
Alright, a few more iterations later and we're now applying the same 'rubber-banding' logic to deposits across the entire map. But now that players can migrate safely around the map is doing so actually even, you know, FUN? Sometimes as a game designer you throw a dart and hit a bullseye in your first try - but such exceptions are few and far between. And in early builds I can promise you migration was indeed NOT particularly fun. The best approach was simply crawling a couple tiles at a time from one source of food to the next. Noticeably absent were cross-continent treks, daring stops in an enemy's backyard, or any kind of incentive to establish and pursue a long-term strategy.
The idea I came up with to address this was to have most deposits invisible at the start of the game, and then appear in subtle paths that wouldn't be noticed in-game but were very explicitly driving the action under the hood. I tinkered with this concept off and on for what must have been at least a year before I ended up cutting it entirely. It did in fact encourage (AKA "force") longer journeys as hoped, but in the end I discovered there was no more strategy or interesting decisions than before. In fact, in some ways there were even fewer, as with there were now only one or two places that even made sense to move into.
The approach I've settled on in the present day can best be described as "the kitchen sink approach". I roughly tripled the number of deposits on the map and made them all visible (but mostly unidentified) right from the start. Players now have more opportunities than they actually have the bandwidth to pursue, and must choose between a balanced or specialized approach, and if the latter what specific economic endeavor to focus on.
I can confidently say that the distribution of deposits objectively results in a more fun game now than it has been at any point in the past. But it took a long time to reach that point, and by extension all of the mistakes I made along the way in getting there. As a game designer the challenge is differentiating between "progressive iteration" that actually makes a game better, and "churn", which is simply change for the sake of change. With deposit distribution we've definitely reached the peak of the mountain, and while other nearby mountains might look like they'd be fun to climb future adventures are best attempted in another game.
That's not to say the system won't change at all between now and the game's release though. There's a very high chance that I implement some form of late-game deposit spawning or replenishment to prevent a "no man's land" from forming out of the swathes of desolation carved out by previous generations of migrants.
And similar challenges await in every corner of the game's design. Many other developers working under a fixed schedule and budget either choose or are simply forced to put such projects on the back burner until a patch or expansion pack. With AtG we have the opportunity to sidestep this philosophy and have chosen to take advantage of that. AtG will be long in the oven by the time it's released, but it will not be undercooked.
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Setting Time Aside For Bugfixing
This last scheduling element I'll be covering is very similar to the previous one in that it's usually overlooked.
Every complex game title really should have at least a month set aside as exclusive playtesting and bugfixing time. We're talking full lockdown here - no changes, period. Not even that extra bit of polish to the Archer's attack animation we've been wanting to sneak in. Even the smallest change means pulling out the game development scalpel and making an incision in your game, and just as with living organisms there's really no such thing as a "minor" surgery. Break open the seal for any reason and there's a chance something really nasty will sneak inside.
While no substitute for full lockdown I've also tried to assign tasks to milestones such that the amount of risk diminishes with each until eventually reaching BETA when the only significant code changes on the docket involve the creation of a couple fairly simple screens.
While it's certainly better to be "careful" than not (which pretty much just means testing every change thoroughly before checking it in, and even then making sure you never give into the temptation to submit ANYTHING at 2 in the morning!) it's simply impossible to reduce the chance of "infection" all the way to 0. And thanks to the whole statistical probability thing that means if we throw the dice enough we WILL end up rolling snake eyes. There have already been over 5,000 check-ins to the AtG source control repository and I'd be shocked if fewer than a thousand more were made from this point on. So, yeah, I expect to see a whole lot of snake eyes in the coming year+ and tried to act like the responsible (enlightened) despot I think myself and incorporate that reality into our finalized schedule.
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Budget
Having now dissected the schedule inside-out, upside-down, and sideways leaves one new question: "The Kickstarter funds must have been used up by now, so how the hell can we afford to continue developing the game for so long?"
As noted in a previous section, I'm actually the only full-time developer on AtG, which certainly makes things a whole lot easier that it could be. Everyone else is either a part-timer with some other full-time source of income or a contractor paid for specific work we've known about in advance since the Kickstarter campaign and comes in at a total of $25k, 99% which has already been paid for. Even so, our once-fat sack o' Kickstarter loot has indeed been exhausted, resulting in a initial budget shortfall of around $150k. We've done better with direct pre-orders than I'd actually expected and cut the deficit by $23k. The remaining gap has been filled by proceeds from selling my house, car, and retirement account.
This was not a final act of desperation though, and external funding has always been an option. So why take that route instead of selling off everything I own? Several reasons, actually.
Most importantly, I think it's the approach most likely to result in AtG being a better game. Working with a third party obviously isn't a death sentence in game development, but it does introduce unnecessary risk to the project. Plus, having complete control over the design is why I went indie in the first place, and I'm willing to sacrifice a lot to keep that.
There's also an element of personal responsibility involved. I brought this project into the world after all, and I'm going to make sure it survives to fly on its own one day. It also shows everyone that I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is and see this thing through. Several thousand of you have put money into this game, and it's only fair that I do so as well instead of running to someone with a stack of cash that may not actually care that much about AtG. Plus if it turns out as good as I keep promising it's going to be I'll make all that money back and then some anyways.
The most important factor of all though is probably the fact that selling everything I own honestly just doesn't feel like that big of a deal, which is most likely the result of having a personality disorder that closely aligns with schizoid PD and more or less prevents me from feeling emotions or having hobbies of any kind. It's not all bad though, and one thing I really derive a ton of satisfaction from is working on my games, and it's probably greatly helped me become a better designer and the reason why I can even make a game like AtG to begin with.
Either way, this project is far more than just a job for me, and while it might still be far away it does finally have an end date which everyone can now be looking forward to. 5,000 words from me is probably enough for now though, so that's it for now. Thanks again, and 'til next time!
- JonHarvest Moon (牧場物語, Bokujō Monogatari, lit. "Farm Story") is a farm simulation role-playing game developed by Amccus for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. The game first released in Japan in 1996, in North America in 1997, and in Europe in 1998. The European version shipped with language localizations for Germany and France. It is the first game in the long-running Story of Seasons series, previously known as the Harvest Moon series in western territories. The game has been re-released on the Satellaview and the Wii and Wii U Virtual Consoles.
Gameplay [ edit ]
The game follows a young man charged with maintaining the farm he inherits from his grandfather. The primary objective is to restore and maintain a farm that has fallen into disrepair. The player decides how to allocate time between daily tasks, such as clearing land, planting crops, selling harvests, raising livestock, attending festivals, building relationships with villagers, and foraging.[1]
For vegetables to develop, they must receive water each day; lack of water does not kill crops, but prevents them from growing. Animals must be fed once a day to keep them producing. While the only care that chickens require is feeding, cows must be continually talked to, brushed, and milked to retain their health. A cow may become sick if not fed for a day and, if untreated, sickness can lead to death. Chickens may die if left outside, where they can be blown away in a storm or eaten by wild dogs. After dark, the only business in town that the player can access is the bar, where a number of non-player characters gather to drink and talk.
Development [ edit ]
Yosuhiro Wada was producer for the game, and the last game he worked on was Magical Pop'n.[2]
Release [ edit ]
The game was released on August 9 1996 in Japan for the Super Famicom.[3] It was released in North America in 1997, and Europe in 1998. According to Natsume's Adam Fitch, the game sold "a decent amount for that time".[4]
In the localized North American version, all references to alcohol are changed to "juice," even though anyone who drinks said "juice" clearly becomes intoxicated. While many elements of the game were "westernized" for its American release, some Japanese cultural elements remained. For example, townspeople sometimes discuss the church and its religion in Shinto terms, such as referring to the existence of both a "God of the Harvest" and a "God of Business." In the "New Day" cinematic sequences, the character eats an onigiri, a traditional Japanese food item. The news anchor on TV in the game bows to the audience in a welcoming manner, which is uncommon in western countries.
Satellaview version [ edit ]
BS Bokujō Monogatari (BS 牧場物語) was an episodically released ura- or gaiden-version of the original Harvest Moon consisting of 4 unique episodes on the Satellaview. Each episode had to be downloaded by players from St.GIGA (at NikoNiko Ranch on the BS-X cartridge) during a specified broadcast week and during a specified time-window.[5] It featured "SoundLink" narration (radio drama-style streaming voice data intended to guide players through the game and give helpful hints and advice). Due to the nature of SoundLink broadcasts these games were only broadcast to players between 6:00 and 6:50PM on broadcast dates.[5] The game was never released outside Japan and as with all other Satellaview titles it has never been re-released as a stand-alone title. Online Satellaview emulation enthusiasts refer to the game unofficially as "BS Makiba Monogatari". A single rerun of the broadcasts was conducted in the same weekly format from November 4, 1996 to November 30, 1996 at 5:00 to 5:50PM. The BS-X download location changed to Bagupotamia Temple.[5] The episodes were known as:
First Time "Outdoor Life" ( はじめての“あうとどあＬＩＦＥ”, Hajimeteno "Autodoa Life" ) released on September 2, 1996 [5]
released on September 2, 1996 Fruitful Land and Mind! ( 大地と心に溢れる実り！, Daichi to Kokoro ni Afure ru Minori! ) released on September 9, 1996 [5]
released on September 9, 1996 We Are All Alive ( 僕らはみんな生きている, Bokura Haminna Iki Teiru ) released on September 16, 1996 [5]
released on September 16, 1996 Aim for Ranch Master! ( 牧場マスターを目指せ！, Bokujō Masuta wo Mezase!) released on September 23, 1996[5]
Reception [ edit ]
Reception Aggregate score Aggregator Score GameRankings 73%[6] Review score Publication Score EGM 8.125/10[1]
The game received mainly positive reviews and has a GameRankings standing of 73%.[6] Crispin Boyer remarked in Electronic Gaming Monthly, "An RPG about farming? Talk about a hard sell. But this epic adventure in agriculture is as fun as it is original." He and the other three members of the EGM review team praised the game's original concept and the numerous interesting tasks the player must juggle.[1]
For the release of Harvest Moon on the Wii's Virtual Console, IGN rated the game at 8.5, praising the game's still gorgeous 16-bit graphics and addictive gameplay.[7]Hence, it is possible that bone-healthy components of vegetarian diets counterbalance the negative effects of a low BMI and low intakes of protein and calcium. The aim of this study was to investigate the associations between indicators of bone health and BMD in young, healthy, non-obese, sedentary adults adhering to meat-based, lacto-ovo vegetarian, or vegan diet.
Bone is a dynamic and metabolically active tissue that requires adequate nutrients for bone modeling and mineralization throughout the life cycle. While vegetarianism is associated with several factors that may not support bone health, such as low body mass index (BMI) and low intakes of calcium, vitamins D and B12, and protein, these diets are high in nutrients that promote bone health, including magnesium, potassium, vitamins C and K, and the n-3 fatty acids [ 5, 6 ]. Vegetarian diets are also more alkaline than omnivorous diets, a factor that favors higher bone mineral density [ 7, 8, 9 ]. Furthermore, the concern that vegetarian diets may adversely affect bone mineral density (BMD) and fracture risk may be conjectural as findings from several prospective longitudinal investigations did not reveal harmful effects of vegetarianism on bone health [ 10, 11 ]. A 2009 meta-analysis (nine studies totaling 2749 subjects of which 68% were female) concluded that BMD was 4% lower in vegetarians as compared to non-vegetarians [ 12 ]. The authors inferred that fracture risk was ~10% greater for vegetarians versus non-vegetarians but concluded that this risk was clinically insignificant [ 12 ].
The adoption of a vegetarian diet has become increasingly popular in light of expert recommendations to follow plant-based diets for improved health outcomes. Current estimates suggest that between 3% and 5% of the U.S. population follows some variation of a vegetarian diet [ 1 ]. Vegetarianism is associated with health benefits including lower rates of obesity, diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, and some cancers [ 2, 3 ]. However, the restrictive nature of the diet has prompted concern regarding possible nutrient deficiencies and a heightened risk for osteoporosis [ 4 ].
Data are reported as mean ± SD; statistical analyses were performed using SPSS for WINDOWS (version 21; SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA). Differences between means were assessed using univariate analyses controlling for age, which differed significantly between diet groups, BMI, and gender. Non-normal data were transformed prior to analysis, and, if transformation did not normalize the data, the Kruskal Wallis test was used. Nominal data were compared using Chi Square analysis. Pearson’s correlation was used to identify relations between variables controlling for age, BMI, and gender. Significance was set at p ≤ 0.05.
Participants returned to the test site for the second visit within one week in a fasted state (no food or beverage with the exception of water for 12 h). Urine samples were turned in, and a venous blood sample was collected. Urinary calcium, measured photometrically, and the blood anion gap were measured at Sonora Quest Laboratories (Tempe, AZ, USA). Urinary pH was determined using a pH meter (WTW Chekmite pH-20 Sensor, Nova pH, Woburn, MA, USA).
Participants visited the test site on two occasions. At the first visit, subjects completed a questionnaire that included details on age, gender, smoking status, medical history, and activity level. A 24 h diet recall |
” shopping centre in Düsseldorf to the international real estate company CBRE Global. The piece of high-end real estate had belonged to him since 2010. Stores like Saturn, Christ, Douglas and others are located there, and Benko had raised the rent by 72 percent over a period of five years.
Further efforts were supposedly required in order to help the Karstadt department stores stay on their feet. Sales expert Gerrit Heinemann of Niederrhein University calculated that investment of €1 billion was needed in the sales department alone, and an additional €1 billion would have to be spent on the expansion of e-commerce. He wrote, “The new orientation of Karstadt would require so much capital that it might even surpass what Benko can manage.”
Since then, the department stores have been heavily “restructured” through personnel cuts and store closings, indicating that they are being made an object of speculation and investment for new investors. Of a total of 17,000 jobs, 2,500 will be cut.
Under its previous owner, Nicolas Berggruen, Karstadt had already abandoned the union-agreed retail wage contract, so that sales staff earn on average at least €120 less each month than the contract amount. Karstadt head Stephan Fanderl now recommends the demotion of a part of the staff to shelf stackers, which will result in their being paid even less.
Benko and Fanderl would not be able to carry out these attacks if they could not rely 100 percent on the works council and the Verdi union. Once again, Verdi is playing a central role in layoffs and cuts. Even if they are the worst asset strippers, Verdi praises every new owner as a “rescuer” and offers its support. This pattern has been repeated for decades.
In 2005, the union and works council welcomed Thomas Middelhoff, who now sits in prison for breach of trust, as the “white knight” at KarstadtQuelle AG, and supported his “restructuring plan,” i.e., his programme of deep cuts. Middelhoff took Karstadt into bankruptcy in 2009.
His successor, Nicolas Berggruen, acquired the Karstadt business in 2010, for a symbolic €1. While Karstadt suffered losses every year, Berggruen collected €7.5 million annually for the Karstadt name rights alone, which he purchased for a single payment of €5 million.
In August 2014, René Benko stepped onto the scene. As soon as he took over Karstadt for €1, he announced store closings and layoffs. The Austrian Standard newspaper called him an “adventurer and phony”. Wirtschaftswoche quoted a Karstadt saleswoman with the words, “We already had one billionaire as an owner. They provide absolutely nothing.”
Verdi, on the other hand, bestowed pre-emptive praise on Benko. Arno Peukes, retail secretary at Verdi, commented on the takeover: “We had great hopes for Nicolas Berggruen in those days. I will put it this way: René Benko seems more grounded, and he seems to have some people around him who are familiar with the topic of department stores.”
In the game of poker over the department store chain a few weeks ago, the union fully supported Benko and supposedly intervened with Olaf Koch, head of wholesaler Metro Cash & Carry, on his behalf. In an unmistakable pot shot at the competing Hudson’s Bay (the Canadian department store chain that was awarded the bid in the end), Verdi board member Stefanie Nutzenberger told the Süddeutsche Zeitung that the union opposes the “expanded concessions model in which a department store offers ever increasing floor space to outside retailers and their employees”. Nutzenberger, like Peukes, is a well-rewarded Karstadt supervisory board member.
A few days ago, Karstadt published its figures for the business year 2013/14, in which the corporation suffered a loss of €190 million. According to Karstadt head Stephan Fanderl, the loss in 2015 was “in the area of the mid tens of millions”.
As reported at the press conference announcing the figures, the loss would have “been much greater without the contributions of the 16,328 employees”, Die Welt wrote. “On the one hand, their numbers fell through job cuts and the removal of three premium department stores in Munich, Hamburg and Berlin by a good 900, on the other hand, Karstadt temporarily left the union agreed wage contract and saved on payments in this way. All together, personnel costs sank by almost 20 million.”
Once again, the company management, works council and the union are demanding a new “offensive” in order to get out of the red.
Jürgen Ettl, the new chairperson of the general works council who took over this post from Hellmut Patzelt in June, warned that the company head should not “exceed the target”, but in the same breath emphasised that “Mr. Fanderl tackles things consistently.”
Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.Image via Wikipedia
Last May, I finally made available for download the first version of Webservice::Viddler on CPAN (Comprehensive Perl Archive Network) after having written about it in March. One of the reasons for the delay in making the packaged source code available for download had to do with one simple fact, the Viddler module was my first ever submitted for public consumption.
Now, don't misunderstand me, Webservice::Viddler is not the first Perl module I have ever written. I've been writing code in Perl for about as long as CPAN has existed. However, as is the case with my current work in PHP for Orbit Media Studios, most of the Perl code I wrote over the years was on behalf of a employer of some sort. As such the ownership of the code, and the right to distribute, rested with them, not me.
So then, why the delay? Well there are a couple of reasons. First of all, the code I posted in March was a proof of concept based on some work I did for Orbit at the time. While the basic framework of the module worked the "proto-module" didn't implement all of the functionally provided by the Viddler Web API.
Secondly, I needed to organize the source code for proper distribution on CPAN as well as get the packaged distribution uploaded and made available.
The Packaging
Before I did anything, I wanted to make sure that my module had all of the necessary files. In doing a little googling, I came across a blog post entitled Submitting a CPAN module which outlines the basic steps:
Apply for an account on PAUSE (Perl Authors Upload Server) Organize your code Profit
Not too complex, granted, but organized how?
As the author notes there doesn't seem to be any "what the package must have" rules. However, as anyone who has worked with third-party Perl modules knows, there is an accepted process and organization of code that all modules tend to adhere to.
After a little more googling I came across module-starter, a handy command-line interface to a Perl module, Module::Starter, which does all the work of creating a base module for distribution. After adding in my code and documentation I quickly had something close to ready.
Close, but not complete. Besides making the package useful to install, I wanted to make the code useful to modify. For that I turned to perltidy a Perl script which indents and reformats Perl code to makes it easier to read and follow.
Great! Now here is where this can get interesting (and where a lot of suggestions, if not outright rules, do exist). If you follow the steps in the order above, good, because that means while waiting for a PAUSE account to come online, proper considerations can be made for the naming of the module.
The Namespace
The PAUSE documentation On The Naming of Modules notes that "a module name must accomplish quite a bit in a few characters", such as provide context as to what the module does or problem it addresses. Also of importance is the fact that "once chosen, you rarely have the opportunity to change it after people start using it."
So a little careful consideration is in order.
Also, it is important to note that namespaces, by definition, are unique. Besides providing a singular meaning, the name cannot be shared with some other module, public or otherwise. As such it is recommend that PAUSE developers register the namespace of the module written. Again, this isn't a hard and fast rule per se, but a recommendation to avoid duplication and improve searchability.
That about covers the basics. Now, if you will excuse me, I need to take some time to address these test results.Please enable Javascript to watch this video
JACKSON, Miss. -- Mississippi is the birthplace of William Faulkner, Richard Wright, and recent U.S. poet laureate Natasha Trethewey.
However, some lawmakers say they want to look beyond the secular literary world and designate the Bible as the state book.
At least two bills are being filed during this state election year to make the holy book a state symbol.
One is from Republican Rep. Tracy Arnold of Booneville, who is the pastor of a nondenominational Christian church.
The other is from Democratic Reps. Tom Miles of Forest and Michael Evans of Preston, who say they have promises of bipartisan support from more than 20 colleagues.
In Desoto County Tuesday, most people WREG talked to thought it was a good idea and certainly couldn't do any harm.
Bruce Reed of Olive Branch was in favor of the measure.
"I think it would be a good idea. Everybody needs more of it...more Bible...yeah. More of the word," he said.
Miles told The Associated Press on he's not trying to force religion or even reading on anyone.
"The Bible provides a good role model on how to treat people," Miles said. "They could read in there about love and compassion."
Lawmakers say designating the Bible as the state book would be completely symbolic and nobody would be required to read it.
Furthermore, Miles' version would not specify a particular translation.
"I think this is not a push of a specific religion. I think that would be wrong to do that," Pastor Chad Everson of Trinity Baptist Church in Southaven said.
Pastor Everson said, political motives aside, the idea has gotten his attention.
"Anyone that turns, any family, any individual, any country that turns to Christ is in much better shape. So, I think it's a good thing," Everson said.
Mississippi lawmakers over the years have designated several other symbols, including the teddy bear as the state toy and milk as the state beverage.
The teddy bear was named for President Theodore Roosevelt after he refused to shoot a bear tied to a tree while hunting in Mississippi.
Sherry from Desoto County told us she believes the Bible should be up there with the Magnolia and mockingbird.
"I like it. I think it's a good idea. God made us, so it's His word," she said.
But Audrey McClain, who's moving to Mississippi from Nashville, is opposed. She said State has no business promoting religion in any form.
"Even some Christians have a different perspective of what the Bible means. And as a Christian myself, I believe that it shouldn't be the State Book," she said.
In 2014, Republican Gov. Phil Bryant signed a law that adds "In God We Trust" to the state seal.
Legislators also begin each work day with a prayer over the microphone at the front of the House and Senate chambers, frequently with references to Jesus.
It's unlikely the proposal will generate much opposition in the Legislature this election year, unless House and Senate leaders decide they don't want to spend time on symbols.
Larry Wells, whose late wife, Dean Faulkner Wells, was William Faulkner's niece said Monday that if Mississippi lawmakers feel compelled to designate a state book, they should draw on the state's native talent.
"It's impossible to conceive of a state abandoning its literary heritage like that," said Wells, director of a small publishing house in Oxford, Yoknapatawpha Press. "What would Faulkner and (Eudora) Welty and Shelby Foote and Richard Wright think? I think they would collectively link arms and say, 'Go back to kindergarten, Legislature.'"Via the Free Beacon, is this the first time Trump himself has delivered a version of the now obligatory “this is why you got Trump” retort by Republicans whenever Democrats overreach culturally?
I’m not knocking him for it. Hillary defending the protests after she wiped out in the Rust Belt does feel like a “this is why you got Trump” moment.
She said people should resist “what are very clear dog-whistles” to the Trump base, pointing to the example of kneeling NFL players. “That’s what black athletes kneeling was all about,” she said in response to a question about ways to resist the White House. ”That’s not against our anthem or our flag.” “Actually, kneeling is a reverent position,” she continued. “It was to demonstrate in a peaceful way against racism and injustice in our criminal system.”
In fairness to Dems, they have their own base to please on this issue and that base, for the most part, is pro-protest. Democratic voters, young adults, and blacks all approve by wide margins…
…but not as wide as the margin by which Republicans disapprove. Indies are also against the protests on balance. And whites without a college degree, the group that did more than any other to sweep Trump into the White House, disapprove overwhelmingly at 28/68. Maybe Democratic leaders should balance their pro-protest stance by introducing a new bill to make flag-burning a criminal offense. You know, like the one Hillary sponsored in 2005. The Clintons weren’t above a little flag-related pandering to bank goodwill from red-state and purple-state voters. Gotta try to play both sides in the culture war to some extent if you want to win elections.
I think the Trump political dream scenario is the NFL caving and ordering the players to stand during the anthem, which would be a clear victory for the president, and then the players and the ACLU dragging this battle out by suing on First Amendment grounds when they kneel anyway and are suspended. How could they sue the government for actions taken by a private entity like the NFL? Well, since Trump has tweeted threats about tax breaks that the league receives if players don’t respect the anthem, conceivably they could argue that any suspensions they receive for defying a league “stand or else” rule are de facto state action. How do you think Trump would like that court battle, Colin Kaepernick and his allies against him and the flag?
“The biggest wild card of all here is the president’s tweets,” said Marc Edelman, who teaches sports law at Baruch College in New York. “The NFL didn’t publicly voice opposition until baited into doing so and being threatened with financial sanctions by the president of the United States.”… If the NFL acts because of Trump’s threat to punish the league, players could legitimately claim that their First Amendment rights have been violated, said David Cole, the ACLU’s national legal director. “The courts have recognized that when government officials threaten punishment or consequences because of protected speech, that in and of itself can chill the speech, in violation of the First Amendment,” Cole said, citing a 1986 case in which a federal court sided with a challenge by Playboy Enterprises against Edwin Meese, then the U.S. attorney general, for sending letters threatening to publish a list of 7-Eleven convenience stores that sold pornography.
The obvious problem with that suit is that it’s easier to believe the league is nervous about the protests due to fans’ unhappiness than Trump’s unhappiness. POTUS can bellow threats all he wants but in the end he’d need Congress’s help to punish the NFL by revoking any tax breaks. His influence over the league has much less to do with his influence over the government than with his influence over his supporters. If 10 percent of Trump voters stop watching games at the president’s suggestion, that’s not “state action.” That’s persuasion. The public withholding its money to change corporate behavior of which it disapproves is the very definition of a boycott. Ain’t nothing illegal about that.
By the way, I saw a story somewhere this morning suggesting that the Packers could solve their problem at QB now that Aaron Rodgers is out for the season by signing Kaepernick. Can you imagine Kaep quarterbacking middle America’s favorite team while fighting some sort of protest-related legal battle against the NFL and/or Trump? That’s the sort of cultural weirdness we’ve come to not just hope for but to expect in 2017.The fundamental thing to understand about Senate Republicans’ latest attempt to repeal Obamacare is that the bill under consideration would not just undo the Affordable Care Act—it would also end Medicaid as we know it and our federal government’s half-century commitment to closing the country’s yawning gaps in health coverage. And it would do so without putting in place any credible resources or policies to replace the system it is overturning. If our country enacts this bill, it would be an act of mass suicide.
In my surgery practice in Boston, I see primarily cancer patients. When I started out, in 2003, at least one in ten of my patients was uninsured. Others, who had insurance, would discover in the course of their treatment that their policies had annual or lifetime caps that wouldn’t cover their costs, or that they would face unaffordable premiums going forward because they now had a preëxisting condition. When he was governor of Massachusetts, it was Mitt Romney, a conservative, who brought Republicans and Democrats together to make a viable state system of near-universal coverage. That system then served as a model for the A.C.A. The results have been clear: increases in coverage have markedly improved people’s access to care and their health. For the last four years, health-care costs in Massachusetts have risen more slowly than the national average—while the national numbers themselves have been at historic lows. I have not seen a single uninsured patient—zero—in a decade. And now comes an utterly reckless piece of legislation that would destroy these gains.
To review how we got to this point: last spring, the House passed a health-care-reform bill that proposed to hollow out the A.C.A.’s funding, insurance mandates, and protections for people with preëxisting conditions. It was immensely unpopular with the public. The problem was not just that twenty-three million Americans would lose their health insurance if the bill becomes law but also the Republicans’ vision of a health system where insurance with deductibles of five thousand dollars and more, and little or no primary-care coverage, would become the norm. This summer, Senate Republicans failed to secure enough votes to pass a modified version of the House bill. Later, in a dramatic late-night session, the Senate also rejected, by a single vote, a “skinny” repeal bill. That bill would have repealed only the parts of the A.C.A. that required large businesses to insure their workers and all Americans to carry coverage. It would have resulted in a mere sixteen million more uninsured people, according to estimates.
The Republican bill currently being rushed to a vote was put forward by a group of senators led by Lindsey Graham, of South Carolina, and Bill Cassidy, of Louisiana. As has become the apparent rule for Republican health-care bills, there have been no hearings or committee reviews of the Graham-Cassidy bill. And, this time, lawmakers and the public do not even have a Congressional Budget Office analysis of the effects the bill would have on the budget, insurance costs, or the uninsured rate.
This is unprecedented: senators are moving ahead with a vote on a bill that would alter the health care of every American family and the condition of a sixth of our entire economy, without waiting to hear any official, independent estimates of the consequences. The irresponsibility is as blithe as it is breathtaking. Before becoming a senator, Cassidy spent twenty-five years working as a physician in hospitals devoted to the uninsured. I find it baffling that a person with his experience would not recognize the danger of this bill. But here we are.
The Graham-Cassidy bill goes even further than the bill passed by the House. It would bring to a virtually immediate end not only the individual and employer mandates but also the whole edifice of the Medicaid expansion, insurance exchanges, and income-based coverage subsidies set up under the A.C.A. Graham-Cassidy expects all fifty states to then pass, and implement, alternative health systems for tens of millions of people within two years—with drastically less money, in most states, than the current law provides. This is not just impossible. It is delusional.
Like the House bill, Graham-Cassidy would cut Medicaid payments for traditional enrollees—the elderly in nursing homes, pregnant women in poverty, disabled children, etc.—by a third by 2026. A portion of the money saved would go into a short-term fund for states to use for health-care costs. The rationale is that this would give states “flexibility” to design coverage for their residents as they see fit. But the amount of funding provided is, by multiple estimates, hundreds of billions of dollars below what the A.C.A. provides. The bill also nakedly shifts funds from Democratic-leaning states that expanded Medicaid under the A.C.A. to Republican-leaning states that didn’t. Analyses indicate that states like California, Massachusetts, and New York will receive block-grant funding anywhere from thirty-five to almost sixty per cent below the health-care funding their residents would receive under current law. Much of those missing funds would be transferred to states like Texas, Mississippi, and Wisconsin. And special deals to make further shifts from blue states to red states such as Alaska are being negotiated to win votes.
As for what states can do with the funds they do receive, they would not be allowed to use them to enroll people in Medicaid, or able to establish a single-payer system. And states would not be receiving enough to continue Obamacare on their own. The only options for spending are for commercial coverage. States will be permitted to let insurers bring back higher costs for people with preëxisting conditions and to reinstate annual and lifetime limits on coverage. And then, starting in 2026, the funding turns out to only be temporary. Under the bill’s provisions, unless further action is taken then, four trillion dollars will be removed from health-care systems over twenty years.
With these massive sums being flung around, it is easy to forget that this is about our health as human beings. The evidence is that health-care programs like the A.C.A. save lives. The way they do so is by increasing the number of people who have affordable access to a regular source of care and needed medications. Such coverage has been shown to produce a substantial and increasing reduction in mortality—especially among those with chronic illnesses, such as heart disease, cancer, or H.I.V.—in as little as five years.
Virtually all of us, as we age, will develop serious health conditions. A critical test of any health reform, therefore, is whether it improves or reduces our prospects of having the continuous care and medicines we need when we come to have a chronic illness. The Graham-Cassidy bill fails this test. It will terminate Medicaid coverage and insurance subsidies for some twenty million people. The entire individual-insurance market will be thrown into a tailspin. Federal protections for insurance coverage will be gone.
Every major group representing patients, health-care professionals, health-care institutions, and insurers has come out vociferously against this plan. Governors from Alaska to Ohio to Virginia have opposed the bill. In a highly unusual, bipartisan statement, the national association representing the Medicaid directors of all fifty states has also opposed the bill. The top health official in Louisiana, Cassidy’s home state, has opposed the new plan. There is not a single metric of health or health care that the Graham-Cassidy plan makes better. This bill is a national calamity. It should not even come to a vote.More gyms are catering to plus-size clients who want to work out but are intimidated by the types of people featured in New York Times trend pieces. (Bachelorette gym parties, anyone?)
One gym in Vancouver, Body Exchange, actually screens potential clients over the phone and bans non-plus-size women from joining. (Men aren't allowed, either.) The goal is for the space to be a "save haven" for heavier clients, founder and CEO Louise Green told The Province. "Many of our clients have not had successful fitness pasts so I can see the anxiety before we get started and I can see the relief and happiness after we finish," she said. "People are often too fearful to become active. There wasn't a model that offered camaraderie. I used to walk into fitness classes where nobody would even say ‘Hi.' This has got to be fun or it's not going to work."
Green said three types of people join her gym: women who are "idle," women who used to work out but have put on weight in recent years, and the "do or dies" who need to get fit for medical reasons. But all have one thing in common: they don't want to get patronizing side-eye glances when they're on the treadmill. "It's intimidating going into a gym setting," one satisfied customer said. "I honestly think some people in a gym setting are judgmental to people who are overweight or have a different body type."
Other gyms don't go as far as barring skinny people from joining, but instead say they "target people of size" or don't "encourage" a thin crowd. "We make it known that our specialty is working with people who have at least 50 pounds to lose," Jason Burns, a partner at Downsize Fitness in Chicago, told the New York Daily News. "Most people who come here, come here for that reason." Michael Hayes, owner of Buddha Body Yoga in Union Square, said he started a yoga studio for plus-size people because he "was tired of being the biggest person in the classroom."
That's the same reason why Marty Wolff, who competed on season three of NBC's "The Biggest Loser," started the health club Square One in Omaha, Nebraska. "My whole life, I have always wished there was a place for other big people," he said. "So I created one." He doesn't turn anyone away, though — not because he wants to be inclusive, but because he thinks some skinny people would rather work out with bigger people. "What we have found is that there are some [non-overweight] sub-populations who like to work out with ‘people of size,'" he explained. That's probably a sub-population all gym-goers should stay away from; they sound even more fucked up than the boot camp bachelorettes.
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Body Exchange provides safe fitness haven for plus-size women [The Province]
Gym bans skinny people; More fitness centers move to create friendler environments for larger-size clientele
[NY Daily News]Strange things happen when suddenly my SAI went down. You see a Picture for but what you see is not what was original. I managed somehow to let SAI crashed in the middle of saving my picture. After starting my PC new and open SAI again, the picture is god thanks there where it belongs. But suddenly it has only one layer and many effects are missing or completing to much. Also the whole color schematic changed to only red like colors.For me and Kooner it doesn't look bad, we like it, but after all the original picture is missing and I also can't edit it to the original. So here it is, the new version. XDThis is Autumn Leaves a OC from The first picture of two for him. A gift picture for one of my best friends here._______________________________________________A weekend in the Sierra de Gredos is really rewarding. You can enjoy a few days in the countryside, with snow covered mountains as background and exploring this natural landscape and towns, full of history.
In this post you will discover, through my travel photography, some of the places that you should not miss on your journey through the Sierra of Gredos. There are many towns and places to explore, so I encourage you to leave a comment telling Mindful Travel’s Community your favorite place at the countryside or at the mountains. I would love to hear your choices!
Oropesa
Pantano de Rosarito
Santuario de Chilla
Castro Celta en El Raso
Garganta de Alardos
Atardecer en Madrigal de la Vera
Puente Romano en Madrigal de la Vera
Even Kiba loved it!Just over six months after facilitating Zlatan Ibrahimovic's switch to PSG, the 45-year-old Italian was back in the news for masterminding yet another massive transfer
Mino
Raiola’s
Maguire
Napoli
Laurentiis
Raiola
Maguire
kwan
Mino
Raiola
Agri
Haarlem
Raiola
Raiola
Haarlem
RAIOLA'S WHEELING & DEALING
ZLATAN IBRAHIMOVIC
The Swede has made five permanent moves since hooking up with Raiola in 2004 for an estimated cumulative total of €165 million. MARIO BALOTELLI
Raiola engineered the €30m switch from Inter to Manchester City in 2010 and has now brought him back to Milan, to the Rossoneri, for €22m. ROBINHO
The Brazilian wanted to swap City for Barcelona in 2010 but Raiola, who wasn't even Robinho's agent, intervened and sent him to Milan. PAVEL NEDVED
Again, Raiola wasn't technically representing Nedved when he left Lazio for Juventus in 2001, but the agent brokered the €41m transfer. MAXWELL
The defender officially came under Raiola's wing in 2009 and has since made two lucrative moves, to Barcelona and then PSG.
Raiola
“The president of Haarlem came to eat with us every Friday,” he explained in an interview with
Secolo
Raiola
Raiola, having honed his skills as a mediator while working as a broker for Dutch businessmen with commercial interests in Italy, negotiated a deal with the player’s union in Netherlands that enabled him to represent all of the country’s footballers.
Napoli
Partenopei
Corrado
Ferlaino
Bergkamp
Bergkamp
Wim
Jonk
Nerazzurri
Raiola
Serie
Foggia
Raiola
Raiola
Zlatan
Ibrahimovic
Juventus
Calciopoli
Bianconeri
Moggi
Raiola
Moggi : "You and Ibra continue to make trouble. Don't send him to training..."
Raiola
Pogba
Trafford
Pogba
Laurentiis
Raiola
Marek
Hamsik
Raiola
Laurentiis
Hamsik
Raiola insists otherwise, though, claiming that he only ever does right by his clients, arguing that he does not engineer transfers, but merely facilitates them.
Pogba
Ibrahimovic’s
"I think that when a player decides to leave a team, he should leave... The old agents worked in the interests of the club. For me, the player comes first "
- Mino Raiola
Balotelli
Siro
Balotelli
Ballon
Ibrahimovic
Raiola
Mino
Raiola
By Mark Doyleaccountancy firm is calledTax & Legal, its name inspired by an Oscar-winning movie starring Tom Cruise.president Aurelio Dewould no doubt be offended by the insinuation thatis in any way similar to Jerry, the fictional sports agent who comes to champion love (or “”) over greed, but many of his clients would argue that the comparison is just.Welcome to the divisive - yet lucrative - world of, super agent.The 45-year-old was born in, Italy, but his parents emigrated to Netherlands when he was still an infant, settling in. It was in this Dutch municipality thatwas raised before taking the first steps to becoming one of the most influential agents in football.Although it might not look it now,was a moderately talented player in his youth and he played for his local club before quitting the game at just 18. However, while he started studying law, he had not lost his passion for football, electing to take charge of theyouth team.Even at such a tender age,was a straight-talker with a distinct lack of respect for any figure of authority other than his restaurateur father.IlXIX two years ago. “I was always telling him that he knew nothing about football. One day he takes me aside and says: ‘Listen, you try it.’ He appointed me sporting director.”, though, became frustrated by his inability to make what he reckoned were the requisite changes due to a lack of funds. However, with Dutch players very much in vogue in the mid-1980s, he saw that there was money to be made in selling his adopted nation’s top footballing talent to Italy, which was then the centre of the footballing universe.His goal at this point was to establish a special working relationship with, “the club of my heart”. However, the deal collapsed. "I called [thenpresident. We started the collaboration. I offered him [Dennis]for 700 million lire [€362,000]. He hesitated. Two years later [1993], he offered €14 million, but I gave the player to Inter."With thedeal, which also sawjoin thefrom Ajax,had established himself as a major player inA, coming as it did a year after Bryan Roy's successful switch from Amsterdam toWhat was clear at this juncture was thatwas adept at making his clients happy. However, clubs were becoming increasingly concerned by his methods.Indeed, Ajax, who had profited substantially from-arranged deals during the early '90s, were less enamoured with the way in which star forwardleft forin 2004. Their ill-feeling only intensified two years later when the fallout fromled to the release of the following recorded telephone exchanges between thenmanaging director LucianoandRaiola: "Tomorrow, I'll keep the player at home all day; he won't show up for training. I then have an appointment with the directors of Ajax at noon, but I'll come at two..."'s influence on players was also queried by Manchester United boss Sir Alex Ferguson during his club’s ultimately futile attempts to persuade former midfielder Paulto remain at Oldlast year. “He [] has got an agent who’s obviously become a bit difficult...”Meanwhile, the aforementioned Dewas, unsurprisingly, far more blunt when it came to addressingand the agent's all-too-public protestations that, who is not even officially a client, should leave the San Paolo in order to better himself as a player. "," Demused. "He's a pain in the backside, who, for years, has been trying to takeaway.""I think that when a player decides to leave a team he should leave," he reasons. "I have never made compromises; I work exclusively in the interest of my client. The players are my fortune and I have a great responsibility towards them. However, I have never carried out improper activity or activity that I, personally, do not think proper. The old agents favoured the interests of the club. For me, the player comes first.”Whatever the truth, this is a man with an undeniable way with words who knows how to sell himself, and his players. He has memorably comparedwith a Salvador Dali painting and claimed thatmove to Paris Saint-Germain has provided visitors to the French capital with something to see other than the Mona Lisa. However, while he speaks eight languages (Italian, Dutch, French, English, German, Spanish, Portuguese and "of course Neapolitan"), he rather humbly puts his impressive linguistic capabilities down to "preparation, not intelligence".Whatever it is, he is incredibly canny. He has cultivated a mutually beneficial relationship with Milan, as further evidenced by his masterminding of Mario's recent switch to San, and he has also proven himself wonderfully adept at massaging the ego of his players. He told a teenagethat he would make him a three-timed’Or winner, yet says the same award will be rendered meaningless if it is never given toSuch contradictions lie at the very heart of the role of agents in the modern game. Yes, the world of football would be a beautiful place if there were no agents, but it is a pipe dream, as football is no longer a sport, but big business. "We live in a cynical world," as Dicky Fox says in 'Jerry Maguire'. "A cynical world. And we work in a business of tough competitors."Consequently, there will always be a need for people like. Love him or loathe him, one cannot deny that he is very good at what he does. The man himself says he resolves problems. His detractors say that he creates them. Perhaps the truth is somewhere in between - and perhaps utterly irrelevant because the bottom line is thatmakes money. Both for his clients - and himself.Christopher Columbus is often remembered as the first European to discover the Americas, eventually leading to the colonization of these two continents by European powers. It is undeniable that Columbus’ voyage has earned him a place in history, however, he was not the first European to set foot in the New World. Such a title belongs to the Vikings who explored part of North America several centuries before Columbus.
The Maine Penny. Credit: www.mnh.si.edu.
Literary evidence for the Viking exploration of North America can be found in the Vinland Sagas. These were two Icelandic sagas written in the 13 th century regarding the Norse exploration of North America undertaken about two centuries earlier. As for archaeological evidence, the Norse presence in North America is perhaps best seen in the Viking settlement of L’Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland, Canada. Regarding Norse artifacts, it has been claimed that of the two dozen or so objects found in North America, only one can be securely dated. This is the Maine Penny.
The Maine Penny was discovered on 18 of August 1957 by an amateur archaeologist by the name of Guy Mellgren. Mellgren found the coin at the Goddard prehistoric archaeological site, which contained the remains of an old Native American settlement, at Naskeag Point, Brooklin, Maine. It was only about 20 years later, however, that the significance of the coin was revealed. In 1974, the Maine Penny, along with 20,000 (or 30,000) other artifacts discovered at the Goddard archaeological site were donated to the Maine State Museum.
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Initially, the Maine Penny was identified as an English penny from the 12 th century, perhaps brought to Maine by English colonists. In 1978, the artifact was examined by experts from London, who speculated that the coin might have been Norse. Subsequently, an expert |
, of which 1,800 were ready for action. The brigade was deployed at the south-eastern sector of the XXIII Army Corps, where it defended against attacks in the rearward area of the 206th Infantry Division in the Battles of Rzhev. The SS Cavalry Brigade took serious losses, with casualties of up to 60 per cent in some squadrons.
On 1 February 1942, Fegelein was promoted to SS-Standartenführer in the Waffen-SS and transferred from the reserve force to active service. Four days later, on 5 February, Fegelein on his own initiative led an attack on a strong enemy group northwest of Chertolino. The attack, carried out in difficult weather conditions, secured an important road junction and the railway station at Chertolino. In a nocturnal attack on 9 February, the brigade encircled and destroyed enemy forces at Chertolino, killing 1,800 Red Army soldiers. Yershovo was captured on 14 February, leading to the annihilation of the enemy units in Rzhevsky District. For his leadership in these battles, Fegelein was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on 2 March 1942. Fegelein was then granted home leave and was appointed Inspector of Cavalry and Transportation (Inspekteur des Reit- und Fahrwesens) in the SS-Führungshauptamt on 1 May 1942. In this position he was awarded the Eastern Front Medal and the War Merit Cross 2nd Class with Swords, both on 1 September 1942. The SS Cavalry Brigade was disbanded in March 1942 and the remaining men and equipment were formed into a battalion-strength unit called Kampfgruppe Zehender, commanded by SS-Sturmbannführer August Zehender.
Fegelein returned to the front line on 1 December 1942 and on the same day promoted to SS-Oberführer. He was given command of Kampfgruppe "Fegelein", based in the great bend of the Don. He was wounded in action by Soviet snipers on 21 December and 22 December 1942.
On 20 April 1943, he was appointed commander of the SS Cavalry Division. Fegelein and his division were involved in operations against partisans in May to July 1943, which included Operation Weichsel, Operation Zeithen and Operation Seydlitz. On 17 May, they annihilated a partisan group south west of Novoselki. He personally blew up a bunker in the attack. A week later, on 24 May, the division attacked another partisan strongpoint, and no prisoners were taken. During Weichsel (27 May – 10 June 1943) he reported the unit had killed 4,018 persons and deported 18,860, confiscated 21,000 cattle, and destroyed 61 villages southwest of Gomel. During Zeithen (13–16 June 1943) they destroyed a further 63 villages and (under direct orders from Hitler) killed all suspected partisans. During Seydlitz (26 June – 27 July 1943) he reported the destruction of 96 additional villages, with 5,016 killed and 9,166 deported and 19,941 cattle confiscated.
The division was then deployed in defensive operations against massed Soviet attacks. From 26 August to 15 September, the division repulsed five attacks of divisional strength and a further 85 attacks of battalion strength. The heaviest combat occurred on 26 August near Bespalovka and on 28 August, when the division halted a Soviet breakthrough at Bol'shaya Gomol'sha. Fegelein led a counterattack on 8 September, recapturing the height 199,0 at Verkhniy Bishkin. On 11 September 1943, during these defensive battles, he was awarded the Close Combat Clasp in bronze. Fegelein was severely wounded on 30 September 1943 and was hospitalised for a few weeks. He received the German Cross in gold on 1 November 1943. Following his convalescence he was appointed chief of Amt VI—Office for Rider and Driver Training—in the SS-Führungshauptamt on 1 January 1944.
At the same time, Himmler assigned him to Hitler's headquarters staff as his liaison officer and representative of the SS. He was promoted to the rank of SS-Gruppenführer und Generalleutnant der Waffen-SS on 10 June 1944. On 20 July 1944, Fegelein was present at the failed attempt on Hitler's life at the Wolf's Lair headquarters in Rastenburg, East Prussia and received a minor wound to his left thigh from the bomb blast. Fegelein often showed around the photographs of the hanged men who had been executed as a result of this failed assassination attempt.
Marriage [ edit ]
Fegelein's politically motivated marriage to Gretl Braun, Eva Braun's sister, took place on 3 June 1944 in Salzburg. Historians Kershaw and Shirer believe he courted Braun as a way to advance his career. Hitler, Himmler, and Martin Bormann acted as witnesses at the ceremony. A two-day celebration was then held at Hitler's and Bormann's Obersalzberg mountain homes and the Eagle's Nest. Fegelein was a known playboy and had many extramarital affairs. Hitler's secretaries, Christa Schroeder and Traudl Junge, state Fegelein was popular socially, particularly with women. He could be funny, amusing, and charming. Eva was glad to have someone in the entourage with whom she could dance and flirt, as Hitler was distant in social situations and refrained from publicly showing affection. Fegelein worked hard to develop a friendship with Hitler's powerful private secretary, Martin Bormann. Fegelein consistently attended Bormann's drinking parties and told Junge that the only things that mattered were "his career and a life full of fun."
Death [ edit ]
By early 1945, Germany's military situation was on the verge of total collapse. Hitler, presiding over a rapidly disintegrating Third Reich, retreated to his Führerbunker in Berlin on 16 January 1945. To the Nazi leadership, it was clear that the battle for Berlin would be the final battle of the war. Berlin was bombarded by Soviet artillery for the first time on 20 April 1945 (Hitler's birthday). By the evening of 21 April, Red Army tanks reached the outskirts of the city. By 27 April, Berlin was cut off from the rest of Germany.
On 27 April 1945, Reichssicherheitsdienst (RSD) deputy commander SS-Obersturmbannführer Peter Högl was sent out from the Reich Chancellery to find Fegelein, who had abandoned his post at the Führerbunker after deciding he did not want to "join a suicide pact". Fegelein was located by the RSD squad in his Berlin apartment, wearing civilian clothes and preparing to flee to Sweden or Switzerland. He was carrying cash—German and foreign—and jewellery, some of which belonged to Braun. Högl found a briefcase containing documents with evidence of Himmler's attempted peace negotiations with the Western Allies. According to most accounts, Fegelein was intoxicated when arrested and taken back to the Führerbunker. He was kept in a makeshift cell until the evening of 28 April. That night, Hitler was informed of the BBC broadcast of a Reuters news report about Himmler's attempted negotiations with the western Allies via Count Bernadotte. Hitler flew into a rage about this apparent betrayal and ordered Himmler's arrest. Sensing a connection between Fegelein's disappearance and Himmler's betrayal, Hitler ordered SS-Gruppenführer Heinrich Müller to interrogate Fegelein as to what he knew of Himmler's plans. Thereafter, according to Otto Günsche (Hitler's personal adjutant), Hitler ordered that Fegelein be stripped of all rank and to be transferred to Kampfgruppe "Mohnke" to prove his loyalty in combat. Günsche and Bormann expressed their concern to Hitler that Fegelein would only desert again. Hitler then ordered Fegelein court-martialed.
Journalist James P. O'Donnell, who conducted extensive interviews in the 1970s, provides one account of what happened next. SS-Brigadeführer Wilhelm Mohnke, who presided over the court martial for desertion, told O'Donnell that Hitler ordered him to set up a tribunal. Mohnke arranged for a court martial panel, which consisted of generals Wilhelm Burgdorf, Hans Krebs, SS-Gruppenführer Johann Rattenhuber, and himself. Fegelein, still drunk, refused to accept that he had to answer to Hitler, and stated that he was responsible only to Himmler. Fegelein was so drunk that he was crying and vomiting; he was unable to stand up, and even urinated on the floor. Mohnke was in a quandary, as German military and civilian law both require a defendant to be of sound mind and to understand the charges against them. Although Mohnke was certain Fegelein was "guilty of flagrant desertion", it was the opinion of the judges that he was in no condition to stand trial, so Mohnke closed the proceedings and turned the defendant over to General Rattenhuber's security squad. Mohnke never saw Fegelein again.
An alternative scenario of Fegelein's death is based on the 1948/49 Soviet NKVD dossier of Hitler written for Joseph Stalin. The dossier is based on the interrogation reports of Günsche and Heinz Linge (Hitler's valet). This dossier differs in part from the accounts given by Mohnke and Rattenhuber. After the intoxicated Fegelein was arrested and taken back to the Führerbunker, Hitler at first ordered Fegelein to be transferred to Kampfgruppe "Mohnke" to prove his loyalty in combat. Günsche and Bormann expressed their concern to Hitler that Fegelein would desert again. Hitler then ordered Fegelein to be demoted and court-martialed by a court led by Mohnke. At this point the accounts differ, as the NKVD dossier states that Fegelein was court-martialed on the evening of 28 April, by a court headed by Mohnke, SS-Obersturmbannführer Alfred Krause, and SS-Sturmbannführer Herbert Kaschula. Mohnke and his fellow officers sentenced Fegelein to death. That same evening, Fegelein was shot from behind by a member of the Sicherheitsdienst. Based on this stated chain of events, author Veit Scherzer concluded that Fegelein, according to German law, was deprived of all honours and honorary signs and must therefore be considered a de facto but not de jure recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross.
Fegelein's wife was then in the late stages of pregnancy (the baby was born on 5 May). Hitler considered releasing him without punishment or assigning him to Mohnke's troops. Junge—an eye-witness to bunker events—stated that Braun pleaded with Hitler to spare her brother-in-law and tried to justify Fegelein's actions. Junge said Fegelein was taken to the garden of the Reich Chancellery on 28 April, and was "shot like a dog". Rochus Misch, who was the last survivor from the Führerbunker, disputed aspects of this account in a 2007 interview with Der Spiegel. According to Misch, Hitler did not order Fegelein's execution, only his demotion. Misch claimed to know the identity of Fegelein's killer, but refused to reveal his name.
Assessment [ edit ]
Historians William L. Shirer and Ian Kershaw characterise Fegelein as cynical and disreputable; Albert Speer called him "one of the most disgusting people in Hitler's circle". Fegelein was an opportunist who ingratiated himself with Himmler, who in return granted him the best assignments—mostly related to cavalry—and rapid promotion through the ranks. The historian Henning Pieper, who studied the period up until March 1942, notes Fegelein's lack of formal training as an officer led to deficiencies in the way the SS Cavalry Brigade was prepared for active service. Fegelein repeatedly over-stated the combat readiness of his troops and exaggerated their accomplishments, in Pieper's opinion in order to be seen as a leader worthy of promotion and honours. Fegelein's faulty analysis of his brigade's readiness led to their use in December 1941 through March 1942 in combat situations for which they were unsuitable and untrained; however, as the military situation was deteriorating, they would eventually have received front-line assignments regardless of their readiness. By the end of March 1942, the brigade had suffered casualties of 50 per cent, much higher than army units deployed in the same area.
Fegelein's parents and his brother Waldemar survived the war. Gretl, who inherited some of Eva's valuable jewellery, also survived the war. She gave birth to a daughter (named Eva Barbara Fegelein, after her late aunt) on 5 May 1945. Eva Fegelein killed herself on 25 April 1971 after her boyfriend died in a car accident. Gretl Braun-Fegelein moved to Munich and remarried in 1954. She died in 1987, aged 72.
Awards and decorations [ edit ]
The death sentence on 28 April resulted in the loss of all orders, awards, and honorary signs.
Fegelein held various ranks in both the Allgemeine-SS and Waffen-SS. The following table shows that progression was not synchronous.
Date Allgemeine-SS Waffen-SS 12 June 1933: SS-Untersturmführer — 20 April 1934: SS-Obersturmführer — 9 November 1934: SS-Hauptsturmführer — 30 January 1936: SS-Sturmbannführer — 30 January 1937: SS-Obersturmbannführer — 25 July 1937: SS-Standartenführer — 1 March 1940: — SS-Obersturmbannführer of the Reserves 1 February 1942: — SS-Standartenführer 1 May 1943: — SS-Brigadeführer and Generalmajor of the Waffen-SS 21 June 1944: — SS-Gruppenführer and Generalleutnant of the Waffen-SS
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
Explanatory notes [ edit ]
^ Flegelein" (Flegel (lout or brat) for lack of manners and appropriate behaviour. Flegelein is the Flegel. Those close to Fegelein had nicknamed him "" ( O'Donnell 1978, p. 186). In German, one refers to someone as a(lout or brat) for lack of manners and appropriate behaviour.is the hypocoristic form of a ^ The historian Peter Longerich notes that most orders to carry out criminal activities such as the killing of civilians were vague, and couched in terminology that had a specific meaning for members of the regime. Leaders were given briefings about the need to be "severe" and "firm"; all Jews were to be viewed as potential enemies that had to be dealt with ruthlessly. Longerich 2010, pp. 189–190.
Citations [ edit ]
Bibliography [ edit ]
Further reading [ edit ]
Jahns, Joachim (2009). Der Warschauer Ghettokönig [The Warsaw Ghetto King] (in German). Leipzig: Dingsda-Verlag. ISBN 978-3-928498-99-9.British Human Rights Activist Faces Prison For Refusing To Hand Over Passwords At UK Border
from the digital-strip-search dept
As Techdirt readers will recall, in 2013 David Miranda was held by the UK authorities when he flew into Heathrow airport, and all of his electronic equipment was seized, in an act of blatant intimidation. His detention was under Schedule 7 of the UK's Terrorism Act, which, as its name implies, is supposed to be used only if someone is involved in committing, preparing or instigating "acts of terrorism."
That was clearly ridiculous in Miranda's case, and it's just as outrageous in the latest example of UK border bullying, this time against Muhammad Rabbani. He's a British citizen, and the international director of Cage, which describes itself as "an independent advocacy organisation working to empower communities impacted by the War on Terror." The Guardian fills in the background:
Rabbani, 35, from London, is involved through Cage in investigating torture cases. He said he was stopped at Heathrow in November returning from one of the Gulf states where he had been investigating a torture case allegedly involving the US. He said he handed over his laptop and mobile phone but refused to provide his passwords. Although not a lawyer, he said the laptop contained information about the case and the client refused permission to release it. Rabbani was then arrested.
Rabbani later said that he felt that he had been subjected to a "digital strip search," and pointed out:
Using this power, [UK] officers can compel a person to surrender their passwords without cause and there's also no right to remain silent. There is nothing like this anywhere in the Western world.
Rather than dropping the case, this week the UK authorities have formally charged Rabbani under the Terrorism Act. He told the Guardian that he intends to fight, because the move has "serious implications" for journalists, lawyers and human rights, even though he faces three months in jail if he loses. This may be the first time Rabbani's been charged, but he is certainly no stranger to being stopped by the UK border officials:
Rabbani said he had been detained 20 times over the last decade by border officials and had handed over his laptop and mobile phone. On previous occasions, after refusing to hand over passwords, they were returned to him and he was allowed to go. But not on this occasion.
He's not alone in being subjected to this kind of harassment by the UK authorities. Figures published in an article on the Middle East Eye site reveal just how ineffective Schedule 7 examinations are at spotting terrorists:
More than 28,000 people were subjected to Schedule 7 examinations in 2015-16 resulting in about 10,000 intelligence reports being filed, according to a report by the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation. About 500,000 are also estimated to have been subjected to pre-examination screening questions in the same period. According to 2016 statistics, only 0.02 percent of stops lead to an arrest. An even smaller number lead to criminal charges.
The good news is that the UK court of appeal has already criticized Schedule 7 for forcing people to betray confidences and thus make it unlikely that others would trust them again with information in the public interest. That holds out the hope that Rabbani will ultimately win in the courts, since his case is very similar. The bad news, of course, is that the US is thinking of demanding passwords from every foreigner who visits the US.
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Filed Under: muhammad rabbani, passwords, schedule 7, terrorism act, ukThe decision is a blow to those who hoped the more open society put in place for the Beijing Olympics would be maintained.
In a further sign of the tightening of censorship rules, internet cafes in the capital Beijing have been compelled to install cameras and take photographs of all customers to be logged with the authorities.
The new rules on reporting, introduced on Jan 1 2007 to international fanfare, lifted requirements for journalists from abroad to obtain permission from the foreign ministry every time they intended to travel or to conduct an interview.
The change was introduced specifically to meet Beijing's commitment to allow free reporting of the Games and preparations for them when it was awarded the Olympics in 2001.
They expired yesterday with no news of their being extended or replaced, despite repeated hints that the temporary loosening of the rules would be made permanent.
The foreign ministry says that new rules are on the way but is unclear as to when. "I understand everyone's eager desire," a spokesman replied to questions at a regular press briefing for foreign reporters. "We will tell you very soon what the related arrangements are."
The rules were often only honoured in the breach, with correspondents regularly roaming the country without seeking permission, but they gave police and local authorities a pretext to detain reporters at troublespots, harass local assistants and researchers, and send them back to Beijing or Shanghai.
They also provided a disincentive to would-be interviewees, who were also breaking the law.
Even after their lifting, some reporters have been detained and harassed on occasion. During the uprising in Tibetan areas of China in March and April, they were effectively suspended in the affected region, with all foreign journalists kept out.
Some provincial authorities said they would unilaterally stick to the temporary reporting rules until instructed otherwise. But Human Rights Watch demanded the lifting of the travel ban be made permanent and extended to China's own journalists too.
"While there were serious problems in implementing Olympics-related media freedom regulations, they did mark a new and much higher standard in Chinese law for reporting freedom," said Sophie Richardson, Asia advocacy director.
Meanwhile the restrictions imposed on Beijing's "net bars" - which include the issuing of special new numbered passes to customers - mean that all online activity at the cafes can be traced to individuals.
Proposals to introduce nationwide rules compelling "real name registration" which would have achieved the same effect were dropped after an outcry about privacy, in an unusual example of people power. But the new rule, which also involves registering identity card numbers, has the same effect.
A government-run website suggested the rule was intended to counter hacking, internet pornography, and "web rumours". A spokesman said that 1,500 internet cafes in 14 of Beijing's 18 districts had been fitted with the cameras, and the remaining four districts would fall within the scheme by the middle of December.In this last week, the master branch of GTK+ has seen 106 commits, with 7340 lines added and 12138 lines removed.
Planning and status
Matthias Clasen released GTK+ 3.89.3
The GTK+ road map is available on the wiki.
Notable changes
On the master branch:
Benjamin Otte simplified the clipping shaders for the Vulkan renderers
Benjamin also removed the “assume numbers without dimensions are pixels” fallback code from the CSS parser
Daniel Boles landed various fixes to the GtkMenu, GtkComboBox and GtkScale widgets
, and widgets Daniel also simplified the internals of GtkComboBox and moved most of its internal widgets to GtkBuilder UI files
and moved most of its internal widgets to GtkBuilder UI files Matthias Clasen removed command line argument handling from the GTK+ initialization functions; gtk_init() now takes no arguments. Additionally, gdk_init() has been removed, as GDK ceased to be a separate shared library. The recommended way to write GTK+ applications remains using GtkApplication, which handles library initialization and the main loop
now takes no arguments. Additionally, has been removed, as GDK ceased to be a separate shared library. The recommended way to write GTK+ applications remains using, which handles library initialization and the main loop Timm Bäder merged his branch that makes GtkWidget visible by default, except for the GtkWindow and GtkPopover classes; Timm also removed gtk_widget_show_all() from the API, as it’s not useful any more
visible by default, except for the and classes; Timm also removed from the API, as it’s not useful any more Timm modified GtkShortcutsShortcut, GtkFileChooserButton, and GtkFontButton to inherit directly from GtkWidget, taking advantage of the new scene graph API inside the base GtkWidget class
On the gtk-3-22 stable branch:
Ruslan Izhbulatov fixed the Windows backend for GDK to ensure that it works with remote displays
Bugs fixed
777527 – GDK W32: Invisible drop-down menus in GTK apps when working via RDP
– 770112 – The documented <alt>left shortcut doesn’t work on Wayland
– 776225 – [wayland] dropdown placed somewhere in the screen
– 777363 – [PATCH] wayland: avoid an unnecessary g_list_length call
Getting involved
Interested in working on GTK+? Look at the list of bugs for newcomers and join the IRC channel #gtk+ on irc.gnome.org.Let’s begin with a horror story.
You hear that issue FOO-123 has been fixed. The bug had something to do with a subsystem you know well, so you have your own hunch about what might have caused it. To confirm your suspicion, you decide to take a look at how the bug was fixed. You spend quite some time rummaging through the revision history until you manage to narrow the fix down to four consecutive revisions, described in their commit messages as “dao tweaks”, “moar”, “Fixes.” and “remove debug stuff”. Each changeset looks huge. There are hundreds of lines of changes spread over a dozen of files. “What the…”, you begin but pause, unable to choose just one of the myriad of profanities racing through your mind. “The fix shouldn’t be more than a three-line change!”
Does this sound familiar? All too many developers use their version control system as nothing more than a haphazard pile of backups. The resulting history is useless for anything other than retrieving the files’ contents at a given point in time. The following tips can help you turn your VCS from a backup system into a valuable tool for communication and documentation.
1. Only make one change per commit
If you fix FOO-123 as well as FOO-234, refactor a couple of classes, add a button or two to the UI, and change tabs to spaces throughout the project, all in one commit, it’s simply impossible for anyone to review the fix to FOO-123. You are the only one who knows which of your changes are part of the fix. In a week even you’ll forget that.
What if a week later it turns out that your fix caused a new bug that’s even worse? You can’t undo the change using backout (Hg) or revert (Git), because that would mean stripping out all those other changes you made and a week’s worth of work depends on them.
The solution is to only make one change in each commit. There are no hard and fast rules about what constitutes a single change, but if you can describe everything you did in a single sentence without using the word “and”, you’re probably in the clear.
One of the cool things about distributed version control systems is that if you end up with a working directory full of unrelated changes, you can clean up the mess you’ve made, but it’s better not to make a mess in the first place. Before jumping into changing the code, decide what it is that you want to do and how you want to do it. Then focus on making that one change only.
It seems impossible to work on a piece of code without coming up with ideas on how it could be improved. You notice bugs, poorly factored code, and curious things that you’d like to investigate. No matter how tempting they seem, do not get sidetracked! These findings are valuable, so jot them down in a notebook or a TODO-file, but don’t return to them until you current task is finished.
This is not just about better commits. When you’re immersed in a programming problem, your head is full of little details related to the code you’re working on. You lose all that if you start thinking about something else, and getting back into the flow takes time. To maximize your productivity you need to minimize task switches.
Of course there are times when you find out that there’s no way to finish your current task without first making some other change. The easiest way to keep the two changes separate is to shelve (Hg) or stash (Git) your current, unfinished change, make and commit the change that you depend on, and then return to your original task.
2. Make the whole change in one commit
A change is also hard to review and undo if it’s spread over several commits. Typically this is a side effect of working on too many things at once. If you bite off more than you can chew, most of your changes will be unfinished by the time you want to save some of them. Focusing on one task at a time takes you a long way towards committing complete changes.
Some changes take so much time that you can’t afford to start all over again if you make a mistake, so you need to save work-in-progress versions of your work. Luckily DVCSs allow you to save WIP versions for your own use while still publishing a single changeset to the central repository. You can make as many WIP commits as you want and then use histedit (Hg) or rebase (Git) to fold/squash them into a single changeset when you’re done.
Another approach, which I prefer because it keeps WIP changes clearly separated from permanent changesets, is to use Git’s index or a patch in Mercurial Queues to store the latest known-good WIP version, which you update every time you make progress. If you make a mistake, you can restore your working directory to the version in the index/patch. I like to think of it as a one-slot quicksave for version control.
3. Document what you have changed
The commit message “Fixes” contains very little useful information. “Commit” contains none whatsoever. If someone is interested in the revision history, messages like this force them to read through the changes, and reading code is both slow and mentally taxing. By writing a gibberish commit message you save a minute but can waste hours of other people’s time.
A good commit message tells the reader what part of the codebase was changed and how without them having to look at the code:
SomeClass: use bleh instead of xyzzy in someMethod (fixes FOO-123)
4. Document why you made the change
Presumably there’s always a good reason for every change made to a codebase. If that reason is not documented, the codebase becomes exposed to the following risks:
The other developers do not understand why the code was written the way it was. When they change the code, they introduce problems that the original author had identified and avoided.
The other developers assume that the code was written the way it was for a Good Reason™ so it’s best left untouched. They treat it as a black box and add complex workarounds to avoid changing it. As a consequence the codebase becomes bloated and hard to understand.
If you need to break the project’s conventions, or if there’s a subtle reason why your code must be the way it is, document the reason in the code with a comment:
- xyzzy(bars); + // Our bars are already sorted, so bleh is much faster than xyzzy + bleh(bars);
If your code adheres to conventions and there are no subtleties to it, there’s no need for inline documentation. It’s still valuable to know why the new code is preferred over the old (especially if the change happens to introduce a new problem), so document the reason in the commit message:
SomeClass: Don't flush caches in someMethod The caches are flushed automatically at the end of each request.
If the change fixes a reported issue, make sure you mention the ticket’s number in the commit message so that a developer looking at the revision history can better understand the context in which the change was made.
I’ve never understood the reasoning behind committing code that’s been commented out. I assume it’s to keep old versions of the code around just in case the new code doesn’t work, but that’s just bizarre. Keeping track of old versions is the reason we use a version control system in the first place!
Why was the code commented out? Does it work? Should it work? Has it ever worked? Is it something we should strive towards or run away from? Code that’s been commented out is worse than useless, because every time it’s read, it raises questions like these without providing any answers. It only serves to confuse and distract from the code in use.
There’s only one rule when it comes to committing commented-out code:“A map should be aesthetically pleasing, thought-provoking, and communicative.”
~ Arthur H. Robinson, Founder of today’s Cartography Center
President George W. Bush receives a briefing during meeting with CIA Director George Tenet, right, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, and Chief of Staff Andy Card at Camp David, Saturday, September 29, 2001
Tracing its roots to October 1941, CIA’s Cartography Center has a long, proud history of service to the Intelligence Community (IC) and continues to respond to a variety of finished intelligence map requirements. The mission of the Cartography Center is to provide a full range of maps, geographic analysis, and research in support of the Agency, the White House, senior policymakers, and the IC at large. Its chief objectives are to analyze geospatial information, extract intelligence-related geodata, and present the information visually in creative and effective ways for maximum understanding by intelligence consumers.
Since 1941, the Cartography Center maps have told the stories of post-WWII reconstruction, the Suez crisis, the Cuban Missile crisis, the Falklands War, and many other important events in history.
*To see the entire collection of maps released for the Cartography Center’s 75th Anniversary, click HERE to view our new Flickr album.
The First Map:
On July 11, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt established the United States’ first peacetime, non-departmental intelligence organization, the Office of the Coordinator of Information (COI), and authorized it to collect and analyze all information and data relevant to national security. COI, headed by William “Wild Bill” Donovan, reported directly to the President. Donovan recruited the best and the brightest from universities, businesses, and law firms focused on foreign affairs or with experience abroad.
President Roosevelt with one of the rare OSS-made globes.
One of those recruited as a map consultant was 26-year-old Arthur H. Robinson, a graduate student who had recently begun working on his Ph.D. in geography. He started in the Geographic Division of the COI’s Research and Analysis Branch on October 16, 1941, and shortly thereafter produced its first map and was asked to start the Cartography Section. This marked the inception of CIA’s present-day Cartography Center.
After the Pearl Harbor attack on December 7, 1941, COI expanded rapidly and its maps began to circulate widely. Robinson was joined by geographer Robert Voskuil, and the two focused on recruiting staff, procuring equipment, and developing training procedures. By February 1, 1942, the Cartography Section was fully operational, with Robinson serving as its chief. The Map Information Section was added to procure commercial maps, for use by cartographers and to reproduce for policymakers.
OSS and Cartography:
With wartime needs requiring its expansion, COI grew from an office into America’s first intelligence agency and was replaced by the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) on June 13, 1942. To satisfy a dramatic increase in the demand for customized thematic maps for the President, Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), Joint Army Navy Intelligence Studies (JANIS), Board of Economic Warfare, and COI, the Cartography Section added 28 geographers by the end of 1942.
CIA hand-rendered terrain map
At that time, there were no cartographers as we know them today—so Robinson recruited geographers with an interest in mapping, and they learned on the job. Robinson developed a unique system of map production to operate in the field of intelligence, and it evolved rapidly to improve map quality and production efficiency.
In March 1943, the Topographic Models Section was added, and the three sections—Cartography, Map Information, and Topographic Models—formed the new Map Division. Geographers and cartographers amassed what would be the largest collection of maps in the world and produced strategic maps and 3D plaster terrain models in support of strategic studies and military operational plans for the JCS, the Office of Naval Intelligence, OSS, and the War Department.
The Map Division was intimately involved in the planning strategy of the Allied invasion of North Africa and Italy. It also assessed the economic and topographic conditions in other areas vital to the conduct of the war, including in the Asia-Pacific theater. The JCS called upon cartographers for much of their secret security work concerning operations and valued cartographers for their support at the Allied conferences.
DCI George Bush, left, points at a CIA map of Beirut while briefing President Ford at the White House
Serving as the premier source for strategic thematic maps and map resources, the Cartography and Map Information Sections survived the abolishment of OSS on October 1, 1945 and were transferred to the Division of Geography and Cartography in the Department of State.
The Cartography Section would remain at the State Department until July 1, 1947, when it was transferred to the Central Intelligence Group (CIG).
Shortly thereafter, CIG gained the status of a full agency and became the Central Intelligence Agency on September 18, 1947. Serving a unique need with world-class products, Cartography Center has withstood many reorganizations and name changes in the past 75 years and continues to provide timely and effective map services in support of a variety of national security topics.
* * * * *
1940s
1942 OSS map: Russian Front.
In the early 1940s, map layers were drafted by hand using pen and ink on translucent acetate sheets mounted on large Strathmore boards. They were drafted at larger sizes than needed for the final (typically at a 4:1 ratio) and printed at a reduced size using photomechanical methods. Standard symbols and labels preprinted on adhesive-backed cellophane sheets called “stick-up” were applied to maps for uniformity.
During this decade, in support of the military’s efforts in World War II (WWII), cartographers pioneered many map production and thematic design techniques, including the construction of 3D map models. Cartographic support was key to the US war-planning strategy. In addition to the major events of WWII, during the 1940s, cartographic production was primarily driven by postwar reconstruction, turmoil in the Middle East, and communist expansion.
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instead require estimation. They include the value of the production Lecavalier would provide the Lightning in coming seasons and the salary and cap hit Lecavalier's replacement(s) would command over the years. Factored in, the financial benefits of a compliance buyout of Lecavalier would not look as advantageous, although Tampa Bay would no longer have to worry about the cap benefit recapture twist.
Some additional perspective: using a compliance buyout on Lecavalier would mean Vinik commits to making the longtime Bolt an unrestricted free agent whom he would have to pay exactly (this summer) or slightly more than (next summer) two-thirds of the approximately $45 million he spent renovating the Tampa Bay Times Forum. It would be roughly a third of the price Vinik reportedly paid to obtain control of the team, a staggering amount of money for him to fork over for a player to not play for his franchise.
Perhaps not having to make a lump-sum payment and instead having fork over only about $2 million for a decade and change makes the idea more palatable, but how much more so?
More Sensible Alternatives?
Let's acknowledge what Vincent Lecavalier still is: an effective, offensive-minded forward capable of anchoring a scoring line. He's still crafty with the puck, still possesses a heavy release and, despite a pronounced shift in his usage (compare his 5-on-5 zone starts in 2007-2008 to those in 2010-2011 and last season) over the years while becoming more of a perimeter player and secondary threat on a club that boasts the prolific goal scorer that is Steven Stamkos, he still hasn't hit less than 20 goals in a full season since he was a rookie and has remained reliable at even-strength (sort by season) for a team that, overall, has struggled mightily (with the exception of 2010-2011) with carrying the balance of even-strength play ever since John Tortorella's final season as head coach (TB's possession numbers from last season, 2011-2012, 2009-2010, and 2008-2009).
If one prorates the 10 goals he notched in 39 games during this most recent lockout-shortened season, he was on pace to hit the mark again. Lecavalier's 22 assists in 2012-2013 meant he finished with a per-game scoring rate (0.82) right in line with those of his last four seasons and if he hadn't played the bulk of the season hobbled by a foot injury, he might have hit the point-per-game mark for the first time since 2007-2008 when he posted 92 points through all 82 of the Lightning's games. Lecavalier had played a key role in the Lightning's hot start, notching four goals and seven assists in the first seven matches before a Sami Salo slap-shot severely bruised a foot bone which became fractured over a month later in a collision with Florida's Erik Gudbranson.
If the Lightning's brain trust is primarily concerned about adjusting for next season's cap reduction and expect the cap ceiling, as it each year under the previous CBA, to continually escalate over the duration of the current CBA, one is hard-pressed to believe they would pass up other, more cost-effective measures available. Measures that could come close to achieving the additional financial flexibility for the present and near-term a compliance buyout of Lecavalier would, at least initially, provide without sacrificing much, if anything, in terms of the team's competitive balance.
Take, for instance, deciding to try and trade Ryan Malone, or settling for using a compliance buyout on him instead. A trade could clear some or the entirety of his $4.5 million salary, depending on what the Lightning received in return or if it opted to retain a portion (up to 50%) of his cap hit and salary, as is allowed by the new CBA. Engineering a trade, though, might prove difficult, given that Malone presently possesses a no-movement clause that gives him a lot of control over where, or whether, he will be traded. This provision does modify to a limited no-trade clause come July 1, but by that point the clock will be ticking if the Lightning want to retain the option of buying him out as the window of opportunity, which begins 48 hours after the playoffs end, will reportedly expire on July 5th. Another foreseeable complication: Malone's preferred destinations (Pittsburgh likely being one makes for a good example) might already have difficult roster decisions to make in order to get cap-compliant for next season.
Electing to buyout Malone, who has two more years left and is owed just $5 million on his contract, is far more straightforward for Tampa Bay and a relative bargain: the Lightning could obtain nearly 60% of the cap space a compliance buyout of Lecavalier would return for a mere fraction (10%) of the cost. Yzerman might piggyback this by additionally, prior to next season's start, re-assigning Brian Lee back to the minors where he finished the regular season. Doing so would clear an additional $900,000 in cap space assuming he wasn't claimed off waivers, in which case Tampa Bay would gain $250,000 more in cap space.
Add in the ability to exceed the cap by the amount of Mattias Ohlund's cap hit, the most probable means of getting some relief from the "awkward" situation Ohlund and the Bolts find themselves in, and Yzerman might just have all the space he needs to flesh out next season's roster to his satisfaction. It's a possibility Lyle Richardson noted just last week, though the prospect of a Malone buyout still does not seem to have dawned on him.
Beyond this upcoming season, with the certainty of a number of contracts expiring (Brian Lee's, Tom Pyatt's, Sami Salo's and Dana Tyrell's in 2014; Eric Brewer's and Martin St. Louis' in 2015; Teddy Purcell's in 2016) and Vaclav Prospal's buyout cap charge coming off the books, Tampa Bay stands to regain a sizable chunk of cap space it can decide how best to reallocate. It will also help being able to often eschew relying on the free agent market in favor of promoting more affordable replacements from within thanks to the still-growing pipeline which is already producing NHLers. Then there is also the possibility of the cap ceiling rising over the next few years.
Lecavalier's contract, then, may become far less of a financial hindrance than it seems to strike many as at present. If he can remain a purposeful and contributing (even if "overpaid") piece of the puzzle for the duration, it's probably worth holding onto him and planning for the future accordingly. Doing so would be a calculated gamble, as his performance is unlikely to deteriorate to the point where he is a liability on the ice until he's in the last couple seasons of his deal and, even if he did decide to hang up the skates at that point, the resulting cap penalty would be lower than the cap hit the Lightning would otherwise be charged if he stuck around.
The following table shows how Lecavalier retiring in either of the final two seasons would actually result in minor cap savings:
Retires Scheduled Cap Hit Cap Penalty Cap Savings 2018 $7,727,272 (2018-2019) $6,477,772 $1,249,500 2019 $7,727,272 (2019-2020) $6,727,270 $1,000,002
In short, Lecavalier retiring is a manageable situation if the club is prepared (ideally with an inexpensive replacement already groomed to to step into whatever role Lecavalier would be playing by this time) for the possibility.
If, though, Yzerman is determined to get out from under the burden of a massive contract he inherited in order to establish as much cap flexibility as possible for the long-term and Vinik has no objection to footing the bill, there is no better, no more expedient alternative to the incredibly expensive proposition of buying out (and replacing) Lecavalier now or next summer. Preference over when to do so might then come down to how (free-agency, trade or promoting from within) to replace Lecavalier going forward.
Years from now, observers may consider the coming decision on Lecavalier's future as the most critical made by Yzerman, now entering his fourth season as the Lightning's general manager, during his time at the helm. Whatever direction the Lightning will go, answers (or at least some of them), as Yzerman told the assembled media at the scouting combine in Toronto, are coming soon enough. Tick-tock.
Special thanks to CapGeek for all contract and CBA details as well as Behind the Net for player metrics and his Greg Sinclair for Player Usage Charts, modeled after the work of Rob Vollman at HockeyAbstract.Loading...
One would think that it was the title of a rather bad movie, but no: The Norwegian broadcaster NRK reports that migrants "are fleeing through Sweden - in taxi".NRK reports that "a taxi fare of 100 mil (620 miles) is not uncommon when refugees are traveling through Sweden towards northern Finland," and that "the flow of refugees to northern Finland continues."The new trend of "fleeing" by taxi in Sweden, will cost around 16,000 SEK ($1,900) and comes on top of it the amount already paid to smugglers, but it is obviously not something we should react to. "Öpnna era hjärtan" (Open your hearts), as former Swedish PM, Fredrik Reinfeldt, said.Isn't it about time that mainstream media stop this nonsense of referring to the migrants as refugees? It should be pretty logical to most people by now that these migrants are not poor refugees who lost everything and are in desperate need of help.They have travelled through Europe, through lots of peaceful countries where they could have sought refuge, but chose to continue to the country with the best welfare benefits.They are mainly men in their 20s or 30s, even UNHCR - The UN Refugee Agency, says so.Isn't is time for mainstream media to recognize it for what it is: An invasion of Muslim men - with economic and religious motives.Comment below.The latest Miami Hurricanes football pledge didn’t figure he’d be making his college commitment this early in the process.
When New Jersey defensive tackle Courtel Jenkins headed to Miami last weekend for one of head coach Al Golden’s prospect camps, the 6-foot-2, 310-pounder was still taking offers. He figured he would get a UM offer while in town. UM defensive coordinator coach Mark D’Onofrio had told him he would if he earned it in camp.
“Right off the bat when I first met him I could tell he was a loyal guy, trustworthy,” Jenkins said. “He stuck to his word. … He said he wasn’t sure I was going to get an offer, but he promised me, that if I came down to the camp and worked as hard as they’d seen me and do things well in Miami that they would offer.
“I went down there and did that and they did offer.”
Committing to the Hurricanes, however, wasn’t exactly on his mind.
“I was waiting for some of those other guys to offer,” Jenkins said of schools that had been showing him interest, like Rutgers, Syracuse, West Virginia, Alabama, Ohio State, Michigan. “Miami, they had been in the picture since my freshman year and it took them this long to offer, but the visit to the camp went so well that it just topped it off and it made me pull the trigger a little bit earlier.”
Up until Miami offered last weekend, Jenkins only had a handful of scholarship promises from Maryland, Pittsburgh, UMass and Buffalo. Two of those schools were on the horn Thursday wondering if the news was true.
“A coach from Maryland hit me up and asked me if it was true, was I committed to Miami, and I said, ‘Yes,’ and he said, ‘Oh well, good luck,’ ” Jenkins said. “The Pittsburgh coach seemed pretty surprised. I was in close contact with them for the last three days and he asked me did I commit, and I said, ‘Yes,’ and he was like, ‘All right.’ ”
Jenkins said he doesn’t plan on entertaining any more college offers. He even said he will not take any official visits with the exception of another trip to Miami.
“I like it a lot. It’s a good program with great tradition, great alumni … I can go there and get a good education and it should be a lot of fun down there,” Jenkins said of Miami. “It’s great. It’s a beautiful campus.”
Jenkins will play his senior season at DePaul Catholic High School in Wayne, N.J., after transferring from Jersey City St. Anthony’s this semester. As a junior at St. Anthony’s he helped the team to its first ever state playoff victory. He had 11 sacks and almost 60 tackles.
“I just can’t wait to get down there and start playing,” Jenkins said.
What Miami gets is an impressive nose-tackle-type of defensive lineman who can weigh down the middle, but can also shed blockers and get to the quarterback. He’s nimble for 310 pounds, but said he’d like to get down to 300 pounds for his senior-year playing weight.
“I’m a tough, physical player. I’m smart. I know the game of football,” said Jenkins, a well-spoken student of the game. “I try to have good technique more than anything else. I’m just a hard-working football player. I try to wear down my competition.”
He also said things are going well for him in the classroom.
“I’m a good student … an A and B student and I pride myself in my education,” said Jenkins, who has yet to take either of the SAT or ACT entrance exams. “I put my head in the books. That’s the only way.”
2014 Miami commitments (10)OL Trevor Darling, 6-5, 330, Miami Central
QB Alin Edouard, 6-1, 181, Hialeah
OL Reilly Gibbons, 6-6, 278, St. Pete Catholic
DT Courtel Jenkins, 6-2, 310, Wayne (N.J.) DePaul Catholic
QB Brad Kaaya, 6-4, 213, West Hills (Calif.) Chaminade Prep
OL Nick Linder, 6-3, 278, Fort Lauderdale STA
OL Kc McDermott, 6-6, 301, Palm Beach Central
DT Dalvon Stuckey, 6-4. 305, Defuniak Springs Walton (Pearl River CC)
RB Walter Tucker, 6-2, 215, Plantation American Heritage
RB Joseph Yearby, 5-9, 177, Miami Central
Chris Hays is the Sentinel's recruiting coverage coordinator and can be reached at chays@tribune.com. Follow us on Twitter at @Os_Recruiting and Facebook at Orlando Sentinel Recruiting and now on Pinterest at Orlando Recruiting.When we talk about the problems associated with cars and transportation, we often focus on fatal accidents, or air pollution, or traffic jams.
We less frequently consider how much sheer space cars take up in America’s cities. But let’s pause to give this some thought.
There’s the space the cars themselves occupy. The average car, two hulking tons of steel, is 80 percent empty when it’s being driven by a single person. And most of the day, cars are totally empty, sitting unused. That, of course, requires space for parking: There are a billion parking spots across the United States, four for every car in existence. Plus, there are all the paved roads crisscrossing our cities. Add it up, and many downtowns devote 50 to 60 percent of their scarce real estate to vehicles:
It all seems rather inefficient and wasteful. If cities could reclaim even a fraction of this land from vehicles, they could build more housing, or stores, or parks, or plazas. For cities struggling with housing shortages and soaring rents, such as San Francisco and New York City, the gains would be staggering.
Some cities are already tinkering around the margins here — looking, for instance, to cut down on excessive parking requirements or boost mass transit and free up land for development. But new technology could push this even further. Ride-sharing services like Uber and Lyft already hint at a world in which cars are utilized more efficiently and take up less room in aggregate. And if self-driving vehicles become widespread, cities could in theory shrink their transportation footprint even more dramatically.
This world no longer seems so far away. A recent report from the Rocky Mountain Institute argued that the era of private car ownership may peak within a decade, as new networks of shared, electric, possibly autonomous vehicles become cheaper. Instead of buying a car, you can simply buy a ride whenever you need one. That shift has the potential, at least, to revolutionize our streets.
The trick is figuring out how to redesign cities accordingly. Recently, San Francisco sketched out a forward-looking plan to take advantage of these new transportation options and shrink the amount of space devoted to cars. With smaller streets and fewer parking spots, the city would have more land to work with — to build more affordable housing, say. If it works, it could be the start of an important new trend.
San Francisco has an audacious plan to reclaim land from cars
Earlier this year, the Department of Transportation held a contest asking dozens of local governments to submit visions for a "city of the future" that incorporate things like self-driving cars to tackle problems like congestion and climate change.
Columbus, Ohio, ended up winning the contest with a detailed plan to improve mobility in low-income areas. But let’s take a closer look at San Francisco’s submission, because it’s a great exploration of how cities might use new tech and business models to take back scarce land from cars.
The proposal starts by observing that San Francisco currently has 440,000 on-street parking spaces — the same amount of land as the Golden Gate Park and 120 Transamerica buildings. And much of that land sits empty much of the time. "Our plan," the proposal notes, "would phase in innovative technologies that allow us to repurpose public space currently under-utilized as parking into affordable housing, small parks and pedestrian amenities."
The first step would be to make ride-sharing services (including, but not limited to, Uber and Lyft) more convenient and accessible to residents. After all, if people can use these cars for their transportation needs, or combine them with mass transit options, they wouldn’t need nearly as much street parking. And because each of these cars serves multiple passengers, they take up less space on the road.
In phase one, San Francisco planned to shift 10 percent of single-occupancy vehicle trips to transit and ride hailing. To do so, the city proposed partnering with the University of California Berkeley and various tech companies to work out ways to:
1) Provide incentives to shift people from their own cars into car sharing: That might mean designating certain road lanes as only available for ride sharing, making them the faster option. It might also entail seamlessly integrating car sharing, bike sharing, and public transit by creating a single simple mobile app that combines routing, scheduling, and payment for all of those services.
2) Make these services more affordable: That might involve providing low-income residents with access to smartphones and banking services, as well as providing free public wifi so that all could use these services. It would also mean finding ways to lower the price of car sharing — say, by deploying larger six-person passenger vans to cut costs below what an Uber or Lyft ride currently costs.
3) Eventually move to automated electric vehicles: If self-driving cars and buses eventually become a reality, they too could be connected into a centralized network, making sharing even easier. In theory, these vehicles could also reduce fatal collisions (assuming that self-driving technology proves safer) and would also eliminate air pollution (assuming that the cars were all electrified rather than running on gasoline).
The proposal offered an illustration of how these different phases would unfold. Note that over time, the amount of land required for parking shrinks as people move from a vehicle ownership model to a transportation service model that encompassed everything from cars to Muni buses to delivery vans:
Timothy Papandreou, the former head of the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency’s Office of Innovation, described the goal to the Washington Post in June: "We can move the same amount of people with a tenth of the vehicles.... It’s really going to open up our minds. We’re not going to need to have all that excess road space."
Now, San Francisco didn’t win the federal contest or the $50 million grant that came with it. But SFMTA spokesperson Paul Rose told me they’re still looking to move forward with many of the plan’s components. The city is applying for another federal grant to launch pilot programs around "connected carpool lanes, smart traffic signals, autonomous shuttles, dynamic carpool pick-up curbs, connected Vision Zero corridor, and Congestion Toll System," Rose said. "We expect a decision this month on this application."
We shouldn’t underrate the challenges here. Reducing the number of vehicles on the road will require persuading people to give up their privately owned cars and shift to a pure sharing model. That’s not easy. It involves changing some deep-seated behaviors, and policymakers and companies will have to get the incentives just right. If ride sharing remains unaffordable, or if people simply don’t want to give up their cars, the plan could easily stumble.
Still, San Francisco has all the reason in the world to try. The city has sharp geographic constraints, and skyrocketing housing prices are making the area unaffordable for many. Reformers often focus on changing the Bay Area’s zoning laws to build more housing on existing land, and that’s no doubt part of a solution. But reclaiming vehicle space for housing could prove an equally appealing concept.
Self-driving cars could free up an enormous amount of room
San Francisco’s transit officials aren’t the only ones thinking about how new tech might decrease the amount of space that cars take up. A fascinating recent study by two British engineering firms, Farrells and WSP|Parsons Brinckerhoff, looked at how London’s streets might be entirely redesigned if self-driving cars ever became a reality.
That study imagined a world in which the autonomous vehicles (AVs) of the future are shared rather than owned — you call for an AV, and it zips right to your door. The AVs themselves are either always on the road, picking up and dropping off passengers, or charging/refueling/parking in a few centralized locations. As such, there’s simply less need for street parking.
What’s more, if all the cars on the road were autonomous, they could take up far less space on the road. Vehicles navigated by robots could nestle closer together without fear of rear-ending each other. If collisions became more rare, the cars themselves could be smaller and thinner, taking up less space. City planners could reduce the width of streets or even cut back on the number of lanes without greatly affecting travel times.
If you pushed this far enough, the study notes, a city like London could gain another 15 to 20 percent of developable area. "This is primarily due to the removal of almost all parking spaces, but also because of roadspace simplification that will save space."
The authors of the paper sketch out a few visions of what this might look like in London. Like so:
Or like so:
"Of the estimated 8,000 hectares of central London land occupied by parked cars today, it is reasonable to assume that 50-70% — potentially more than 5,000 hectares — could be released once AVs are commonly in use," the study notes. Replacing those spots with housing or other structures would be worth tens of billions of dollars.
Of course, this is just a vision of what could be — someday. There are tons of hurdles in getting there. For starters, despite all the hype, there are no autonomous vehicles yet available that can handle the range of surprises that might pop up in an urban environment on a daily basis. As I’ve written before, the toughest thing for an autonomous vehicle to handle is other people — particularly reading and reacting to pedestrians, cyclists, and other human drivers. So we’re a ways from true self-driving cars that require no human intervention. It might be years; it might be decades.
What’s more, the transition is likely to be messy. Self-driving cars are most valuable when all the cars on the road are self-driving (that’s when you can get these cars to platoon closely together, for instance, or move more quickly through intersections). As long as there are still some human drivers on the road, though, it’s much harder to get the full benefit from autonomous vehicles. Perhaps the shift will happen naturally, as insurance rates for "manually driven" vehicles go up. Or perhaps cities will have to force the transition through policy.
So for now, think of this report as more of a utopian daydream — the culmination of a slow change in vehicle technology that will eventually let cities devote less space to vehicles and more space to, well, everybody else.
Cities can reclaim vehicle space in low-tech ways, too
Up until now, we’ve mostly been looking at newfangled technology: connected ride-sharing systems and autonomous vehicles. But it’s worth adding that cities don’t have to wait for Silicon Valley to come along before they can reclaim space from cars. There are plenty of low-tech solutions, too, from boosting mass transit to promoting walking and cycling to simple changes in parking policy.
Just as one example, Donald Shoup, an economist at UCLA, has long argued that cities have overbuilt and over-mandated parking. They do this partly by providing free street parking for all. But perhaps more importantly, many cities require all new developments to include specified large numbers of added parking spaces.
This is essentially a mandate for more parking — even if the demand isn’t there. In Washington, DC, the underground spots many developers build to comply with these minimum requirements cost between $30,000 and $50,000 each. It ends up driving up housing prices. And, of course, it means less space for other purposes.
Shoup has argued for a whole spate of changes in parking policy. But one of his simplest recommendations is to simply do away with minimum requirements for off-street parking for new buildings. "I'm pro-choice," he told Vox. "Let the developers build however many parking spots they want." (Developers would no doubt still build parking spots to accommodate demand — they just wouldn’t be required to build more than the market could bear.)
It’s not as sexy as a city full of shared, autonomous, connected, electric vehicles. But it’s the same principle. Cars take up a lot of space. One way to make cities better and more prosperous would be to find ways to reduce that space.
Further reading:
This story is part of The new new economy, a series on what the 21st century holds for how we live, travel, and work."Autarchy" redirects here. For the economic concept, see Autarky
Flag of autarchism
Autarchism is a political philosophy that promotes the principles of individualism, the moral ideology of individual liberty and self-reliance. It rejects compulsory government and supports the elimination of government in favor of ruling oneself to the exclusion of rule by others.
Autarchists [ edit ]
Robert LeFevre (1911–1986), a "self-proclaimed autarchist"[1] recognized as such by Murray Rothbard,[2] distinguished autarchism from anarchy, whose economics he felt entailed interventions contrary to freedom in contrast to his own laissez-faire economics of the Austrian School.[3] In professing "a sparkling and shining individualism" while "it advocates some kind of procedure to interfere with the processes of a free market", anarchy seemed to LeFevre to be self-contradictory.[3] He situated the fundamental premise of autarchy within the Stoicism of philosophers such as Zeno, Epicurus and Marcus Aurelius, which he summarized in the credo "Control yourself".[4]
Fusing these influences together, LeFevre arrived at the autarchist philosophy: "The Stoics provide the moral framework; the Epicureans, the motivation; the praxeologists, the methodology. I propose to call this package of ideological systems autarchy, because autarchy means self-rule".[4] LeFevre stated that "the bridge between Spooner and modern-day autarchists was constructed primarily by persons such as H. L. Mencken, Albert Jay Nock, and Mark Twain".[3]
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882), biographer Robert D. Richardson, described Emerson's anarchy as "'autarchy', rule by self".[5][6] Philip Jenkins has stated that "Emersonian ideas stressed individual liberation, autarchy, self-sufficiency and self-government, and strenuously opposed social conformity".[7]
See also [ edit ]
Not to be confused with [ edit ]
Autarky, a homophone meaning "to be self-sufficient"The New York Yankees announced they parted ways with manager Joe Girardi on Thursday. Girardi managed the club to a 910-710 record over 10 seasons, the best record in baseball during that time, and he was at the helm for their 2009 World Series championship.
Girardi's contract expired following the 2017 season, so technically he was not fired. He is not being brought back. There were rumblings Girardi was feeling burned out and wanted to spend more time with his family, leading to speculation he could walk away, though general manager Brian Cashman's statement made it clear this was the team's decision.
"I want to thank Joe for his 10 years of hard work and service to this organization," Cashman said. "Everything this organization does is done with careful and thorough consideration, and we've decided to pursue alternatives for the managerial position."
Replacing Girardi, who was wildly successful but of course far from perfect as a manager, will not be easy. There are already conflicting reports about which direction the Yankees will take.
On Girardi's replacement: He'll be someone Cashman's worked with. He'll be heavily influenced by front office. He won't make $4M a year. — Jack Curry (@JackCurryYES) October 26, 2017
yankees may interview people on the inside but are likely to find their next manager outside the organization. will want analytical guy. — Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) October 26, 2017
Cashman does tend to promote from within, or at least hire people with whom he has a strong working relationship. It's not often that he has hired someone without a relationship already in place. So, with that in mind, let's run down a not at all complete list of potential managerial candidates for the Yankees as they prepare to hand their exciting young core over to a new skipper.
Coaching staff
Joe Espada: Espada has been New York's third base coach since 2015, and before that he worked alongside Cashman in the front office, so the two know each other well. Espada seems to satisfy the three major criteria of the modern manager: He's young (42), he's versed in analytics and he has a relationship with the front office. And, as a bonus, Espada already knows the Yankees players. He came up as a minor-league coach and manager with the Marlins before joining the Yankees a few years ago.
Tony Pena: The 2003 AL Manager of the Year with the Royals, Pena joined the Yankees in 2005 and has since had stints as their first base coach (2005-08), bench coach (2009-14) and first base coach again (2015-17). Cashman interviewed Pena for the team's managerial opening in 2007, when the job went to Girardi. Pena has a career 198-285 (.410) managerial record, which came during some lean years with Kansas City from 2002-05.
Longtime Yankees coach -- and former MLB manager -- Tony Pena is a candidate to replace Joe Girardi. USATSI
Larry Rothschild: A longtime big-league coach, Rothschild has been New York's pitching coach since 2011, and he was also the first manager in (Devil) Rays franchise history. Tampa went 205-294 (.411) under his watch from 1998-2001. In addition to his time in New York and as manager of the Rays, Rothschild also spent nine years as pitching coach with the Cubs. If nothing else, he has experience with the demands of a big market.
Rob Thomson: Thomson served as Girardi's bench coach in 2008 and again from 2015-17, as well as his third base coach from 2009-14. He has been with the Yankees for a baseball lifetime. Thomson started with the organization as a minor-league coach in the early 1990s and has since held several different coaching staff and front office positions. He has no big-league managerial experience, though Thomson is a known quantity and already has relationships in place with the players and front office.
Other in-house candidates
Jay Bell: Yes, that Jay Bell, the former infielder who randomly socked 38 home runs one season. Bell joined the Yankees this past season and managed their High Class-A affiliate in Tampa. He is currently managing in the Arizona Fall League, and a few weeks ago, Baseball America's annual survey of scouts and league personnel named Bell the best managerial prospect in the High-A Florida State League. Bell has big-league coaching experience with the Diamondbacks (bench coach from 2005-06), Pirates (hitting coach in 2012) and Reds (bench coach from 2014-15).
Josh Paul: Paul, the former journeyman catcher, has been working in the Yankees' minor-league system as a coach and manager the past several years, and is said to be highly regarded by players and the front office. Making the jump from the lower levels -- most of Paul's coaching and managerial experience has come at the rookie ball and Class A level -- is rare, though we've seen teams hire managers with no experience before, so we shouldn't rule him out.
Al Pedrique: Pedrique has spent the past two seasons managing New York's Triple-A affiliate in Scranton, during which time the team won back-to-back division titles and the 2016 Triple-A championship. With his Triple-A success, Pedrique is said to be eager to get back into the MLB coaching ranks.
Al Pedrique has won back-to-bavk International League Manager of the Year awards and has voiced that he wants another shot at the bigs. — DJ Eberle (@ByDJEberle) October 26, 2017
Pedrique has extensive minor-league coaching experience, and he has also spent time on big-league staffs with the D-Backs and Astros. That includes a stint as interim manager in Arizona in 2004. The Yankees are going young, and Pedrique has already managed pretty much all of the team's top young players at Triple-A, including Aaron Judge, Gary Sanchez, Luis Severino, Greg Bird, Clint Frazier and Gleyber Torres.
Tim Naehring: An outside-the-box candidate? You bet. Naehring is the Yankees' vice president of baseball operations and one of Cashman's most trusted lieutenants. He's a former big-leaguer and an old school scout/talent evaluator who also knows analytics and has an open line of communication to the front office. The biggest knock against Naehring is his lack of coaching and managerial experience. He has been in player development pretty much his entire career, which is a different animal than working a clubhouse and calling the shots on the field.
Outside the organization
Brad Ausmus, Dusty Baker, and John Farrell: Ausmus, Baker and Farrell are worth mentioning only because they were recently let go and are available managers with experience. Baker in particular is the kind of manager a win-now team, which the Yankees are at this point, tends to hire. That said, Ausmus, Baker and Farrell have no prior connection to the Cashman era Yankees, which could work against them.
Eric Chavez: A dark horse. Chavez played two seasons with the Yankees (2011-12) and also spent the 2015 season in the front office as a special adviser to Cashman. He reportedly pushed hard for the Didi Gregorius trade. Chavez is a special assistant with the Angels -- he headed west when the Halos named former Yankees assistant general manager Billy Eppler their new GM two years ago -- but if he's looking to get back on the field and is open to returning to the East Coast, he could be a sneaky good managerial candidate for the Yankees.
Jason Giambi: For years now Giambi, who played in New York from 2002-08, has been said to be a future manager, mostly because he was a top notch clubhouse guy who managed to be both a mentor to young players and the team prankster during his playing days. The problem? Giambi has zero coaching or managerial experience. He would be the most rookie of rookie managers. I wouldn't completely eliminate him from contention, but I think the odds of this happening are quite small.
Trey Hillman: Hillman is managing the SK Wyverns in Korea and is one of Cashman's closest friends in baseball, dating back to their time working together in the Yankees' minor-league and player development system in the early 1990s. He has big-league managerial (Royals from 2008-10) and bench coach (Dodgers from 2011-13, Astros from 2015-16) experience, as well as lots of front office experience. Hillman returned to the Yankees in 2014 and spent time working alongside Cashman. If he wants to return to the majors -- and if his contract with the SK Wyverns allows him to leave -- Hillman could be among the leading candidates to replace Girardi.
Trey Hillman has big league managerial experience and is close to Brian Cashman. USATSI
Raul Ibanez: Ibanez has long been considered a future manager and he did spend the 2012 season with the Yankees -- you remember all those clutch postseason home runs, don't you? -- giving him a chance to get to know Cashman and vice versa. Throughout his career Ibanez was regarded as one of the best clubhouse guys and teammates in the game, as well as media friendly, which is a big plus in New York. He currently works as a special assistant for the Dodgers, but has no coaching or managerial experience.
Kevin Long: Long spent three years as hitting coach with New York's Triple-A affiliate before becoming their big league hitting coach in 2007. He was with the team until |
watched the Burton crew and some of the Stash park crew slay the more challenging features in the Deer Flats park. The transition from riding upper mountain steeps to The Stash’s flowing natural features is the best of both world’s, and many would argue it is where snowboarding is headed. Freestyle riding in natural terrain like The Stash makes for all-time training grounds and an epic addition to Jackson’s offerings.
This weekend, February 12, local riders will be competing in The Gathering sessions at Jackson Hole. Click here to register for the event. Go to thestash.com for more info on Jackson Hole’s new Stash parks.Astrobotic’s Peregine lander will be able to place between 35 and 265 kilograms of payload, such as rovers, on the lunar surface (credit: Astrobotic Technology) Landers, laws, and lunar logistics
It sounded so easy in September 2007: launch a privately-developed spacecraft that lands on the Moon, travels 500 meters, and returns data that includes high-definition video. When the X PRIZE Foundation announced the Google Lunar X PRIZE then, it was so confident that the prize could be achieved that it set a requirement that the $20-million grand prize be decreased to $15 million had no team won by the end of 2012, with the prize expiring by the end of 2014 (see “Google’s moonshot”, The Space Review, September 17, 2007). “This spacecraft will be the spacecraft that will carry customer payloads to the Moon on our first mission, and many more thereafter,” said Astrobotic’s Thornton. That initial optimism has been replaced by delays, but also determination. The prize has been extended several times, and now runs through the end of 2017. The number of teams, which once approached 30, is now down to 16, with some teams working together on getting to the Moon. But at least some of the teams still in the running have emphasized they are making progress, on both technical and regulatory issues, to make the case they’re still in the running—even if they sometimes downplay the importance of the prize itself. Introducing Peregrine At the Berlin Air Show June 2, Astrobotic Technology, the Pittsburgh-based company that is one of the leading prize contenders, announced the design of a new lander, called Peregrine. It replaces an earlier, and larger, design called Griffin that the company had been working on to land on the Moon. “This spacecraft will be the spacecraft that will carry customer payloads to the Moon on our first mission, and many more thereafter,” said John Thornton, CEO of Astrobotic, in a June 2 call with media to announce the new lander design as well as new corporate partnerships. Thornton said the lander’s payload is scalable, depending on the choice of launch vehicle and amount of propellant available. The initial mission, designed to fulfill the Google Lunar X PRIZE requirements and known simply as Mission One, will fly as a secondary payload on a commercial geostationary satellite launch, carry a payload of 35 kilograms to the lunar surface. Later missions, launching as primary payloads, will be able to bring payloads of up to 265 kilograms to the Moon. A key difference between Peregrine and Griffin, besides the physical size of the lander, is the vehicle’s propulsion system. While Griffin was to use one large engine to land on the Moon, Peregrine will use five smaller ISE-100 engines provided by Aerojet Rocketdyne. The thrusters, which NASA has also studied for use on its own proposed lander missions, are based on Divert and Attitude Control System thrusters Aerojet developed for missile defense systems. Astrobotic also used the press conference to announce a partnership with Airbus Defence and Space, the largest European aerospace company. Airbus will provide “key engineering support” for Peregrine, Thornton said, under a memorandum of understanding between the two companies. “For us at Airbus Defence and Space, the Moon is a very important topic,” said Bart Reijnen, senior vice president of on-orbit services and exploration at Airbus Defence and Space. “Astrobotic is what we see as being the frontrunner in the world of commercial lunar transportation.” DHL’s Sissing said its collaboration with Astrobotic could later include “extraterrestrial logistics in regard to Moon projects of the future.” Astrobotic also announced a partnership with shipping company DHL, who will be the official logistics provider of Astrobotic. That role includes shipping spacecraft components, including the payloads it will carry, to Astrobotic’s Pittsburgh headquarters for integration, and then shipping the completed lander to the launch site. Arjan Sissing, senior vice president of corporate brand marketing at DHL, suggested its partnership with Astrobotic—which includes the DHL logo prominently displayed on illustrations of Peregrine—could go deeper. That included, he said, “extraterrestrial logistics in regard to Moon projects of the future.” Peregine is still in its early phases of development: Thornton said the lander was just now approaching preliminary design review. At the press briefing, he declined to offer a specific schedule for the mission, including whether he felt that the lander would be ready to Mission One by the prize deadline of the end of 2017. The focus now, he said, is lining up payloads in addition to the ten already signed up—including rovers from two other teams—and getting them in place on the lander. “We will fly once all the payloads are ready,” he said. Thornton, though, is aware of a closer deadline: a requirement to have a signed launch contract, validated by the X PRIZE Foundation, in place by the end of this year. Teams that do not make that deadline will be dropped from the competition. So far, only Moon Express and SpaceIL have announced launch contracts for their lander. Astrobotic plans to join them, Thornton said. “X PRIZE has a deadline of getting a launch by the end of this year, and our goal is to do just that, to be on a manifest and ready to go,” he said. Getting regulatory approvals While Astrobotic has been working on its Peregrine lander, Florida-based Moon Express has been tackling a very different, yet still very challenging, issue: winning regulatory approval for its lunar lander. Moon Express, like a number of companies planning so-called “non-traditional” commercial space activities—which ranges from lunar landers and asteroid prospecting missions to commercial space stations—is facing a gap in US law regarding how the government carries out its obligation under Article VI of the Outer Space Treaty regarding “authorization and continuing supervision” of space activities. For communications and remote sensing satellites, the responsibilities to carry out that treaty obligation fall to agencies like FCC and NOAA, who license such spacecraft. But there are no clear responsibilities for those non-traditional missions, leading the State Department to argue it could not approve payload reviews for those missions, a key step in the launch licensing process. Richards likened the ongoing regulatory uncertainty to the state of commercial suborbital spaceflight prior to the 2004 flights of SpaceShipOne. “We’re facing the same thing with the Google Lunar X PRIZE.” In April, Moon Express announced it was filing paperwork with the FAA for a payload review for its lunar lander that comes with additional voluntary information about the mission. That additional information is intended to demonstrate to the State Department and other government agencies how Moon Express would comply with treaty obligations (see “Mining issues in space law”, The Space Review, May 9, 2016). The outcome of that review has not been disclosed, although there have been rumors for a few weeks, including an article last week in the Wall Street Journal, that Moon Express would win approval. However, it remains a major obstacle to that company, or other US-based firms planning lunar missions. Moon Express CEO Bob Richards, speaking at a June 7 panel at the Library of Congress in Washington after the screening of parts of the documentary series Moon Shot about the prize competition (see “Review: Moon Shot”, The Space Review, March 21, 2016), said he had initially ranked regulatory issues third after financing and technology in terms of challenges his company would face. “There’s been an interesting inversion to that,” he said, citing the more than $30 million the company has raised and technical progress it’s made on its lander, but ongoing regulatory uncertainty he likened to the state of commercial suborbital spaceflight prior to the 2004 flights of SpaceShipOne. “We’re facing the same thing with the Google Lunar X PRIZE,” he said. He said his ongoing payload review effort could end that uncertainty. “If the Wall Street Journal is correct,” Richards said, “we’re very close to that happening.” Astrobotic will have to go through the same payload review process for Peregrine, assuming it launches on an FAA-licensed commercial launch (while the company has not announced a launch contract, DHL’s Sissing did say at the Berlin Air Show briefing that the completed lander would be shipped to Florida for launch.) Thornton, in Berlin, said his company has had preliminary discussions with the FAA on the regulatory process. “I’m very confident that’s going to get worked out” by the time Astrobotic is ready to launch, Thornton said at the Library of Congress panel. That modified payload review process, though, is seen as only a temporary fix until a more permanent system that assigns oversight responsibilities to a specific government agency, like the FAA, is approved, likely through legislation. George Nield, FAA associate administrator for commercial space transportation, said at an American Bar Association space law forum June 8 that even if Moon Express does win approval for its payload review, it doesn’t eliminate the urgency his office, and many in industry, feel for a permanent solution. “What is being looked at right now is a Band-Aid fix because the system is broken,” he said. “There clearly is a problem, and we need to fix that.” “Moon Express is playing a vital role, and I think that their project demonstrates this is not abstract, this is not theory,” said Mike Gold, chairman of the FAA’s Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee. “There are actual projects going on now by the fact that we have not resolved this issue.” When will they fly? But as Astrobotic and Moon Express, among other teams, work on various financial, technical, and regulatory issues, the question remains: when will they fly, and does any team have a realistic shot of winning the prize by the December 2017 deadline? Richards said the launch contract his company has with Rocket Lab includes two launches in 2017 on that company’s Electron small launch vehicle, whose first launch is now planned for late summer. “You’re going to see us flying in 2017, so long as George [Nield] allows us to,” he said. Thornton didn’t discuss a launch schedule at the event. “You’re going to see us flying in 2017, so long as George [Nield] allows us to,” Richards said. Both companies emphasized that their business plans go beyond winning the Google Lunar X PRIZE. “Prizes are designed not to fulfill the cost of the challenge,” Richard said at the panel. “It’s up to the teams in any X Prize to find that business case.” In the case of Moon Express, that also means flying other payloads to the Moon. “The reason that we’re here is to build a long-term sustainable business of payload delivery to the Moon,” Thornton said. “That’s our way of contributing to making the Moon accessible to the world.” But with Astrobotic’s lander still at the PDR level of development, and Moon Express relying on a launch vehicle yet to fly, there are questions about whether either would be ready to fly by the end of 2017, despite the best of intentions. SpaceIL is the only other team that appears to be making serious progress towards a launch by the deadline (its ride is on a Falcon 9, as one of several payloads), but its focus is on educational outreach, rather than establishing a long-term business of lunar missions (see “Still chasing the Moon”, The Space Review, October 12, 2015). So, there are rumblings in industry that the X PRIZE Foundation and Google might need to extend the prize deadline yet again to keep the prize competition just that—a competition. With companies like Astrobotic and Moon Express planning to move ahead with their missions regardless of the outcome of the current prize competition, the organizers will have to decide whether they need those companies more than the companies need the Google Lunar X PRIZE. HomeA group of anti-water charge campaigners have staged a protest outside the GPO in Dublin, where Taoiseach Enda Kenny was launching the Government's plans to commemorate the 1916 Rising.
They banged on the doors and windows drowning out Mr Kenny's speech.
The Taoiseach, Tánaiste Joan Burton and the Minister for Arts Heritage and the Gaeltacht Heather Humphreys, were joined by former Taoisigh, dignitaries and relatives of the original leaders of the 1916 Rising to announce events for Ireland 2016.
As the Taoiseach started to give his official speech, to launch events for 2016, a heckler asked him what sacrifice he had made and shouted “shame on you” at him.
The protester was then removed from the building.
However, as he continued his speech protesters outside banged on the windows and doors of the building.
Protesters shouted: “Enda Kenny out out out” and “Irish Water will be free.”
Despite the banging, Mr Kenny continued his speech.
The banging continued again as the Tánaiste made her speech.
Click here to read more about the 1916 State commemorative events.
Protesters have started a demonstration outside the GPO as the taoiseach attempts to announce plans for commemoration. Lots of noise.
— Justin McCarthy (@MrJustinMac) November 12, 2014Law firm Ralli, which successfully challenged now defunct ACS:Law over threatening letters sent to alleged file sharers, has hinted that it is widening its scope to target other companies accused of similar practices.
"We are currently considering claims against a number of firms - watch this space," said the company in a Twitter post.
The announcement comes after the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal fined two solicitors at Davenport Lyons £20,000 and banned them from practising for three months.
They were found guilty of six breaches of the Solicitors' Code of Conduct after sending intimidating letters accusing people of illegal file sharing, a tactic famously practiced by ACS:Law.
Davenport Lyons issued a robust defence of its solicitors, arguing that the company had acted above board and in the interests of its clients.
"We were instructed by the owners of intellectual property rights in music, film and games to help them curtail the significant losses they were suffering as a result of the unlawful file sharing of their products," the firm said.
"The steps we took on behalf of our clients were for the protection of their legitimate legal rights. We consider that we acted in our clients' best interests at all times."
Nevertheless, it appears that the ruling could pave the way for future legal action from firms like Ralli on behalf of clients who have been targeted by firms such as Davenport Lyons.
Ralli succesfully defended 27 clients accused of file sharing by ACS:Law, which led to ACS:Law being declared bankrupt and the judge in the case taking a dim view of the actions of its boss Andrew Crossley.
However, Crossley told V3 last week that he had no regrets over the way in which ACS:Law had gone about its business, claiming that its work was "compliant, lawful, measured, appropriate and needed".These are times of immense challenge and immense opportunity for the Catholic Church.
Consider these statistics for the United States.
Only 30 percent of Americans who were raised Catholic are still practicing.
Fully 10 percent of all adults in America are ex-Catholics.
The number of marriages celebrated in the Church decreased dramatically, by nearly 60 percent, between 1972 and 2010.
Only 60 percent of Catholics believe in a personal God.
If the Church is to reverse these trends, the evangelizers must first be evangelized-in other words, Catholics-in-the-pew must make a conscious choice to know and follow Jesus before they can draw others to him. This work of discipleship lies at the heart of Forming Intentional Disciples, a book designed to help Church leaders, parish staff and all Catholics transform parish life from within.
Drawing upon her fifteen years of experience with the Catherine of Siena Institute, Sherry Weddell leads readers through steps that will help Catholics enter more deeply into a relationship with God and the river of apostolic creativity, charisms, and vocation that flow from that relationship for the sake of the Church and the world.
Learn about the five thresholds of postmodern conversion, how to open a conversation about faith and belief, how to ask thought-provoking questions and establish an atmosphere of trust, when to tell the Great Story of Jesus, how to help someone respond to God's call to intentional discipleship, and much more.
And be prepared for conversion because when life at the parish level changes, the life of the whole Church will change.Hey guys!
Here is the dealio with the Mac/Linux/Wii U release. When I developed Two Brothers I did it on the weekends and I worked my butt off making it the best game it could be... and it some regards people love it, in other aspects it fell short in my own expectations due to MY time constraints of developing weekends and night time. Moon Lighting as a game developer is very difficult, and I hadn't imagined anyone would even back Two Brothers!! I am really happy you all did, and I am so grateful.
I made Two Brothers inside of Multimedia Fusion 2... and to be quite honest, it's a terribly buggy program... and this lead to all the issues Two Brothers has in terms of glitches on some machines.
The original plan was to port to Mac and Linux using Anaconda. Which is a great method, but it feels terrible for a game the size of Two Brothers. Some playthroughs can take 20 or so hours, and it's just too much for that engine to handle... so it runs, but it's really slow and just not worth your time.
so here is what I had to do...
Since january I've been remaking the engine inside of Unity and it feels LOADS better. I ported/redesigned the more boring dungeons/ with Tiled and the game is loads more polished. I also added leveling up and other RPG elements that some people desired in the original release.
Because Unity can build to every platform porting the game will be REALLY easy.
Also the engine is mostly done and now I just need to get all the levels in and redo the cutscenes in Unity, which wont take too long since all the dialogue is written and the animations are all there.
It should only be a few more months and will hopefully be out before the end of the fall!!!
A friend of mine is taking over the process of getting the physical rewards out for me and they should go out this month (the ones that still haven't gone out. We had shipped out quite a few but then realized the company who filled our order didn't send the proper amounts and they made our lives hell in making more without us paying them again... but that's a story for another time)
Anyway, you've probably seen that I am working on another game called Y2K.
I want everyone to know that Chromophore release takes priority for ME, personally. I started Two Brothers and I will FINISH IT the way everyone will love it.
So here is the deal with Y2K... Some people (who will go unnamed for a bit) liked my work enough to publish/fund the development of a new game... and that game is Y2K. I was able to leave my terrible animation gig that was 2 hours away from my house, work closer to home, and devote all of my time to game development. Everyone who worked on Two Brothers also got to leave their jobs and they are working on Y2K full time, whereas I am splitting my time between Two Brothers and Y2K.
This was a deal I HAD to take as my mother is extremely ill and me being 2 hours away from her was difficult for her, and terrible for my own mental health... so now I am able to live my dream.
Anyway Chromophore is the updated version of Two Brothers... changed the name because everyone confused it with Brothers:Tale of Two Sons for some reason. Anyway, obviously it's free for everyone who backed us as an update...
Thanks.
-BrianAre you aware about the colorful history of Pizza
Today, it wont be an understatement to claim that pizza is by far the favorite food of most Americans. Pizza huts easily make business worth millions on daily basis, if we were to look at the global figures. As much as the food tastes delicious, the history of pizza is quite eventful and colorful as well. The exact date about the invention of pizza is yet an unsolved mystery. However, there are great speculations on how and who discovered pizza. Lets have a look at the fascinating history of pizza.Some believers vouch for the fact that the Italians were the one who invented pizza. Its believed that the Egyptians, Babylonians and people from Middle East cultures consumed un-leaven bread prepared in mud ovens. Besides this, Mediterranean folks also consumed bread. Native spices and olive oil were used for toppings on these breads that were consumed during the ancient days.Another theory claims that the lower class of the Naples invented pizza in a similar manner. In the 80s, an Italian individual named Raffaele Esposito prepared pizza by accident in his attempt to please the touring king and the queen visiting his place. He included tomato, cheese and green basil to prepare the pizza. Subsequently, the newly found dish garnered widespread popularity after being warmly cherished by the impressed king and queen.In the 90s, pizza made its way into the United States. The credit for this goes to the Italian immigrants who visited notable cities such as Chicago and New York. Since a large portion of the city population comprised of the Italians, many cafes started serving pizzas to the masses. The American soldiers were also responsible for the popularity of the pizza. They got the taste of it after the end of Second World War while occupying the Italian territory.Pizzas have been pleasing truckloads of taste bugs since its evolution several decades back. Pizza huts can be found in many different countries across the world. Recent reports have unleashed the fact that children in the age group of 3 to 11 prefer having pizza for dinner over any other food. Today, it has also entered the Guinness book of records for a couple of reasons. Contrary to the popular belief, pizza can be prepared from nonfattening ingredients as well. The fact that the meal has been such a hit amongst the masses, a healthy pizza can do wonders to ones health and appetite.Women are now drinking each other’s breast milk, and they are actually enjoying it.
Sabina Urraca, a freelance journalist out of Spain, tried drinking a friend’s breast milk for a week to see if it was the “youth-restoring nectar for adults.” The benefits of drinking breastmilk, as some experts claim, include: improved skin, muscle growth, and a few others. “I decided to find out if drinking this sweet juice of life would do wonders for me too,” Urraca writes.
On the first sip, “the milk is warm and kind of sweet,” and tastes similar to “watery horchata,” Urraca writes. Apparently, the taste of adult breast milk is not that far from “oat milk,” or “rice milk,” except for the aftertaste, which immediately reminds the drinker that it comes from a “mammal.” After her first glass, “fresh off the teat,” Urraca takes a few jars of frozen milk from her lactating friend’s secret reserves.
For the first few days of the week, Urraca drinks her breast milk neat, and not on the rocks. She sees some immediate benefits of feeling “more energetic, more lucid, and purified.” She even feels “less exhausted,” after working out. These benefits, however, ended up being simply placebo. “On the last two days of my week of drinking breast milk, I knew it had all basically been for nothing,” Urraca says. A determined and tenacious young woman, Urraca decided to finish out the week.
With just two milk jars left, she warmed them both up and added “two tablespoons of cacao.” Like a young child watching a heavy snowfall, Urraca sat by a windowsill and lapped up her final bit of chocolaty breast milk. “Whatever breast milk does for an adult, drinking it still feels like you are stealing from a baby,” Urraca concludes.
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Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.Over the course of his 18-year career, quarterback Peyton Manning faced a New England Patriots team coached by Bill Belichick on 20 occasions, developing into one of the most intriguing match-ups on a near-annual basis on the NFL’s calendar.
The reverence between Manning and Belichick has become apparent. When reached while traveling on Sunday hours after news of Manning’s decision to retire, Belichick said: “It is with great admiration that I congratulate Peyton Manning for his tremendous career in the National Football League. Peyton raised the bar as a performer and as a competitor and with a personal class in which he carried himself off the field. My relationship with Peyton is special, it is unique and it is one that I value greatly. For 18 years, we battled fiercely but regardless of each game's outcome, I always walked off the field with the utmost appreciation for the highest level of competition in which those games were prepared for and played. Peyton's immense contributions to the game reflect how genuinely passionate he is about it. I can honestly say that I never 'enjoyed' our meetings, but the respect I have for Peyton Manning as a competitor was, and will likely remain, second to none."
Manning foreshadowed the possibility of retirement following the final game in which Manning played against a team Belichick coached.
“Hey, listen, this might be my last rodeo. So, it sure has been a pleasure,” Manning said to Belichick moments after the 2016 AFC championship.
Belichick's teams won 12 of the 20 games against Manning.
Manning, who spent the 14 seasons of his career with the Indianapolis Colts, faced off against the Patriots in every season except for 2002 and again in 2011, when he missed the season with a neck injury. The in-game matchup between the future Hall of Fame quarterback and mastermind coach was among the notable storylines each time the two teams faced.Florida's gay marriage ban has been struck down.
A federal judge on Thursday declared Florida's ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional, joining state judges in four counties who have sided with gay couples wishing to tie the knot.
U.S. District Judge Robert L. Hinkle in Tallahassee ruled that the ban added to Florida's constitution by voters in 2008 violates the 14th Amendment's guarantees of equal protection and due process. Hinkle issued a stay delaying the effect of his order, meaning no marriage licenses will be immediately issued for gay couples.
Hinkle, an appointee of President Bill Clinton, compared bans on gay marriage to the long-abandoned prohibitions on interracial marriage and predicted both would be viewed by history the same way.
"When observers look back 50 years from now, the arguments supporting Florida's ban on same-sex marriage, though just as sincerely held, will again seem an obvious pretext for discrimination," Hinkle wrote in a 33-page ruling. "To paraphrase a civil rights leader from the age when interracial marriage was struck down, the arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice."
Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi has appealed the previous rulings striking down the ban in Broward, Miami-Dade, Monroe and Palm Beach counties. Hinkle's ruling allows time for appeals in the federal case. Bondi has said the Florida cases should await a final ruling on gay marriage by the U.S. Supreme Court.
A number of similar rulings around the country have been put on hold while appeals are pursued.
The latest Florida ruling came in a pair of lawsuits that brought by gay couples seeking to marry in Florida and others who want to force Florida to recognize gay marriages performed legally in other states. Currently, 19 states and the District of Columbia permit same-sex marriage.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, which represented some of the gay couples, said the tide of rulings makes legal same-sex marriage in Florida appear inevitable.
"We're very pleased to see the ban held unconstitutional in such unequivocal terms so that all Florida families will soon finally have the same protections," said ACLU staff attorney Daniel Tilley.
Dawn Kallio, who married her partner in Washington, DC, said the ruling was just one more hurdle.
"And it's promising that the state federal court has ruled in favor of equality," Kallio said. "And I think it's just a matter of time until the Supreme Court clarifies its ruling from last year to include all of the states."
Liberty Counsel, a law group that has defended Florida's gay marriage ban, issued a statement from founder Mat Staver:
"The judiciary, not marriage, is on trial. When judges issue opinions that natural marriage laws are unconstitutional, they lower the respect for the legal system. When people lose confidence in the courts, the courts will lose their influence. This decision has nothing to do with the Constitution. Floridians did not create, but rather affirmed, natural marriage. A judge's opinion cannot deconstruct the natural created order of male and female."F Even Santa Won't Pet A Reindeer Sjnds, Sept. 13. Slim Gym Promises To Trim 1."" 1 l good for flabby thighes. reducing the wa;.-t line and fur toning up stomach mucles. Roth daytime and exening c!aes are scheduled. The series of 12 lessons will be taught each Tuesday and Friday from 10 a.m. to noon at the Y or each Monday and Thursday from 7.30 to 9 p m., beginning this week. Other activities which begin this week at the Y include: A 10 lesson Preparation for Childbirth class being taught Friday from 1 to 3 p m. by Nancy Levonian, registered nurse. A six-week ballroom dance course each Wednesday from 7:30 to 9 p.m. with Larry Telligrini as instructor. Classes in bridge, knitting, sewing, both advanced and beginning, also are being planned as well as pre-Christmas crafts and rugcraft. Information on any of the classes may be obtained by calling the Y at 426-3062. With children going off to school tomorrow, mothers will hae a chance to think of themselves for a change and the YWCA believes it has just the thing that will make them feci and look like a million dollars. It's the Slim Gym classes taucht by former model and physiotherapist LaDean Griffin. Cass members will be given special exercises to benefit every part of the body and will also receive medically approved diets. Average weight loss for those participating last spring was three pounds a week, according to Mrs. Griffin. As a part of the course Mrs. Griffin also will give class members the benefit of her modeling school experience, teaching them posture, carriage, how to walk and sit. In the accompanying photographs, her niece, Haw-ley McKinncy, demonstrates some of the exercises 1 r A V.. hi v - i y i f f 1 By RON REEVES ttnlmtl SUM Wnlir W hen on s a raindeer, and in Santa Crur it isn't too uncommon with Santa's Village so close, the animal looks ger.tle and cuddly. But it isn't so. If you want the low down on how mean these critters can get. just talk to Jimmie McDonald an 18 year-old Santa Cruz boy who weighs only 127 pounds and has the job of breaking four new reindeer at the park. "I've been bruised, kicked and knocked around since they arrived and have lost six pairs of pants and three shirts in just the last week," Jimmie said. The four deer, which weigh about 400 to 504 pounds each, are steers from the Fred Zumstein reindeer ranch in Redmond, Ore. At the ranch they ran in the fields, and at the village they have to learn to pull kids in Santa's sleigh and Santa himself in the many parades and festivals entered by the park. It isn't an easy job. Jimmie explained: "You always have to be very gentle with them." This is even when an irate deer gets you pinned against a wall, slashes your shirt and skin with razor-sharp front hooves or drags you across the meadow as has happened before. Jimmie said a reindeer never feels the understanding of guilt, as a horse does. This means punishment, as slapping a horse, only panics the animal and makes things worse. "They're not really domesticated. They have all their wild instincts and just don't trust people," he said. Furthermore, the Oregon ranch deer are more trouble than those from the northern wilds, as they have lost their fear of man. Without fear or trust, a deer can be a mighty stubborn creature. rfi. shXi.iAiWy 5S.i.il.Sfco-j -VES- JW.ajka.iiliiriiUji'4j2 id i 11' fi! 1 itlMUiat" ft iM nnraf1 ft If NEW REINDEER, one of the four at San- mie has plans of trying to train it to carta's Village, is being broken to pull San- ry a cliild in a saddle. The teenager de-ta's sleigh by Jimmie McDonald. This dares reindeer aren't the gentle animals deer is the calmest of the four and Jim- they appear to be, but van be downright da)igcrous. dp,U-4f, - j'X g ; r. Sf- I -'W.' '"- " M 1L-s t i i The reindeer duties at the park are to walk around in front of the Santa's Sleigh ride, which is temporarily out of commission until the new deer are broken. The deer do not actually pull the sleigh, as it weighs a ton or so and is set up to carry 24 kids. The sleigh is equipped with an electric motor and merely runs around the track, with the deer walking ahead. When not walking around the track, the deer are displayed in a pen. In parades the deer Dull Santa's sleigh, but are'led by.he trainer walking along side. Santa also has a powerful brake which he can put on in case the reindeer get "skittish." V V-H So f':. -..... FOR FLABBY THIGHS 2 FOR STOMACH MUSCLES 3... Book Fair Will Benefit Library Bond Campaign Win At Bridge South Encourages West To Err New LP's At The Library New LP records that may be borrowed from the muale department of the Santa Cruz public library include:'Tennessee Ernie Ford: Great Gospel Songs. Ford and th Jordanaires sing favorite gospel songs accompanied by Boyce Hawkins. Grieg: Sonata No. 3 in C Minor. Andre Gertler, violin, with Edith Farnadi at the piano. Styne: Funny Girl. The original Broadway cast recording of the new musical starring Barbara Streisand and Sydney Chaplin. Schumann, Symphony No. 1 in B Flat Major, Op. 38 ("Spring Symphony"). Charles Munch conducting the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Gershwin: Concerto in F for piano and orchestra. Eugen List, piano, with the Eastman-Rochester Symphony Orchestra conducted by Howard Hanson....? - f- ft. w- 4 : Jimmie says he has been around deer r.ince he was eight years old and has been working with them himself since he was 10. He came into the unusual training through his father, M. B. McDonald of 446 35th avenue, who was an animal trainer. To Jimmie reindeer breaking is just a job to help him get through Cabrillo college, which he enters this year. Eventually he plans to get into the sir, but not behind a herd of reindeer. If and when Jimmie shouto "Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night," it'll come from an airplane, as his future goal is to be a commercial pilot. Carmel-By-The-Sea -... it comparable POINT IOBOS ROOM..rntil hnnqul fnoMy on th Coolf... idnl lor O'oupj, conlftnci. COTTAGES... with firtplooi. IANAI ROOMS... ocon view Urracti overlooking htofffd poof. Highland Inn I i V5 The breaking began gradually when the reindeer arrived in their padded trucks. The first step is in feeding and letting the deer get to know its trainer. Then comes the first introduction to the halter and eventually the harness which will be hooked to the sleigh. Even a well-trained reindeer is never allowed to come in contact with the people visiting ths park. One of the main reasons is reindeer detest being petted, the natural action of r child. Jimmie explained that the hair of reindeer is hollow and the petting action causes an unpleasant sensation for the animal. Woman's club are cooperating with the new library organization in the venture. Attending the organizational meeting at Harvey West clubhouse were Mrs. Geraldine Work, county and city librarian; Mrs. Thelma Anderson, children's librarian, and Mesdames Carol Stau-dacher, Donald Mungai, Phillip Musson, Howard Berge, Frank Murphy Jr., and Donald Starr Anyone interested in working on the Book Fair or the campaign may contact Mrs. Work at the main library or Mrs. Moll at 426-5095. The group's next meeting is slated for September 25 at 10 a.m. at Harvey West clubhouse. Live Oak Grange will have its "booster night" meeting Tuesday at 8 p. m. at the hall, to which the public is invited. According to the Lecturer, Mrs. James Hadaway, a varied program has been planned including feature numbers from other granges, the Senior |
England start their four-match series against South Africa on Thursday (Picture: Getty)
England wicket-keeper Jonny Bairstow suffered a brief and bizarre injury scare ahead of the first Test against South Africa after facing Sachin Tendulkar’s son in the Lord’s nets.
Bairstow, 27, faced only one delivery but was forced to cut his session short after being struck on the foot by the teenage bowler, according to the Daily Mail.
Steve Harmison: 'England greats James Anderson and Stuart Broad could retire after Ashes'
Tendulkar’s son, 17-year-old Arjun, was practising with England and his first ball was a yorker that pinned Bairstow.
While the Yorkshire star is in no danger of missing the opening Test, which starts on Thursday, the in-form batman briefly received medical assistance to ease the pain during Wednesday’s session.
Bairstow will be hoping to maintain his incredible run over the past 18 months against the No 2 Test team in the world, who will be without their captain Faf du Plessis.
Bairstow was pinned on the foot by the teenage bowler (Picture: Getty)
Sachin Tendulkar with his son Arjun in 2011 (Picture: Getty)
Du Plessis, 32, returned home following the difficult birth of his first child and will link up with the South Africa squad ahead of the second match.
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New captain Joe Root confirmed Toby Roland-Jones would be the unfortunate member of England’s 12-man squad to miss out at Lord’s.
‘I’ve decided on the team, Liam [Dawson] is going to play. Toby is the unfortunate one to miss out but he’s really impressed everyone with the way he has gone about his business,’ he said.
‘Liam’s character is exceptional – the way he bowled in India and so far this season has been brilliant. He’ll bring us a lot of control and a bit of depth in our batting as well.
Joe Root has named his team for the first match against South Africa (Picture: Getty)
‘Gary [Ballance] is going to bat at three. The way he has played this year and the amount of runs he has scored has been excellent.
‘Hopefully he will get off to a cracking start this week and show everyone that he’s an international cricketer.
‘I look at the team and I think it’s got great balance. The guys are raring to go and really looking forward to tomorrow.’
MORE: ‘Fearless’ Kagiso Rabada has a plan to dismantle England for a second time at Lord’sImage caption News Corp has completed its internal review of practices at the Sun newspaper, Mr Murdoch says
Ofcom will not be "rushed into a knee-jerk reaction" on BSkyB's broadcasting licence, the BBC understands.
The regulator is considering whether BSkyB is "fit and proper" to hold a licence, given News Corp's 39% stake.
Labour and the Lib Dems have urged Ofcom to hasten its review after an MPs' report said Rupert Murdoch was "not a fit person" to run News Corp.
In a statement earlier, BSkyB said it remained a "fit and proper" holder of a broadcasting licence.
Announcing its results for the first quarter of 2012, the satellite broadcaster said it was engaging with Ofcom on its assessment.
It pointed to a "positive contribution to UK audiences, employment and the broader economy, as well as its strong record of regulatory compliance and high standards of governance".
The Liberal Democrats wrote to Ofcom on Tuesday urging it hasten a review of BSkyB's licence, after the Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee released its report into phone hacking at News International. News International is a subsidiary of News Corp and published the now-defunct News of the World (NoW) tabloid.
Committee disagreement
Labour leader Ed Miliband has also said the regulator needs to "add urgency" to its investigation.
The BBC has been told Ofcom wants to be "fully appraised" before it reaches any conclusions and that the review will take "as long as it takes".
But the regulator has previously said it would not wait for the conclusion of any criminal proceedings over hacking before making a judgement.
Meanwhile, First Minister Alex Salmond has refused to say whether he was the victim of phone hacking as he dismissed calls for a separate Scots inquiry into hacking.
He said he would be discussing a "range of matters" when he goes before the Leveson Inquiry on press standards, next month.
On Tuesday, the media committee concluded that Mr Murdoch was "not a fit person" to run a major international business, although four of the 10 committee members disagreed, with the MPs split on party lines.
Conservative member Louise Mensch criticised Labour members for including the "not fit" line and said the report had lost credibility.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Louise Mensch says the 'not fit' line was not discussed until Monday and Paul Farrelly now agrees with her
During a visit to Southampton, Labour leader Ed Miliband denied that his MPs' criticism had harmed the report but said he wished it had been unanimous.
"I think they were completely right to come to the conclusions after looking at the evidence," he said.
The media committee's report also accused three former News International executives - one-time executive chairman Les Hinton, former News of the World editor Colin Myler and former legal manager Tom Crone - of giving misleading evidence to Parliament.
News Corp said some of the comments in the committee's report were "unjustified and highly partisan".
In an email to staff at his UK newspapers on Tuesday night, Mr Murdoch said the business could grow "better and stronger" following the phone-hacking scandal.
The MSC was set up after it was revealed reporters at the now defunct News of the World (NoW) had hacked into the mobile phone of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler.Trump still backs Muslim ban — but is 'flexible'
Donald Trump (Photo11: Steve Helber, AP)
Donald Trump is sending mixed signals about one of his most-criticized proposals, a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States.
"No, I'm not softening my stance at all," the Republican presidential candidate said Friday on NBC's Today show. "But I'm always flexible on issues."
In recent days, Trump has described the proposed ban as a "suggestion" but has also said he's sticking by it.
Some Republicans who are leery of supporting the volatile New York businessman have welcomed the suggestions that he may back away from the ban. Others have expressed concern about Trump's proposed "flexibility," a term he has applied to a variety of plans.
During the NBC interview, Trump said the goal is to try to prevent terrorists from entering the country. The presumptive GOP nominee has also said he would appoint a commission to study the Muslim issue.
"We have a major problem and we have to look at the problem, we have to solve the problem," Trump said.
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1TeDM8HOld at heart, but I’m only twenty-eight. –W. Axl Rose, Estranged
Although I live in a college town, in my apartment complex my next-door neighbor is an elderly gentleman. I’m not sure exactly how old he is, but I’m pretty sure he’s too old to live alone.
I know this because tonight was the fourth time in as many months that I’ve had to somehow rescue him after having fallen. The first two times, it was during business hours so I told the apartment complex and they sent somebody by to open the door and pick him up. The third time, it was on a Saturday morning, so when I heard the faint “help” through the door I had to wait around for them to send somebody with a key to open the door. After they opened it, I went in to pick him up. Fortunately, he was really light and with very little effort I was able to lift him onto the bed. Unfortunately, he wasn’t wearing any pants so I saw much more than I would have preferred.
Tonight, the emergency number at the complex said it would take forever for somebody to come so they recommended I call 911. This may be intentional on their part, for I’ve spoken about this with one of the people who work at the complex and they said that they’ve had to pick him up several times that I’ve never heard about. Anyhow, I called and waited. The police came first and broke through a window. The paramedics came shortly thereafter and walked him to his bed. He’s watching movies as I write.
He has a son that visits frequently who seems to be somewhere in his fifties. Last weekend, I overheard them fighting (perhaps the son yelling would be more accurate). I just caught bits and pieces, but the upshot was that the old guy never leaves his bed, never exercises, that every time the son comes to visit he’s just lying in bed either watching a movie or asleep.
I’ve said “hello” to the son several times but never spoke about his father until after the fight. I mentioned the several times he’s fallen, and he said he knew, that the problem is that he never gets any exercise. Of course, this brings up a pretty nasty catch-22. Having exercised more in the past may well have prevented today’s problems, but now that his muscles have atrophied, if he tries to exercise more often he’ll probably just fall more often. I didn’t bring this up because I didn’t feel like it was in my place, and the son says he’s building a cottage for his father right next to his house out in the country, so hopefully that gets finished soon.
But what struck me more immediately (which I also didn’t bring up to the son) is that I knew exactly what the problem was. The father has lost his will to live. Sure, he still wants to breathe and probably doesn’t “want to die” in so many words, but there’s a chasm between what he’d like to get out of life and what he thinks he can actually get. He believes that as crappy as his life might be today, if he exercised (or whatever else) things would be just as crappy. It’s simply not worth the effort.
The reason this made so much sense to me is that far too many men and boys today are already where he is, only we’ve gotten there decades prematurely. Boys check out of school and turn into Ritalin-dependent by their tenth birthday. Men refuse to “man-up” and play video games as much as any middle-schooler did just a couple of decades ago. We don’t “do what we’re supposed to” because we don’t see the point. It’s not worth the effort.
Of all the explanations for this I’ve encountered, Dalrock perhaps describes it best (and I recommend that post above all others if you’re having difficulty explaining to somebody why modern men won’t “man up”). I hope to go into his post in more detail (and I would have tonight if not for the drama), but he uses economic analogies that I think might actually have a chance of getting through to some conservatives.
Regarding economic incentives, I’m not sure which school of economics is which here, but there’s a school that assumes that in markets we’re rational actors. I don’t disagree in that I believe we go along with what we perceive to be in our own self-interest, but sometimes those decisions aren’t precisely “rational”, even if what we choose to do is exactly what we’d do if we thought things through in detail.
Captain Capitalism was some sort of banker, Roosh was an engineer, and each of them at some point made a conscious choice to opt out of the rat-race. Furthermore, each decided to pursue his own genuine desires instead of what everybody thought they should do.
But for every Cappy Cap and Roosh, there are thousands who either drop out of the rat-race or never start it without ever consciously deciding to do so, and of these, very few have the intelligence or strength of character to actively pursue something else in its stead. I suspect very few men outside of the manosphere sit down with a pen and paper and think through the choice not not get married, they just don’t do it. I’m sure that some guys forego college because they’ve analyzed how much debt they’d accrue, but far more simply lose all interest in school by third grade because of their awful teachers.
And a lot probably really want to do exactly what Mark Driscoll wants them to do, but they just can’t find it in themselves to actually do it. They resolve to turn in their homework on time but always lose it. They procrastinate on their college essays until they get something awful done at the last minute. Every day they promise themselves they’ll apply for at least ten jobs, but somehow they just finish the newest Grand Theft Auto instead. They can’t think of a reason not to ask Laura to marry them, but they just never ask.
The disincentives Dalrock describes are rational reasons to “opt out” for lots of us, but for lots of others they’re the background blur that leads us in the same direction. I know this because long before I knew the tangible reasons for forsaking the rat-race, even though I really thought I wanted to get a great job in business, I simply couldn’t. No matter how strongly I resolved to get the job of my mother’s dreams, every day there would be some reason for me not to do it.
And I know I’m not alone. For lots of us, no amount of guilt or societal pressure will get us to do what we know won’t make us happy. We might not know why we won’t, but we won’t. Period.
Of course there are ways out of this. It’s one thing to opt out of what they want you to do, to reject them. It’s quite another to discover and strive for what you want you to do. How many guys are even aware of the possibilities overseas? The careers they could get that they might actually enjoy? We’ve been trained to obey based on the Prussian industrial model since kindergarten, we don’t have happy fathers to set examples for us, we’re taught nothing about personal finance or how to discipline ourselves to achieve a goal, the options seem to be don’t get a degree and therefore be disqualified from every “prestigious” job or get a degree and not even work in hopes of paying it off a few decades later.
So the Alphas just get laid a lot and play video games, and the betas just play video games. The guys who do more are often even more miserable and lose all their hard work to some unhappy wife. Is Tyrone any better off than the thugs who get all the women he wants?
Which means that lots of us are old men who’ve lost the will to live. Maybe we’re not bedridden and in danger of falling, but we’re not exactly “youthful” either. We don’t see any point in putting any effort into anything, only we get there at twenty-three instead of in our eighties. Me might go through some of the motions of having fun by heavy-duty partying, but we’ve already given up on ever feeling truly fulfilled. We’ve not only never been taught how to achieve our Mission, we’ve been rigorously trained to do the opposite.
A system based on such Selflessness will only eat itself. We’ll never make it as a nation of only boys and old men.
God managed to get the very best out of Abraham, and He did it because He recognized, acknowledged, and blessed Abraham’s deepest desires. Unless we learn to follow His example, we’ll become a nation of Hamlets instead.Negotiations have stalled because of Israeli settlement construction in occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem [EPA]
Jordan's foreign minister has said the first meetings between Israeli and Palestinian peace negotiators in more than a year ended without any significant breakthroughs.
Nasser Judeh, who hosted Tuesday's meeting in Amman, said the talks were held in a positive atmosphere.
Although he said there were no breakthroughs on matters of "substance", he said "the important thing is the two sides have met face to face".
Peace talks broke down in September 2010. The Palestinians say they will not resume talks while Israel continues to build Jewish settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem. Israel insists on talks without preconditions.
Israel's chief negotiator Yitzhak Molcho, his Palestinian counterpart Saeb Erakat, Judeh and representatives of the Middle East Peace Quartet started their meeting at the foreign ministry, a Jordanian official said.
Before the meetings, Judeh was quoted by the government-owned Jordan Times as saying: "Our objective is to bring them together and try to push for a breakthrough in the peace talks."
'Right environment'
Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas said on Tuesday the outcome of the meeting would soon be clear.
Earlier, Nasser Judeh, Jordan's foreign minister, said that Tuesday's meeting was a "serious" bid to help relaunch the stalled peace talks.
Jordan has a 1994 peace treaty with Israel.
Tony Blair, the envoy of the international Quartet on the Middle East, was expected to attend the session, along with other officials of the grouping, made up of the European Union, Russia, the UN and the US.
"It is a serious effort to find a common ground between the two sides and help restart direct peace talks," Mohammad Kayed, the Jordanian foreign ministry spokesman, said.
"All sides should invest in this opportunity and help create the right environment for the success of this effort through refraining from unilateral and provocative actions."
Long-awaited meeting
The meeting was the first official Israeli-Palestinian meeting since negotiations broke off in 2010, according to Xavier Abu Eid, a spokesman for the negotiations affairs department of the Palestine Liberation Organisation. However, he said it was not a negotiating session.
Erakat made the same point in an earlier interview with Voice of Palestine radio. "This meeting will be devoted to discussing the possibility of making a breakthrough that could lead to the resumption of negotiations. Therefore, it will not mark the resumption of negotiations," he said.
Dan Meridor, a senior Israeli cabinet minister who also holds the intelligence portfolio and the post of deputy prime minister, told Israeli public radio that the meeting was "a positive development".
He said the meeting did not in itself constitute a return to direct talks, but expressed hope it would be a springboard which would "allow the Palestinians to return to negotiations".
'Talks about talks'
Al Jazeera's senior political analyst Marwan Bishara said the meeting was merely about having "talks about talks".
"The Israelis need it. It seems Abbas needs it for the time being," he said. "Certainly the Europeans and the Americans need to give the impression that there is a peace process going on. It is a win-win situation for everybody, but a win-win situation that it seems, utterly, will fail."
Direct talks ground to a halt in September 2010, when an Israeli freeze on new West Bank construction expired and Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, declined to renew it. Israel insists on direct talks without preconditions.
"What the Palestinians are saying is 'we are not negotiating'. The endgame is [Israel] must stop the settlements and recognise the two state solution on the borders of 1967.
Otherwise, the idea of negotiating over the pie, while Israel is eating the pie slowly but surely, is not going to lead to any good ending between them," Bishara said.
"The government of Mr Netanyahu says if Abbas and Hamas meet and reconcile then there will be no peace process.
"On the other hand the peace process has been, for the past 20 or so years, more a process, an ongoing open ended process that is not leading to peace," he said.The Samsung Gear VR is a self-contained, portable, high-quality virtual reality gaming headset. It's available now. You shouldn't buy one.
The $200 piece of hardware is a shell with optics and more advanced sensors than standard smartphones. It's a simple system to set up: You just attach your Galaxy Note 4 — the only phone that works with the device — and then adjust the straps to get a comfortable fit.
The proximity sensor sees your face and launches the Oculus Home program, allowing you to browse games, videos and experiences while inside virtual reality. Right now the Galaxy Note 4, which retails for around $700 unsubsidized, is the only phone compatible with the device.
This isn't like the failed experiments that have plagued the past 20 years of virtual reality; this is technology that actually makes you feel as if you're inside the virtual world of each program.
It's an impressive achievement in technology and usability, and is superior to the PC-driven virtual reality headsets created by Oculus in many ways. But it's also painfully clear that those of us who purchased the first generation of this hardware are guinea pigs. The Gear VR is functional, but that's all. It's apparent that this release of the hardware, called the "Innovator Edition" and aimed at developers and hardcore enthusiasts, is a first draft.
It's tough to evaluate the system, especially knowing that the software and ultimately the hardware will likely see substantial upgrades in the near- to medium-term future. Every positive comes with an equally off-putting negative.
Positive
The Galaxy Note 4 screen runs at a 2560x1440 resolution with a latency of under 20 milliseconds. This leads to the best picture ever seen in a consumer virtual reality device, with smooth head tracking that lessens the nausea of past Oculus Rift development kits while giving you the sense of being inside each game or experience.
Using the Gear VR — complete with the virtual reality launching program that allows you to browse new content, download new games and videos, and launch whatever you want to play without taking the headset off — is a huge step up from the dismal experience of launching games on your desktop PC and then putting on the headset.
The fact it's completely self-contained means you can throw it into a backpack and take virtual reality with you. It's an amazing achievement in technology, and it's strange to think there is now a consumer virtual reality device that you can bring along while traveling, or simply pack in a small bag to demo for others. It's an accessible, fun device that doesn't require you to tinker with your PC. If you have a Galaxy Note 4, you know you're going to have the best possible experience with the Gear VR.
Negative
There is no working store for Gear VR content, so the few pieces of content on the device are free if the developers are feeling generous, but most are merely demo versions of larger games with no way to buy the full version.
It's unclear when the store is going to launch, and it's likely the full games will be held until developers can actually make money on the platform. Launching without a working payment system is one of the most telling indicators of how early we are in the life of the Gear VR.
Positive
There is still no "best" way to control games in virtual reality, but the Gear VR comes with a touchscreen and a "back" button near your right temple, allowing you to control many games and the system's UI with a series of taps and swipes. It's intuitive and feels great in action, plus the act of tapping your temple to interact with your games kind of makes you feel like Cyclops.
There are some games that require a physical controller, and the Gear VR will accept any Bluetooth gamepad that's compatible with the Galaxy Note 4. I use the Moga Pro myself, and found it easy to set up and get working.
Negative
The headset is a bit heavier than is optimal, due to the phone being held in the front of the device. There's no easy fix for this until the Gear VR headset or the phone that powers it lose weight, and there's not much fat on either device. Having a self-contained virtual reality headset is nice in many ways, but the trade-off will always be weight.
The straps can be a bit tricky to adjust well and the Gear VR is nearly impossible to use with glasses; the official paperwork warns against it, in fact. While I can comfortably wear my glasses with my Oculus Rift development kits, I find myself putting my contacts in before I use my Gear VR.
The use of a phone, even one as powerful as the Galaxy Note 4, also introduces problems. Long playing sessions can lead to overheating issues. You'll be warned to remove the phone from the unit and let it cool down, and you'll only get a few hours out of the battery.
This is an issue if you're using the Gear VR on the road and want to keep using your phone. Oculus founder Palmer Luckey suggested that Gear VR users order a second battery for those situations, and luckily Samsung sells replacement batteries for a low price. Still, it's not an ideal solution, although it is one that would be impossible with Apple devices.
It's harder to overlook how uncomfortable the hardware can be on the bridge of your nose, and no amount of adjusting the straps seems to fix it. I'm in the process of modding my Gear VR with a soft nose rest to alleviate some of the discomfort, but for $200 you shouldn't have to do so to be comfortable in longer sessions.
It will get better
The hard problems, or at least most of them, have been solved. The store is coming, more games are on the way and the second-generation unit that will ultimately replace this one will likely be a much more comfortable headset.
The fascinating thing is that portable virtual reality is here, albeit with some problems, and the overall effect of using the Gear VR borders on the amazing. You feel like you're inside these environments, and the games and demos run at a rock-steady 60 frames per second, allowing for ultra-smooth head tracking.
Oculus was given unprecedented access to the Galaxy Note 4 firmware and even worked with Samsung during the design of the phone, and many of the games and demos feel like a magic trick; they seem to be much more advanced than what you'd expect out of even the latest phones. Blog posts that discuss the work that goes into optimizing these games are becoming common, and the work developers have done on the hardware, even in games available at launch, has been very impressive.
Until then the promise is impressive, but the utility is limited
"It's been a long journey to get here with Samsung, but also within Oculus. When we started doing duct tape prototypes of a drop-in headset and [were] starting to talk to Samsung, it was a totally different product," Oculus vice president of product Nate Mitchell told Polygon. "The question was how good it could be, and obviously [Oculus chief technical officer John] Carmack believed it could be very, very good and continued to push and push and push, both internally and technically."
The work Carmack has done with the Gear VR and Oculus' mobile SDK is a revelation. I've had my Gear VR unit for a week now, and there have been multiple moments where the device feels magical.
You can explore 360-degree photos of Mars, and you feel as if you're standing on the planet's surface. There is a 3D, 360-degree video you can play that takes place in a musician's studio as he works on a song, then takes a break to light a cigarette and talk to his dog. There is a sense of intimacy to watching video in this way, in being able to look in any direction and explore the environment from a fixed position. It felt like hanging out in the room with a friend.
Then there's the Oculus Cinema app, which allows you to watch your own movie files in MP4 format in a giant virtual movie theater or even on a screen on a recreation of the Moon. The illusion of sitting alone in a big theater, watching a film on an even bigger screen, is immediate and impressive. The resolution is high enough that watching content for long periods of time in this way, completely free from distraction, is not only possible, but pleasant.
For now, however, you need to bring over your own ripped content or just watch videos you shoot with the Note 4, as there's no way to stream from Netflix or purchase movies directly to watch on the big screen.
"Eventually it could hook into systems like Netflix," Oculus founder Palmer Luckey told Polygon. "Eventually it will have to for a mass-market consumer device. You can't expect consumers to be ripping DVDs and loading them into folders in Gear VR."
Until then the promise is impressive, but the utility is limited. This is a theme with the Gear VR.
You can see if someone is calling you or sending you a text message while in VR, which is a very helpful trick, but as of today there is no way to respond to the messages or to take a call while in VR. You give up use of your phone, as a phone, while playing a game. This feature can likely be added in with software updates, and is yet another area in which the device will improve in time.
We'll be writing more about the games and the content available for the Gear VR right now. It's clear that the Innovator Edition is a strong first step into portable virtual reality, but the hardware and software still have a way to go before they're fully baked. It's also worth noting, if it matters to you, that there is no way to wear the hardware without looking like goofy as hell.
Samsung wasn't willing to comment on the number of units sold since launch, nor would they talk about the timing of the store's launch, but they said that sales weren't the important part. During these early days of consumer virtual reality, the important thing is learning about usage patterns and getting the early adopters accustomed to using the technology daily.
"I think the thing that's most important to us is the people who buy it, like it," Nick DiCarlo, the vice president of immersive products and virtual reality at Samsung, told Polygon. "That it's a product they keep using on a regular basis. If it sits on their shelf, that means it didn't meet the promise of what we're trying to do."
He may not have much to worry about. There is a small but growing community of Gear VR enthusiasts, and I've been using the headset daily since I've received it. There are things that need to be expanded or fixed, but Samsung and Oculus are clearly on the right track. When we say you shouldn't buy this, we mean you shouldn't buy it now. If the Gear VR is this good this soon after the launch of a first-generation product, it's only going to get better.
"This isn't about volume today," DiCarlo said. "There is no existing virtual reality behavior. We're really starting from scratch."Get the biggest daily stories by email Subscribe Thank you for subscribing See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email
Some of the biggest names in Hollywood are coming to Glasgow to film the new £400million Avengers movie Infinity War.
Key scenes will be shot in the city as well as in Edinburgh and the Highlands after makers Disney and Marvel agreed a deal.
Filming on the comic-book blockbuster, which is expected to boost the Scottish economy by £10million, is due to begin at the end of February.
Six major films and TV series filmed in Glasgow
Robert Downey Jr, Samuel L Jackson, Scarlett Johansson, Benedict Cumberbatch, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Chris Evans and Josh Brolin are just some of the star names in the movie, set for release in May 2018.
Brad Pitt zombie film World War Z generated £3.33million for the Scottish economy in just 17 days on location in Glasgow in the summer of 2011.
(Image: David Moir/REUTERS)
However, Infinity War is expected to eclipse that number by some distance.
Glasgow City Council refused to comment on the Marvel film but praised the city's relationship with the film industry.
A spokesperson told the Sunday Mail: “Glasgow has a proud track record of helping deliver big-budget projects, and we are always keen to speak to people who want to come.”Upcoming MMO TERA is scheduled to launch next year, and we get the chance to speak with Stephan Krippendorf, producer for TERA Europe, about how it's evolving the combat of MMOs.
Q: Could you introduce TERA to anyone who may not be aware of it?
Stephan Krippendorf: TERA is an action MMORPG from developers Bluehole Studio, set to be released in Spring 2012. Unlike your more traditional MMO game, TERA's combat is in real time. That means that you actively move around the battlefield to take down your enemies. To survive you need to string together combos, dodge your opponent's attacks and really think on your feet. On top of that, it also uses the Unreal 3 Engine, so it's pretty to boot!
Q: Why do you think it's so rare to see complex combat systems - even the inclusion of dodging - in MMOs?
SK: With the amount of players present online, making an MMO 'work' in real time is an incredibly difficult task. You have to have some pretty smart net code behind the scenes to reduce the latency to an extent where it works. The team at Bluehole Studio spent a lot of time to get it right, and we're happy to say the gameplay experience represents that; it's smooth and tactile. As to why there aren't more MMOs out there that make use of real time combat? I think it's just a monumental challenge, and given the success of your more traditional, almost turn-based combat, I think that route is chosen because it's a tried and tested gameplay mechanic that's worked in other MMOs. Having said that, I think a lot of players feel it's time to break away from that and experience something new.
Q: Do you think the lack of a lock-on system when fighting enemies could seem counter-intuitive for players?
SK: Not particularly, I think it just teaches different skills. As I said before, we could have gone down that typical combat route. Players would have started the game, felt very at home with the combat, and then realise that they've played this game before. Instead we went for something different, something that should excite players. The real time nature of the game brings another kind of immersion, another level of tension. A highly skilled player can beat a higher level character if they're quick enough, so that by itself sets TERA apart.
Q: It's possible to play this with a gamepad. Is there any desire to bring the game to console?
SK: You can play TERA with any USB controller, but at the moment there are no plans to bring it to the console, when we consider the one of major feature of MMO is'massively' and the limitation of console at that point. But the controller works really well for the combat side of the game, so if you use a controller and a keyboard you have a great way to play the game.
Q: There are no pre-determined factions in this game. Can you describe what exists instead?
SK: There are no factions but the end-game content is run by the guilds through the political system (see below). There are rivalries within the game's races, but as they've had to join forces to fight off a common enemy, there won't be much in-fighting. Still, as you'll see from the game, some races aren't too fond of one another.
Q: Players will be able to direct what happens in the world through a political system. How does this work?
SK: In TERA, everything is determined by the players themselves. The world revolves around the political system which is run by the guilds, and the lords, known as Vanarchs, can set rules for their territories such as tax rates, monster spawn rates, and much more. There are currently 19 regions to be ruled on both continents, and the candidates can be elected either through votes from the other players, or directly on the battlefield. It's a great feature that we expect to flourish when the game goes live. We're sure lot's of rivalries will emerge!
Q: David Noonan has been brought on as lead writer. How important is story to TERA?
SK: The story of TERA is player-driven, featuring multiple cinematics involving your character throughout the game, and revolves around a world in conflict when races must unite in order to defeat a common threat. Thanks to the En Masse writing team the quest texts emphasise immersion and don't just revolve around the common "there are 10 rats over there, go kill them for the sake of the world" type quests. Aside from the main storyline, there are different types of quests which involve all sorts of characters and bring an added level of depth to the storytelling.
We know how much story matters to players, so there's been a lot of effort focused on this side of TERA. We think players will really get into all the lore that's available in the game.
Q: You're adapting TERA for a Western audience now. How much of the game is being changed to fit a Western gamer's palate?
SK: We're always collecting feedback from the players and media about how the game handles and feels. The North American publisher, En Masse Entertainment is also handing the English language adaption which will focus on elements such as story to make European players feel at home.
Q: What is available for max level players?
SK: The political system, the challenging end-game dungeons feature a hardcore mode and require extreme team play abilities, the battlegrounds as well as the upcoming feature allowing wars between opposing guilds. If you happen to like achievements, you have a ton of challenging achievements to obtain even after your character gets to the maximum level! And of course the list is always growing, so you can expect even more features when the games launches next year and beyond where there'll also be new content added periodically.
Q: Do you think with WoW's subscription numbers dropping this is the best time for a new IP to enter the market?
SK: I think the MMO market is always very competitive. Free to play titles are growing in quality, and you need more and more to set yourself apart in the market. I think TERA has what it takes to be a huge success though, regardless of WoW numbers. The real time combat is the best I've ever played in an MMO, or any other game for that matter. The story is engaging, there'll be a lot of content for high level players, the political system has a lot of depth... there's a lot here to appeal to a huge range of players.
If we had simply cloned a successful MMO, I think we'd have a battle on our hands, but we didn't. All I can say to players is that when you dive into the game for the first time, swing a sword, cast a spell, dodge and weave in combat, you'll be hooked. You'll realise that, 'Ok, this is different. This is what I've been waiting for'.Hey everyone, Here’s the straight and dirty: on Dec 1st when you submit a ticket to us here in Player Support, [you’ll need to enter your LoL credentials first](https://support.riotgames.com/hc/en-us/articles/206316536). If you haven’t verified the email on your account, you won |
auditorium and blocked the entrances. For his safety, Shapiro was forced to exit through a back door with a police escort. (Source: “
Campus Protesters Try to Silence Conservative Speaker, Demand College President’s Resignation
,”
The Daily Signal
, February 26, 2016.)
“Here’s my message to the bloviating jackasses outside,” Shapiro told the crowd. “Toughen up, you spoiled brat snowflakes, if you actually want a better world.” (Source: Ibid.)
The media is happy to play along.
There has been no pressure from media or the establishment to condemn violent actions. Rhetoric has borne nearly all the blame, with everyone overlooking the freewill of the protesters. But if, say, Trump supporters shut down a talk or rally, would they or their candidate be given the same slack?
Liberal pundits are quick to defend protesters. But what if the shoe was on the other foot? You wonder how the media would’ve reacted if the same thing happened to Barack Obama in 2008?
Of course, Donald Trump himself is hardly a friend of free speech. He chastised Pamela Geller’s “Draw Mohammad” event last May on the grounds that it was offensive to Muslims. He also wants to expand libel laws, making it easier to sue newspapers critical of public figures.
Ironically, such laws could make his own shots at Islam illegal. Trump, though, hasn’t borrowed these tactics from the far right. He’s taking them right about the Liberal playbook.
The Left’s War on Free Speech
For leftists, free speech is not a principle, but a weapon. They have no issue with suppressing the free speech of others. After all, sending out a mob is far easier than a debate.
Donald Trump’s words are hateful, offensive, and tactless. But the First Amendment requires neither taste nor politeness. The Dump Trump movement, however, is far more disturbing.INVESTIGATION: Police inquiry into sexual exploitation of children in Glasgow mirrors the scandal in England, writes Dani Garavelli
POLICE are investigating the sexual exploitation of vulnerable children in Scotland by men from ethnic minorities in cases that bear striking similarities to the organised abuse of youngsters in Rotherham, Scotland on Sunday can reveal.
Detectives have launched two operations into the abuse of vulnerable teenagers, some of whom absconded from children’s homes, in Glasgow.
The first, Operation Cotswold, set up in 2011, focused on a group of Middle Eastern asylum seekers in the north of the city. At least 26 potential victims were identified and files were sent to the procurator-fiscal, but no prosecutions were brought.
It is understood vulnerable young girls were found in the home of one or more suspects, but many identified as at risk did not see themselves as victims and were reluctant to co-operate, making it difficult to gather evidence and get the case to court.
In February 2013, after Operation Cotswold ended, the police launched Operation Dash, a broader attempt to root out child sexual exploitation (CSE) across the Strathclyde police area. Officers worked in partnership with the charity Barnardo’s Scotland to gather intelligence.
Scotland on Sunday understands that, as a result, a number of fast-food outlets and taxi services were linked to CSE and a number of suspected perpetrators, many Asian, were targeted in a criminal investigation. Operation Dash is ongoing and there are live proceedings. It is understood at least one case involves multiple alleged offenders.
Detective Chief Superintendent Lesley Boal confirmed: “As a result of [Operation Cotswold] a number of individuals were the subject of investigation and subsequent learning from that operation has informed the further work we have undertaken in the area of CSE.
“Operation Dash remains a live ongoing criminal investigation that has resulted, so far, in 21 persons being reported to COPFS [Crown Office and Procurator-Fiscal Service] in relation to a range of crimes and there are live ongoing criminal proceedings in a number of cases.”
The revelation about CSE in Scotland comes days after a damning report found a blatant failure of police and political leadership had allowed 1,400 girls from Rotherham to be sexually exploited by Asian men over a 16-year-period.
Report author Professor Alexis Jay, former chief social work adviser to the Scottish Government, said children as young as 11 had been raped by a number of different men, abducted, beaten and trafficked to other north of England towns. Some had been doused in petrol, set alight, and threatened with guns.
The report revealed the abuse, much of which centred around fast-food outlets and taxi services, had been flagged up to the authorities in three separate reports from 2002 onwards, but that the information they contained was either suppressed, downplayed or ignored. The report also said council staff feared being branded racist by flagging up the ethnicity of the offenders in a town where 8 per cent of the 260,000 population were from black and ethnic minority backgrounds.
Though there is no evidence the problem is as entrenched in Scottish towns or cities, those who work with vulnerable teenagers say CSE is being carried out by groups of men from ethnic minority communities in a similar way to Rotherham.
Now questions are being raised as to whether more could have been done to tackle CSE north of the Border.
Director of Barnardo’s Scotland Martin Crewe says the charity has been pushing for years to get the authorities to take the issue more seriously. Though he is confident police in Scotland now regard CSE as a priority, he said there were concerns over whether the Crown Office was pursuing prosecutions with “sufficient vigour”. He said the charity had been pushing police to make more use of the powers under the 2005 Protection of Children and Prevention of Sexual Offences Act (although he had reservations about its effectiveness).
“The Crown Office have to work to a system of: ‘Is this likely to be a successful prosecution?’” he said. “In some instances what they would say is ‘these aren’t very credible witnesses, they are not going to be good under cross-examination’ which is probably true but we should look at the system and ask how we can make the evidence-gathering from vulnerable witnesses better.”
Yesterday, shadow justice secretary Graeme Pearson said he would like to see any questions over CSE cases in Scotland addressed as part of an overarching child sex abuse inquiry. “Because many of the victims [in CSE cases] come from vulnerable backgrounds their voices haven’t been heard with the same power as might be the case in other circumstances,” he said.
“It seems from what they are describing in Rotherham that victims are almost overlooked. As a result the investigations and the need for care is almost forgotten. For far too long these issues haven’t been treated seriously enough by many of the authorities.”
Since the Rotherham report was published last week, critics have suggested too much emphasis has been placed on race and not enough on how victims were treated as “spoiled goods” by almost everyone involved. Sensitivity around the ethnicity of the offenders meant child protection agencies also failed to engage with the Pakistani-heritage community and elicit its support.
After white teenager Kriss Donald was murdered by a group of Pakistani men in Pollokshields in 2004, Glasgow city councillor Bashir Maan said cultural sensitivities had allowed the activities of Asian gangs to go unchecked.
While acknowledging CSE existed in all communities, Crewe said agencies should not “duck away” from the facts. “Whether it is in Rotherham or Scotland, if we identify that ethnic minorities are involved in child sexual exploitation, we don’t have to interpret it, we have to deal with it,” he said.
Crewe said the Jay report showed agencies in Rotherham knew what was going on, but failed to act and that it should serve as a wake-up call north of the Border. “There’s still a bit of a sense that all of these cases that have hit the headlines – Rochdale, Derby, Rotherham – are in England and maybe it’s a bit different up here. Only when one of these major stories breaks in Scotland will people realise it has been going on; that there isn’t anything fundamentally different here.”
All three English CSE scandals had a similar pattern: teenage girls – mostly from troubled backgrounds – were targeted outside schools or in the streets. Given alcohol, cigarettes and other gifts to lure them in, many believed themselves to be in a relationship with the men who abused them. But before long, they were being passed round to other men within the network. They were tracked with mobile phones, encouraged to bring along their friends and, if they tried to get away or report abuse, they were threatened and assaulted.
In Rotherham more than a third of victims were known to social services. Almost as shocking as the abuse was the way in which the Labour-led council and South Yorkshire Police colluded in downplaying the problem which was first noticed by the front-line charity Risky Business in the late 1990s. Three reports in 2002, 2003 and 2005 highlighted the scale of the abuse, teachers voiced their concerns over girls being picked up at the gates by older men and the Times started running stories about CSE in the town. Jay says that by 2005, when a seminar was held for all council members, no-one involved in child protection in Rotherham could claim not to have known what was going on, yet still the authorities dragged their heels.
Only in 2009 – after the council was served with an improvement notice for its children’s safeguarding services – did police and council leaders begin to take the issue seriously. In 2010, five men from Rotherham’s Asian community were convicted of offences against teenage girls.
Despite this, few of those involved in the Rotherham scandal have been held accountable for their failings. Labour council leader Roger Stone has resigned, but chief executive Martin Kimber is staying put.
Shaun Wright, the council cabinet member responsible for children’s services in Rotherham from 2005 to 2010, has resigned from the party but is refusing to step down as police and crime commissioner.
As CSE scandals have broken elsewhere, police, child protection agencies and the Scottish Government have made its investigation a priority. Yet until recently little research had been carried out north of the Border.
In 2011, the Scottish Government asked academics at the University of Bedfordshire to report on the scale and nature of the problem. Professor Jenny Pearce, director of the university’s International Centre: researching child sexual exploitation, violence and trafficking, who co-authored the report, told Scotland on Sunday that, though CSE could affect young people from any socio-economic group, it was most prevalent in areas of high deprivation, where there was a normalisation of violence (such as a gang culture) and an acceptance that young people would earn their income through the informal economy. Since all those conditions applied to parts of Scotland, she said it was almost inevitable it was happening here.
In 2012, the charity Roshni, which campaigns on ethnic minority issues, held a conference on CSE in Glasgow and last year the government launched an inquiry into CSE.
After taking evidence, the government backed the setting up of a national working group and the development of a national CSE strategy. The chairs of several child protection committees have already contacted Jay to ask her to speak to their members and lessons learned from Operation Cotswold are being used to inform future investigations. Lesley Boal said: “Police Scotland works nationally to support the Scottish Government’s action plan on CSE and we have developed a Police Scotland action plan to complement this. In addition at a local level we have created 14 divisional public protection units that work in partnership with local authorities and health through child protection committees to tackle all forms of child abuse including CSE.
“Police Scotland is working on developing a problem profile on CSE which will establish a more detailed understanding of the issue and the scale of the problem.”
Yet Crewe said he believed vulnerable children were still being exposed to unnecessary risk in Scotland because of underlying attitudes about troubled teenagers, particularly those in residential care. “There are lots of concerns about historical abuse and how children who were locked up were abused by adults, but in some units we have almost got the opposite [problem] now,” he said. “The unit isn’t locked up and children can and do run away of a night, and we strongly suspect they are going into risky situations.
“Our service in Glasgow has returned vulnerable children to residential units, yet before the worker has driven away the kid has been out of the door again. The attitude seems to be ‘our children go missing overnight. It’s unfortunate, but it happens’. But that is a failure to provide safety for those children.”
Crewe said agencies needed to be more proactive with sexually active children. “Some of the attitudes are deeply shocking,” he said. “If a 15-year-old girl has repeated incidents of sexually transmitted infections, at what point do we say this might be linked to inappropriate behaviour? We shouldn’t turn a blind eye and say ‘in a couple of years’ time she will be over the age of consent’.”
Roshni campaigners are also concerned the emphasis on the exploitation of vulnerable white girls means ethnic minority victims are being overlooked. “These girls might not be abused through having been picked up at takeaways or taxi firms, it’s more likely to be within the home,” head of projects Anela Anwar said. “Abuse is hidden within ethnic minority communities because of issues around honour and shame.”
Pearce said securing convictions was important, but couldn’t solve the CSE problem as it only takes a handful of offenders out for a short time. After they serve their time they return to their victims. “We need to be empowering women from [ethnic minority] communities, who understand the way the abuse is perpetrated, to work with us to prevent it,” she said.Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan continues to rev the engine of his campaign supporting constitutional amendments. However, what the effort really needs is a solid steering alignment. It's all over the road.
The world according to Erdogan is full of villains conspiring against him, some perhaps real, some maybe imagined: Gulenists, Kurds, the Islamic State (IS), the media, the United Nations, Europe and even the pope.
If the constitutional amendments are approved in an April 16 referendum, the president's temporary powers under emergency law could become permanent. This would eliminate many of the checks and balances on the presidency, do away with the role of the prime minister and allow the president to skirt parliamentary and Cabinet approval and pass laws by decree.
Various posters have appeared supporting the changes to the constitution. On Feb. 12, Ankara’s colorful and longtime mayor, Melih Gokcek (a member of the ruling Justice and Development Party, AKP), tweeted “Is there anyone who opposes this?” over the image of a poster that reads “The decision is yours.” On the left-hand side of the poster, along with the Turkish flag displaying its crescent and star, are the images of Erdogan, the prime minister and the chairman of the Nationalist Action Party. Above them appears the word “Yes."
On the right-hand side are the naysayers: the imprisoned chairman of the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party, along with the leader of the opposition Republican People’s Party, Kemal Kilicdaroglu. In the forefront is the alleged culprit of the July 15 coup attempt and Erdogan’s nemesis, Fethullah Gulen. But most interesting, perhaps, is the face lurking in the back. Behind the left-wing political parties' representatives, under the word “Daesh” (IS), is a photo of IS’ leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Apparently Baghdadi will be upset if the amendments are approved.
A different version of this poster also has become popular on social media: The left-side images are the same but instead of "Yes," the poster reads "Crescent." On the right side, the word "Cross" replaces "No" and underneath is an image of Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Ocalan. At the bottom, the poster reads, “If you say ‘yes,’ the crescent will win, if you say ‘no,’ the cross will.”
Erdogan has been repeating the slogan “The battle of cross against the crescent has started” during his rallies, blaming mostly Europe for initiating this "crusade." He has also made several accusations that those who oppose the amendments are aligned with terrorists. Mostly, Erdogan’s focus has been on the Gulen movement and the Kurds — so how did Baghdadi get pulled into the picture of "crusaders"?
A few intriguing events skittering in the background could possibly explain why such wild and inconsistent claims are being made to generate support for a yes vote.
As Al-Monitor explains, the latest opinion polls predict a possible loss for Erdogan. In this rather confused "yes" campaign, Baghdadi’s face is not the only mind-boggling image. For example, for days, mainstream Turkish media have been sharing images of Pope Francis speaking before EU leaders observing the anniversary of the EU's formation March 25. Erdogan was not pleased with this meeting. He said, “The crusader alliance finally showed its face. Since when is the pope a part of the EU?” Erdogan then went on to allege that European countries support terrorism and suggested that the weapons they provide to such organizations will be turned around on them.
The AKP’s rather populist and incoherent terror rhetoric is an effort to preempt a possible backlash from different Western countries accusing Turkey of supporting illicit networks directly or indirectly. News reports from all over the world showing Erdogan’s loss of control over different state institutions have reached a scary point. Foremost, despite all efforts, the AKP has failed to convince the West that the Gulen movement is a terror organization.
While Erdogan and the AKP are busy labeling their critics terrorists and claiming to be on the hunt for PKK members, IS and the Gulen movement globally, news is popping up that possibly links the AKP and its agencies to terrorist activities.
For example, Muhammed Murteca, the head of the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TIKA) in Gaza, was taken into custody in mid-February. On March 21, Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon announced Murteca’s arrest and accused TIKA of funneling international aid to terrorists, particularly to Hamas, with the help of a Turkish "terror" nongovernmental organization, the International Humanitarian Fund (IHH). The IHH organized the Mavi Marmara flotilla in 2010. Nahshon was clear that Turkey was a victim in this alleged plot, not a culprit. The AKP-aligned media did not prioritize the arrest in its coverage.
TIKA is a government-funded agency that operates under the prime minister’s office. On March 21, TIKA posted a tweet about the arrest, explaining that organizers have sought information from Israeli authorities. One senior bureaucrat told Al-Monitor, “We do not endorse any violent activities. If this Palestinian national [Murteca] has been corrupted by terrorist groups and he misused his authority, that is not about TIKA or Turkey, it is his individual crime.”
Another case is from Albania. In January, a female teacher was arrested for allegedly disseminating pro-IS propaganda to her students. Although Turkish media did not report the details, Sitki Ozcan from Zaman Amerika tweeted, “The school at which IS propaganda took place was built by the Turkish government. Erdogan attended the opening ceremony through videoconference.” The tweet also showed TIKA’s Albania branch proudly announcing the ceremony June 7. Ozcan also mentioned that Turkey’s Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet) frequently visited the school.
Indeed, Diyanet is under scrutiny elsewhere in Europe as well.
A March 27 Foreign Policy article with the headline "Erdogan's International Network of Muslim Cleric Spies," says German authorities “charged 16 clerics with illegal ‘secret service collaboration’ and searched mosques and apartments, confiscating computers and reams of paperwork.” On April 15, Al-Monitor was one of the first international media outlets to raise a red flag about Diyanet acting as Erdogan’s proxy all around the world with the mission of collecting and reporting intelligence to the prime minister’s office directly.
After the July 15 coup attempt, these activities intensified on multiple levels. Some 300 imams serving in Europe were called back to Turkey on the suspicion of being Gulenists. Several did not return, and two of them made the news March 24 for seeking asylum in Germany. Erdogan’s words antagonizing Europeans, and Turkey's National Intelligence Organization's amateurish tracking of Gulen members in Europe have put Turkish-origin Europeans in a difficult spot — so much so that even some imams in Europe have spoken out against Erdogan’s angry outbursts.
Turkey’s alleged links with armed nonstate actors and networks remain ambiguous. Yet the arrest of Turkish-Iranian businessman Reza Zarrab and the vice president of state-owned Halkbank for violating US-led sanctions against Iran indicate that financial issues are crucial. Facing challenges with narcotics, arms and human smuggling, Turkey has now also come under scrutiny for alleged money laundering through the porous Syria-Iraq border.
It seems whatever Erdogan touches is backfiring right before the referendum. The promises of visa-free travel to the EU, along with a quick and swift victory in Syria, have all ended up as major fiascos.
Finally, the referendum campaign slogans for the “yes” campaign tell a sad story. After the dismal failure of “The world is bigger than five” campaign (criticizing permanent members of the UN Security Council), now the new slogan is “Turkey is bigger than Turkey.” The video shows a handful of countries Erdogan has not yet picked a fight with — such as Pakistan and Turkic republics.
Another acerbic slogan for the yes camp says “Stamp the paper ["yes"] as if you are stamping on a foreigner.” Erdogan and his immediate circle are desperate to win 51% of the vote for the referendum's amendments, and they seem ready to do whatever it takes. So far, they have found the world's Erdoganophobia to be a good currency for mobilizing their base, while on the global scene their ambiguous relationships with different Islamist groups are surfacing. But for now, Baghdadi's image remains solidly against the amendments.As long as Chaffetz is in Congress, he belongs in a dorm. Photo illustration by Natalie Matthews-Ramo. Photos by Thinkstock and Win McNamee/Getty Images.
On Tuesday, Rep. Jason Chaffetz said that members of Congress ought to get a housing stipend along with their salaries: Maintaining residences in both Washington, D.C., and their home districts, the soon-to-be-erstwhile congressman argued, is simply too expensive on a meager $174,000 salary. Detractors quickly piped up that Chaffetz is the same guy who recently recommended that in order to afford health insurance, all Americans have to do is forgo new iPhones: In terms of financial advice, he’s no Suze Orman. But still, maybe he’s onto something; maybe members of Congress do need a housing solution for when the legislature is in session so they’re not sleeping on cots in their offices, as Chaffetz did. And maybe the answer is right in front of us: We should take inspiration from one of America’s greatest institutions, higher education, and make our representatives live in dorms.
Real estate in D.C. is costly, a problem some representatives already address by shacking up together: The Amazon TV show Alpha House was based on the real-life Capitol Hill house that Sens. Dick Durbin and Chuck Schumer shared with Rep. George Miller.* But for as long as our government exists in its current form—one hopes that it will for the foreseeable future, though who knows—there will be senators and representatives who need places to stay in D.C. And so until we relieve them of the responsibility of finding somewhere to live, they’ll have to waste valuable time and energy looking for somewhere, time and energy that could be better spent representing their constituents. So why not just build a dorm for ‘em?
This idea has been thrown around before, but let’s really think it through: After the initial construction—is there any way to make Mexico pay for that?—dorms are thrifty. All the members of the House and Senate could probably be squeezed into one or two buildings. A cafeteria could serve their morning and evening meals, and basically all their amenities would be taken care of: More time to pass legislation and make America, uh, whatever they need to make it. These dorms would not be cushy, though. Not every American gets to go to college, so in order to avoid the appearance of elitism, congressional living arrangements would have to be thoroughly average, full of lofted desks and those concrete blocks you put beds on (twin size, naturally) and plastic storage bins. This is Real America, lawmakers: If you want to represent your country, you better be prepared to live abstemiously.
How would it work, under the Slate plan? The dorms would be co-ed, but there would be a special floor just for women-identifying reps that, due to their historic underrepresentation, would be comparatively pristine. No one in the women’s caucus gets pee all over the bathroom floor, that’s for sure. Dorm living would be mandatory for congressional freshmen and subject to a housing lottery thereafter, meaning eventually all the cool Democrats on a certain committee could live together in an upperclassman suite, but first they would have to spend at least a term with a randomly selected roommate who is, in all likelihood, diametrically opposed to everything they stand for. Best of luck to whoever ends up paired with Sen. Ted Cruz: Cruz’s actual college roommate still dines out on tales of the horrors of rooming with him at Princeton. There could be themed halls for people with similar interests: film lovers, sci-fi fans, climate change deniers.
But mostly, it would just be funny to subject these blowhards to dorm life. Let these politicians live with roommates and no air conditioning. Let them be sexiled. Let them try to hide illegal crockpots and drugs from the resident advisers, who would be chosen by internal elections. Let them live with curfews—no lobbyists on the floors after 10 p.m. Let them fight over control of the television in the lounge; let South Carolina’s elected representatives try to secede when Fox News is temporarity banned. Let them try to write laws with the very same people they’re mad at for clogging the toilets. (If you thought Al Franken was pissed when Ted Cruz helped shut down the government, wait’ll you see him after Cruz microwaves fish in the communal kitchen.) Let them get sick of the whole business after their third term and eschew re-election.
Short of campaign finance reform and term limits, it might be the best hope for democracy we’ve got.
*Correction, June 29, 2017: This piece originally misspelled Sen. Dick Durbin’s last name.The guys hit it off with 22-year-old Lonnie Weets, a communications and advertising major at the University of North Florida.
They invited him to hang out at their Monday night game nights, but they sent him a text to make sure he knew what he was getting into.
Of course, there would be fun, drinks and games.
But there would also be furries.
"I didn't know what it was," said Weets, who lives on the Southside.
He did some research and was fascinated.
Furries? People dressed as animals, but a lot more.
Weets wanted to see for himself.
And he's glad he did.
Though Weets doesn't identify himself as a furry, he enjoys their company.
"They are open-minded out-of-the-box thinkers and unique," Weets said.
GAME NIGHTS
David Kanaszka, who lives on Jacksonville's Southside, hosts the game nights. He recently returned from the Megaplex, Florida's furry convention in Orlando held from July 31-Aug. 2. It's been happening since 2002; this year, Megaplex attracted 1,472 attendees.
Yes, there are enough furries to have a convention. In fact, conventions are held across the United States and the world. More than 6,000 people from 34 countries attended the 2015 Anthrocon, the largest furry convention in the world. The name for Anthrocon, held in Pittsburgh since 2006, is derived from anthropomorphism, or giving human characteristics to nonhumans.
This year's Anthrocon will have a $5.7 million economic impact on Pittsburgh, Tom Loftus of the city's convention and visitors bureau told NPR Pittsburgh.
Kanaszka said the furry community is centered on the idea of walking and talking animals. Megaplex's mission, according to its website, is to "provide for our membership a celebration of interactive arts and performance, with a primary focus on anthropomorphics and fantasy."
In other words, furries identify with animals that have human qualities. Many furries have created their own animal characters, complete with a name and a backstory.
Kanaszka created Vitai Slade (in Latin, Vita means life, so his character's name is inspired by that). Vitai Slade is a white tiger.
Kanaszka had a costume made to fit his image of Vitai. And costumes can be expensive, usually ranging from $1,000 to $3,000, but sometimes reaching $5,000.
And they can be stifling.
"It is very hot in the costumes. It's kind of like wrapping yourself up in a giant carpet," Kanaszka said. "It's hot, not very comfortable, you have limited 'tunnel vision' and it's harder to hear, talk and even move around."
He doesn't necessarily suit up, the term used to describe putting on an animal costume, during the game nights, but he will wear his fur suit whenever he feels like it. With the help of a handler to guide him, the 6-foot-6, 25-year-old wore it in St. Augustine while hanging out on St. George Street.
"If I'm in the mood to jump around and be a giant tiger, then I'll do it," Kanaszka said.
MEETING PEOPLE
Bonomec (real name Jimmie Pixler) is the name another character, an Australian shepherd, wanted to use for this article. The self-described introvert, who is in the Navy, said, "Furry for me … it's kind of a way to meet people."
Bonomec lives on Jacksonville's Westside and has connected with furries through game nights, conventions and online.
He said they're all accepting and free of judgment.
Weets agrees. Though his furry friends call him by his middle name, Dakota, and gave him an animal personality of a jackal, he has no desire to get a costume. He just enjoys hanging out with the furry community.
"I enjoy meeting interesting people with interesting stories and unique perspectives on life," Weets said.
Bonomec said he knows some people think his involvement in furry fandom is weird.
"When I first got my suit, I posted it online. All of my co-workers saw it. They said, 'what the heck is this?' "
Bonomec explained that he had made a character and wanted to act it out.
His boss would jokingly bark at him from time to time.
"I've had significantly more good reaction than bad reaction," he said.
Bonomec said that when he suits up, he does it with the general public in mind. He knows he's going to cheer someone up. And seeing the smiles and the laughter makes him feel good.
Kanaszka feels the same way.
He's a performer, he said, and this gives him a chance to do what he loves.
He said his character, Vitai, is playful and proud, giving hugs and making people smile.
When he's in costume he said, "one of my favorite things to do is find the grumpiest people and start jumping up and down in front of them."
He said he always knew he was different and didn't see the world the same way as everyone else. As a teenager, he went online to figure out if there was a community that interested him.
That's how he learned about furries.
What some people also learn when they research furries is the idea that furry fandom is a sexual fetish. Furries are a diverse group, mostly men but with an increasing female participation, from all professions, cultures, religions, races, political affiliations, etc. Some might be from a subculture, just as in the average general population, but mostly furries are just people who like to have good clean fun and make people smile.
"I could probably go on all day," Anthrocon chairman Samuel Conway told NPR Pittsburgh. " 'I heard the furries this, I heard the furries that!' The only real statement is, 'I heard that furries are some of the most creative people on the face of the planet' "
Added Kanaszka: "Here's the thing: You're talking about a group of individuals who are mostly between the ages of 18 and 28. I'm not going to say that sex doesn't happen, but that is not what the community is about."
Kanaszka said doing the furry thing is no different than "Star Trek's" Trekkies.
In his case, and for many of his friends, he loves cartoon animals.
"[I'm] basically a kid who never grew up," Kanaszka said.
AN ESCAPE
Kanaszka attends several conventions throughout the year. Programming focuses on a variety of arts and performances, from fursuiting, costuming and puppetry, to improvisational art and music. Furries also learn how to care for their costumes and dance in costume. There aren't only "fursuit" games; at this year's convention, Kanaszka gave a panel discussion on finances.
And his furry life has also inspired him to start a business, Tiger Brand Clothing Co., which makes T-shirts.
Each year, Megaplex raises money to benefit The CARE Foundation of Apopka. This year's convention raised more than $7,000 to benefit the nonprofit animal sanctuary. The foundation sends speakers to Megaplex to talk about the local wildlife and abused pets it helps rescue, and staff members usually bring along a few of their animal friends - the real ones.
Kanaszka said that being a furry is a big part of his life.
"It's really fun," he said. "I've made a lot of friends that I wouldn't have otherwise."
As for Weets, he's still getting into the fur scene. He said he's had to learn some of the jargon when he's hanging out with his furry friends on game nights, which usually attracts between 20 to 30 people.
"Everyone has their escape from reality," he said. "For them, [being a furry] is it. I respect that."Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption "He made no attempt to show remorse": Patricia Welch, one of Paterson's victims, reacts to his jailing
Breast surgeon Ian Paterson has been jailed for 15 years after carrying out unnecessary cancer operations.
Paterson, 59, was convicted over operations on nine women and one man, but there were hundreds of other victims.
He was found guilty of 17 counts of wounding with intent and three of unlawful wounding, after his trial.
Jurors at Nottingham Crown Court heard last month Paterson had exaggerated or invented the risk of cancer.
The NHS has paid almost £10m in compensation to his victims, while more than 600 private patients will pursue civil action against him later this year.
Ian Paterson: 'He took a pound of flesh for money'
Paterson's operations: What is cleavage-sparing surgery?
Image copyright SWNS Image caption Ian Paterson has been jailed for 15 years
The court was told the defendant, of Altrincham, Greater Manchester, urged patients to undergo procedures for "obscure motives" that may have included a desire to "earn extra money".
Image caption Paterson's victims gave their reaction to his jailing
The trial heard accounts from 10 victims - representing a sample of those he treated - operated on between 1997 and 2011, at the privately-run Little Aston and Parkway hospitals in the West Midlands.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Ian Paterson: How first-known victim's surgery unfolded
Sentencing Paterson, who grew up in County Down, Northern Ireland, Mr Justice Jeremy Baker said: "In pursuit of your own... material rewards, you lost sight of what you were doing.
"Without any regard for the long-term effects, you deliberately preyed on their long-term fears.
"You can be a charming and charismatic individual but you deliberately used those characteristics to manipulate your patients."
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption A woman operated on four times by Ian Paterson said it left her feeling "violated"
Speaking at the sentencing victim John Ingram, who underwent an unnecessary double mastectomy, described Paterson as a criminal who committed grotesque, violent acts.
Another victim Carole Johnson, described him as a "monster".
In a victim impact statement read out in court she said she felt "violated and vulnerable" and had "lost confidence" because of Paterson's actions.
Pamela Jain, of the Crown Prosecution Service, said Paterson had repeatedly abused his victims' trust for more than a decade.
What Ian Paterson cost the NHS £17.8m Total damages and defence costs £9.49m Damages paid
£8.31m Legal costs
256 NHS patients awarded compensation
25 Still waiting for a payout
The specialist prosecutor said: "He knew the procedures were not needed but carried on regardless, inflicting unlawful wounds on his patients.
"The impact of Paterson's actions on his victims has been devastating, from the unnecessary distress of undergoing procedures they did not need, to the scars that will always serve as a physical reminder of what their doctor, Ian Paterson, did to them."
Surgeon 'psychopathic like Shipman'
Paterson 'played God' with patients
Hundreds of other victims seek payout
Complaints about Paterson had been made for years but managers at the NHS trust that employed him "preferred good news to true news", a 2013 report said.
Paterson, who was suspended by the General Medical Council after his arrest, was allowed to carry on operating on women for several years despite serious concerns raised about him by other staff, the report by lawyer Sir Ian Kennedy found.
Ian Paterson's patients 4,424 seen on the NHS 1,207 patients given a mastectomy, including "cleavage-sparing" operations 675 mastectomy patients have since died
68 of his surviving patients have seen their cancer return Getty Images
Bosses at Heart of England NHS Trust had failed hundreds of breast cancer patients, it said.
Sir Ian published his findings in December 2013 - more than three years before Paterson stood trial - although the jury was not told about his report.
'Deeply shocking acts'
In the wake of his sentencing, the General Medical Council (GMC) said it was crucial such crimes were prevented from happening again.
Charlie Massey |
marinos to fight is what I am interested in talking about. A friend of mine said something that struck a cord in me. He said: People are always talking about dying for this or that. You gotta die for the cause if you are militant enough, if you are really bad ass you should die for your beliefs. But nobody asks, what are you living for? Not dying, but living what is your life for?
The Palmarinos were living for something. They were living for their freedom and their collective autonomy. They were living for their right of self-determination, to do away with the chains that held them slaves in the past and to decide by themselves the path of their life. If they died fighting for that, they died for what they were living for. They died the death of free people.
We now call ourselves Anarchists. We say we want the end of all chains and the extermination of all oppression. Yet, in the Anarchist movement, black folk and other folks of color are still in the senzala. We are still having to disguise ourselves, call whitey Massa and chain ourselves to the wall. No, don't talk about racism unless is in that very abstract sense of we-are-all-equal-let's-sing-kumbayas-and-pretend-the-color-of-our-skin-does-not-matter racism. While there might be nobody yelling die, nigger, die!*, you can hear a very clear shut the fuck up, nigger, just shut the fuck up.
We pretend that racism is just a minor problem, something that, like the Leninist State, will wither away if we will it to. The intrinsic racist characteristics that infect Anarchism, specially North-American Anarchism, cannot be questioned without one being seen as some kind of authoritarian nationalist, or even worse, a Maoist. Red-baiting, of all things!
Like in the real senzala, our resistance to racism needs to be covert. It needs to be hidden and made like it is something else. It cannot be what it needs to be, it cannot do what needs to be done, or the senzala would break apart and the master's house would be set aflame. No. Like capoeira, our fight against white supremacy inside North American anarchism needs to disguise itself as a dance in order to become a martial art.
And you know how the rap goes: if we talk about empowerment we are power hungry. If we assert our self-determination, we are authoritarian nationalists. When we expose how white Anarchism is, elitist white Anarchists generally come with excuses like Hey, I saw a black anarchist once! or the classic, well, we need to outreach to communities of color.
Let me tell you something, the reason why the masses are not flooding to your Anarchism is exactly that one it is your Anarchism. It is a white, petty-bourgeois Anarchism that cannot relate to the people. As a Black person, I am not interested in your Anarchism. I am not interested in individualistic, self-serving, selfish liberation for you and your white friends. What I care about is the liberation of my people. The collective liberation of the children of the African Diaspora, those that have been beaten down and treated worse than dogs all across the world.
So, no, we are not interested in your anarchism. We need to create our own. Understand this, if the whites in Palmares were allies and died with the blacks and the natives it is not because they invited the blacks and the natives into their structure, into their society and said unto them: We are all equal. It was because the blacks and the natives created their own structure - their own society - in which power relations were different so that whites could not longer by the sheer force of their privilege impose their view of how the society should be run. To try and integrate people of color in your society or your movement, like there would be no culture clash and no confrontation it is naive, senseless and can lead nowhere but into deception.
In the senzala of contemporary Anarchist theory and practice, the only place for Blacks and other folks of color is the chain in the wall or the Pelourinho. To question the structure of this movement, why is it really composed mainly of white suburban boys, is a invitation to the Pelourinho - or to the Quilombo.
Some escaped slaves decided to create their own Quilombo in the forest of North America, and they called it A.P.O.C. - Anarchist People Of Color. APOC was a necessary step on the beginning of the self-determination of people of color inside the movement. This self-determination we seek is to analyze the problems of race inside and outside the movement in our own perspective. To create our own analysis of authority and what it means for us to be Anarchists. What does it mean for those that have always felt odd at an Anarchist event while looking around and thinking are they made the wrong turn somewhere and ended up in a white only area of segregated Mississippi.
When an anarchist tells me about how the cops are fascist pigs, I stop for a second and think. A lot of times I'll of some experience in a protest against this or that corporate meeting or something, in which the cops tear gassed the crowd and whoop some ass and I think, man, you got it easy. I remember in my neighborhood in Brazil, where if you got only an ass-whooping, you would considered yourself lucky. I remember the day they shot my uncle dead. I remember this one cop that used to follow me around and scare the life out of me because I thought he was going to cap me and there no way in hell I was approaching no authorities to complain because then I would surely wind up dead. I remember the police invading my grandma's house, guns in hand, while my cousin was still a baby and was sleeping in my aunt's bed. Even here, in my neighborhood in East Palo Alto, you can always hear the cops fussing around at night and you know they are not looking for no black-bloc kid from some protest or another. So tell me again how the cops are fascists...
The fact is, we know oppression. We live it, we experience it. In one form or another, one extreme or another. We do not conceptualize it. We do not sit down and intellectualize about pain because our people have been hunted down and shot, and burned and beaten and we lost the need to understand pain philosophically when we learned it physically.
So why are the people not filling the ranks of the Anarchist movement? What it is that prevents those people of color that have been feeling the brunt of police brutality, and have been living off the scraps of what capitalism leaves behind, why have they not joined the movement?
The answer is simple: because is not their movement. It can never be their movement while it is being created by and for white middle-class kids with a Jesus complex who think they can save the world (or the ones with Buddha complex who think they can get wet by talking about water). You cannot hustle the movement and you cannot hustle the people. Revolution is not a game in which you can pretend to listen to the voice of the people of color only when is convenient and shut them off when they start questioning your privilege.
APOC, as any revolutionary step, spurned an immediate reaction, a counter-revolutionary step. The amount of voices in the Anarchist movement that have been raised to criticize, put down or, in any other form, discredit APOC (most, if not all of them, white, by the way) have been, if small, consistent and bold. To incur and cite these criticisms is irrelevant to today's discussion. I am not here to defend APOC. I am here to talk about why I don't need to do it.
APOC is our Quilombo. Our keep, our fortress, where we can meet as people from oppressed background and not only share our experiences and how they are relevant to each other, but also how they are relevant in the larger scheme of things. APOC is more than a safe zone for people to feel good about not being in a room without white folk, but is a conscious project of self-determination for people of color. It is a step closer to our freedom as a people and the materialization of the idea that community comes from something in common, something we can share.
No, APOC is no utopia. It is not even close. But that is neither here nor now. We may stumble, we may fall, we may even break our heads wide open. But at least we are walking on our own two feet.
It is pointless for me to try and convince white Anarchists of the need for APOC because white anarchists have not experienced what we a people of color have experienced. It is like trying to convince my boss of the need for Socialism a more often then not fruitless endeavor.
And while there are white Anarchists out there who remember that only the oppressed can liberate themselves and the end of white supremacy cannot be brought about by white people there are those that, in their arrogance and shortsightedness, will not yield and cannot tolerate the thought that maybe there is something that Anarchist people of color need to discuss that does not include white people.
And if, for a moment, I thought that APOC needed to be approved by the white anarchist scene that would be the moment in which APOC would lose its appeal to me. Because is not about being accepted, being cherished, being on the good side with the white Anarchists that is the Senzala. It is about self-determination and it is about resistance. It is about creating our own culture, our own analysis and dictating our own future. APOC for me is not about seeking a way to make white people love us, or hate us.
I have to tell you a secret about APOC: it is not about white people at all. It is not, and it should not be ever. I am tired of talking about white people, thinking of white people, analyzing white people and worrying about white people. I want to know what I have in common with my Korean sister and my Guatemalan brother. I want to know about the great struggles for liberation in Uganda and how the Filipino resisted imperalism. What can we learn from each other as people of color? What does my bairro in Rio de Janeiro has in common with a Latino barrio in East Side San Jose?
This is something I wrote for my sisters and brothers at APOC. We need to understand ourselves in order to understand the world around us and be able to fightand destroy the bourgeois plague which eating away our homes, our lives and our cultures.
As a black person, my anarchism is Black Anarchism. As a member of the exploited class, my anarchism is Class-Struggle Anarchism. As a person who wishes for a better future, my anarchism is Anarchist-Communism.
Vamos a ela, porque temos muito, muito para construir.
Não tá morto que peleia!
Viva a Anarquia!
Pedro Ribeiro, a class-struggle anarchist. Related Link: http://www.furiousfive.50megs.com Digg this del.icio.us Furl Reddit Technorati Facebook Twitter << Back To Newswire
English Italiano Deutsch This page can be viewed inMajor League Baseball will not suspend Dodgers outfielder Yasiel Puig in connection to domestic violence allegations earlier this winter, reports Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times. Per Shaikin, the league found no evidence to substantiate allegations that Puig hit his sister in an incident at a Miami bar in November. Notably, no charges were filed against Puig and no arrests were made at the time. Shaikin notes that under the newly implemented domestic violence policy, players can receive discipline other than suspensions (e.g. mandatory counseling), but such discipline is not disclosed to the public. Earlier this month, ESPN’s Pedro Gomez reported that Puig was not expected to receive a suspension. Major League Baseball has since issued the following statement:
“The Office of the Commissioner of Baseball has concluded its investigation into an alleged incident involving Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder Yasiel Puig and his sister in a Miami-area nightclub on November 26, 2015. The investigation included interviews of witnesses, including Puig and his sister, as well as a review of video footage from inside the nightclub at the time of the alleged incident. The Office of the Commissioner’s investigation did not uncover any witness who supported the assault allegation; both Puig and his sister denied that an assault occurred; and the available video evidence did not support the allegation. Thus, barring the receipt of any new information or evidence, no discipline will be imposed on Puig in connection with the alleged incident.”
TMZ reported in late November that Puig had shoved his sister at the bar, prompting a fight between Puig and the bouncer. However, a police spokesperson said at the time that it appeared the only physical contact came between Puig and the bouncer, and TMZ ultimately retracted its report, Shaikin notes.
The ruling from commissioner Rob Manfred comes not long after Yankees closer Aroldis Chapman was suspended for 30 games under the domestic violence policy. While Chapman, like Puig, was not arrested and did not face charges, the left-hander did acknowledge that after being shoved to the ground by his girlfriend’s brother, he discharged a firearm in his garage multiple times out of frustration. That Chapman acted in such a manner undoubtedly contributed to the league’s decision to give him a 30-game ban despite a clear lack of evidence that he physically harmed his girlfriend.
Puig and Chapman represent two of the three offseason cases for Manfred and the new domestic violence policy. Rockies shortstop Jose Reyes, accused of assaulting his wife at a Hawaii hotel in October, is the last remaining case. He has been placed on administrative leave and is set to head to trial on Opening Day. The league will not make a decision on Reyes’ discipline until after his criminal proceedings have drawn to a close.Buy Photo Rep. Mike Ball, R-Huntsville, said he believed his legislation would send a message that Alabama does not discriminate. (Photo: Mickey Welsh / Advertiser file)Buy Photo
A House legislator is trying to move protections for LGBT people from text to subtext.
The House Judiciary Committee Tuesday morning approved a bill sponsored by Rep. Mike Ball, R-Huntsville, which would ban a wide variety of discrimination against the hiring and promotion of state employees.
The bill includes wording that explicitly bans discrimination based on race, ethnicity and gender, but also forbids discrimination based on “any trait or characteristic, immutable or otherwise,” unrelated to the performance of a job. The legislation would not affect private employers.
Ball’s bill is almost a word-for-word match for legislation sponsored by Senate President Pro Tem Del Marsh, R-Anniston that explicitly bans discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Ball’s bill drops both those phrases.
However, the sponsor said after the bill’s approval – on a notably divided voice vote – that the language would reach the same ends.
“Why should I put something in the bill that is going to cause extreme people on each side of this issue to start fighting?” he said. “Am I here to create dissension or let the law reflect what I think are the values and the heart of most Alabamians?”
Marsh’s bill was carried over in a Senate committee last week. Both pieces of legislation, filed late in the session, likely have long odds of passage. But Ball, echoing comments made by Marsh last week, said he hoped the bill would send a message that Alabamians did not discriminate against people.
“This is about saying who Alabamians are, not who people think they are,” he said.
Most committee members agreed with Ball’s goals. Rep. Christopher England, R-Tuscaloosa, who has filed a broader bill that would create explicit protections for the LGBT community in both the public and private sector, said he supported Ball’s bill. However, he added that classifications exist for a reason.
“It’s because of discrimination (communities) specifically face,” he said. “I would want it to be enumerated to be sure that community is covered so they’ll protected from discrimination as well.”
England’s bill is scheduled for a public hearing in the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday.
Rep. David Faulkner, R-Mountain Brook, said he would never discriminate against anyone, but was uncomfortable with the broad language in the bill.
“It sends my constitutional flags through the roof when I see ‘trait or characteristic,’” he said. “That to me is going to be so vague and unconstitutional.”
Ball argued that it would ensure that nothing unrelated to job performance would be a factor in evaluating a state employees. As way of example, Ball, a retired state trooper and ABI agent, said that until U.S. District Judge Frank M. Johnson abolished height and weight requirements for Alabama state troopers in 1976, he could not apply for his desired job.
“Had that not happened, I wouldn’t have had my chance to have a career in law enforcement,” said Ball, who stands 5’4”.
The representative, like Marsh, said that members of the business community approached him earlier this month with the proposed legislation. Apple CEO Tim Cook, a Robertsdale native and Auburn graduate, criticized Alabama’s slow progress on LGBT rights in a speech at the Alabama State Capitol last year.
Read or Share this story: http://on.mgmadv.com/1HICMqdFew people with working brains respect the obviously stupid. Which explains why almost everyone disrespects posted speed limits … by ignoring them.
Any law or edict that is almost universally ignored can be safely presumed stupid. Or – as here – cynically dismissed as a tool for separating people’s money from their persons. Most speed limits (and thus, speeding tickets) fall into this latter category.
None of this is news.
But because speed limits exist as an artificial barometer of reasonable maximum velocities, there is the problem of a generally distorted perception of what constitutes reasonable average velocities.
The Clover who mopes along at say 44 in a 45 contents himself with the thought that he is “doing the speed limit” and feels righteous or at least, justified, about not yielding to the faster-moving traffic stacking up behind him. Even though almost everyone is doing more than the limit – or at least, trying to – he does not question the reasonableness of the statute. Typically, he defends it. Takes the position that whatever the posted maximum is, the fact that it is posted constitutes definitive proof that it is the balls-to-the-wall highest safe speed; that anyone (which is almost everyone) who drives faster deserves a ticket.
And – in his defense – if the lawful maximum is 45, going any faster does expose him to being ticketed.
We all live in constant dread of this.
Which fact explains both the characteristically bunched-up traffic that defines American roadways and the resigned passivity of most American drivers – who have been conditioned to be positively terrified of acceleration.
Never in the history of the car has the average, nothing-special A to B transportation appliance been as potent as today – yet traffic probably flows no faster than it did in 1970 and probably slower, because the consequences for daring to use even 80 percent of the capability of, say, a new Toyota Corolla entail more grief than using 100 percent of the capability of a new Z28 did back in 1970.
If, on the other hand, the speed limit comported with a velocity considerably higher than the just-moping-along average speed of traffic, it would be obvious – even to a Clover – that his low-average velocity is clogging up the works. Social – and legal – pressure would bear down on him.
He’d feel obliged to at least yield.
And – at a stroke – probably two-thirds of what today constitutes illegal (and highly profitable to the state) “speeding” offenses would vanish and the rest of it would be much harder to characterize as a horrific offense against reasonable conduct behind the wheel, as now.
Revenue would of course decrease – but traffic congestion would ease because people would no longer feel so targeted when driving at reasonable speeds.
All of this strikes me as a capital idea. And it’s not just my idea, either.
Speed limits are supposed to be more than just speed averages. They are supposed to be set according to a standard higher than the average. It’s what a limit (or maximum) implies.
How to do this?
Traffic is monitored and the speed limit set such that only about 15 percent of the cars are traveling faster while the remaining 85 percent are traveling at approximately that rate. This “85th percentile” method (see here for technical details) is supposed to be the method for setting speed limits, if we must have them at all. But it’s rarely used anymore, because if it were used, the number of “speeders” would be much reduced – and with it, both “revenue” and the excuse necessary to justify its snatching.
The object of the exercise is not the facilitation of safe, efficient travel but rather the issuance of as many tickets as possible.
This is admitted, often openly.
For example, a memo issued to the highwaymen of Fairfax County, Virginia:
“Two traffic stops is the minimum acceptable daily average, calculated on a monthly basis. Either two summons and one warning must be issued and entered per day on average. (Two warnings are not acceptable). All days, all officers are required to be well-rounded in their production, regardless of minimum standards.”
The bolding, underlining and italics are not mine. They are in the original.
“Well-rounded in their production.”
Indeed.
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Adrian Peterson has taken the conversation about his future to the top of the Minnesota Vikings organization.
The 2012 NFL MVP traveled Monday to New York, where Peterson met with New Jersey-based Vikings owners Zygi and Mark Wilf and general manager Rick Spielman, the team confirmed to USA TODAY Sports on Tuesday.
Peterson took a commercial flight from Houston to LaGuardia Airport for the meeting, a person with knowledge of the situation told USA TODAY Sports, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation.
It was a continuation of the discussion Peterson had last week with Spielman and Vikings coach Mike Zimmer, who huddled with Peterson for about 4 hours at his home outside Houston to discuss his future with the team.
The Wilfs' involvement was inevitable. Peterson remains the face of the Vikings franchise -- a fixture in the community who shook hands at the state Capitol as the team was trying to secure public funding for their new $1 billion stadium and was at the groundbreaking the next year.
Peterson, 29, has not publicly demanded a trade or release. But he has mused since November about the upside of resuming his career elsewhere and reiterated in a statement after last week's meeting he still has concerns about returning to Minnesota after last year's controversy.
The way the running back market is panning out, with Marshawn Lynch and LeSean McCoy recently getting big guarantees on new deals, bodes well for Peterson's chances to cash in as well if given the opportunity to hit the open market or, more likely, renegotiate upon a trade.
Peterson is scheduled to make $12.75 million in base salary and a $250,000 workout bonus in 2015 – none of it guaranteed – and all indications are he wouldn't consider a pay cut. His compensation is scheduled to rise to $15 million in 2016 and at least $18 million in 2017.
The Vikings have made clear their priority is to bring him back and they have no plans to release him. However, rules permit the team to trade Peterson like any other player beginning at 4 p.m. Tuesday, when the new league year and free agency begin.
The process of sorting out Peterson's future has accelerated since Feb. 27, when a federal judge vacated the arbitration decision that upheld his suspension in December, with reinstatement no sooner than April 15.
The NFL appealed the decision and moved Peterson back from the suspended list to the commissioner's exempt list – a status change that permitted direct communication with Vikings officials for the first time in months.
The decision by U.S. District Court Judge David S. Doty to vacate the decision of appeals officer Harold Henderson could push the NFL and the union towards a settlement that would reinstate Peterson sooner than later.
Peterson appeared in just one game last season, spending most of the year on the exempt list following his felony indictment for injuring his 4-year-old son while disciplining him with a wooden switch and subsequent no-contest plea to a misdemeanor.
***
Follow reporter Tom Pelissero on Twitter @TomPelisseroAttorney General Jeff Sessions during a press conference at the Justice Department in Washington, D.C., on July 13. Aaron P. Bernstein/Reuters
In an interview with the New York Times on Wednesday, Donald Trump said Jeff Sessions’ decision to recuse himself from the Russia investigation had been a grave miscalculation that had effectively disqualified him from serving as attorney general. “Sessions should have never recused himself, and if he was going to recuse himself, he should have told me before he took the job, and I would have picked somebody else,” Trump told Peter Baker, Michael S. Schmidt, and Maggie Haberman.
It sounds ridiculous. Of course Sessions had to recuse himself: As a top adviser to the Trump campaign, he could never be objective or unbiased in supervising an FBI investigation into that same campaign’s possible collusion with the Russian government. Especially in light of the Washington Post report that Sessions had met with a Russian official during his tenure as a Trump surrogate and then told Congress that he hadn’t, the recusal was a no-brainer.
But Trump was right to be shocked when Sessions willingly stepped aside. Though it may have seemed like a no-brainer at the time, the fact that Sessions did the right thing stands, in retrospect, as the biggest surprise of the Trump era so far and one of the only instances in which this administration has lived up to a typical standard of government ethics.
Simply put, Sessions could have just not recused. What was going to happen if he didn’t? Who in the administration was going to stand up and tell the attorney general that even the appearance of a potential conflict of interest is a very, very bad thing? Who was going to say publicly that staying on would violate official Department of Justice regulations, other than the usual Democratic goo-goos in the House and Senate and the self-righteous dorks in the fake news media?
In the March 2 press conference in which he announced his recusal, Sessions explained that he’d consulted with senior DOJ officials before making his decision. “I asked for their candid and honest opinion about what I should do about investigations, certain investigations, and my staff recommended recusal,” he said. “They said that since I had involvement with the campaign, I should not be involved in any campaign investigation. I have studied the rules and considered their comments and evaluation. I believe those recommendations are right and just.”
In the before times, when presidential administrations behaved like presidential administrations, an attorney general’s willingness to listen to career staff on a matter of black-and-white institutional ethics wouldn’t have seemed extraordinary. Now it does, because with Trump as president, the notion that politics is governed by unchangeable laws of gravity has been exposed as a collective delusion. Under the new rules, Sessions could have remained in charge of the investigation even though he clearly shouldn’t have. Granted, it would have been impossible to justify such a decision in a rational, principled way. So what?
Call it nihilism if you want, but remember that Trump faced no consequential criticism from the GOP when he fired James Comey as FBI director and admitted in a television interview that he was thinking about Russia when he did it. Remember also that with the exception of this one act, Sessions’ tenure as attorney general has been marked by boundless loyalty to Trump and one broken DOJ norm after another. Against that backdrop, the recusal really does look like a very costly unforced error—one that led directly to the empowerment of stubborn institutionalists Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, and Robert Mueller, the special counsel now in charge of the Russia investigation.
Sure, there would have been calls from Democrats for Sessions to resign. If the attorney general takes seriously his duty to protect the integrity and independence of the Justice Department, he has no choice but to step aside, they would have said, probably on Twitter. Sure, career attorneys at DOJ might have raised a stink if he defied their recommendation. According to three people with knowledge of internal Justice Department discussions, attorneys consulted on the recusal question are reeling after an extraordinary rebuke by Sessions, a newspaper would have reported, probably on its front page.
Maybe it would have been slightly unpleasant for Sessions to tune out that static. More likely, it would have been easy, especially compared with the grief he’s taking now from the guy in the Oval Office who actually has the power to fire him. All Sessions had to do was nothing. Looking back, it would have been just one more act of defiance the political establishment and the public would’ve been forced to accept.Kenya's minister for internal security, who once served as the country's vice president, and his deputy are among six people who died when a police helicopter crashed near the capital Nairobi, according to Kenyan officials.
Minister George Saitoti and his deputy, Orwa Ojode, were killed in the crash, Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka said on Sunday.
Two pilots and two bodyguards were also killed, officials said.
Saitoti, 66, was a candidate in next year's presidential election and a key figure driving his country's fight against al-Qaeda-affiliated al-Shabab fighters in neighbouring Somalia.
Following news of his death, al-Shabab released a message on its Twitter account, saying: "[Al-Shabab] welcomes the death of the evil minister upon whose authorisation thousands of Muslims suffered both in Somalia and in Kenya."
"For the hundreds of Muslims killed and displaced by Kenya's brutal invasion, Saitoti's death is but a droplet of justice in a sea of oppression," the group tweeted.
The crash occurred in the Ngong hills on the outskirts of the Kenyan capital, a police source told AFP, adding that the reason for the crash was not immediately clear.
Raila Odinga, the Kenyan prime minister, said investigations into the cause of the crash had started and that the cabinet would hold a special session on the incident.
"This is a terrible tragedy that has struck our country this morning. Nobody knows exactly the cause of this accident. That is why experts will carry out investigations," Odinga told reporters at the scene of the crash.
"We will do everything possible to ensure we find we find out the cause of this accident, but for now it is just an
accident."
Al Jazeera's Peter Greste, reporting from Nairobi, said that the area was notorious for bringing down aircraft and that the weather at the moment was quite overcast.
"It wouldn't be surprising if there was some sort of pilot error or mechanical failure," said Greste.
Powerful politician
Witnesses at the scene reported seeing charred bodies, while images of the crash scene showed the helicopter reduced to twisted metal.
Saitoti was a leading voice against al-Shabab [Reuters]
Saitoti, who was a long-serving vice president under former president Daniel Arap Moi, was an ally of President Mwai Kibaki.
He often visited the scenes of grenade attacks carried out by al-Shabab inside Kenya in retaliation and had vowed that Kenya would crush the group.
Our correspondent said he suspected that some conspiracy theorists would not accept that Saitoti's death appeared to have been accidental.
"Saitoti was one of the most powerful and prominent politicians in the country... Inevitably [some Kenyans] will see this as a political assassination because of his powerful position," said Greste.
"But I think we need to be very careful about implying that he might have been assassinated... Clearly we have got to wait and see what the investigation throws up before we look in that direction."Having grown up in eastern Wisconsin, I am no stranger to a well-worn corner bar.
In fact, my parents were experts at sussing out a great pub that served a specialty food item, from a good fish fry to a killer burger.
These days, the bars at which my sister and I spent our quarters playing Pac-Man would likely be called “dive bars.” In fact, when we visit each other (she still lives in Wisconsin), we make it a point of taking each other to our favorite such taverns.
Still, some people might take offense to the term, so let me say, before I give you a list of some of my favorites in the east metro, that I’m using the phrase “dive bar” as the ultimate term of endearment. I love a place where the booths are as worn as the griddle, where the regulars turn and look to see who has entered when the door opens — not because they’re hostile, but because most of the customers are friends. Related Articles Twin Cities bakeries gear up for a New Orleans-style Fat Tuesday with King Cake
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There are certain characteristics that make a good dive bar, so I’ve included essential attributes of each establishment (pull tabs, meat raffles, dart boards, etc.) that will make it easy for you to find your own favorite.
My only criteria for a bar making the list was that these neighborhood staples serve something that can pass as dinner, because in my middle age, I don’t want to go to several places in one night. I need a one-stop shop that will feed me and offer libations.
SKINNER’S PUB
One of our favorite bars, period, Skinner’s is the perfect mix of neighborhood atmosphere and really great bar food. The pizzas are killer, there’s crisp fried chicken, the hoagies are hot, the burgers infinitely snarfable and if you want the ultimate drinking-friendly shareable snack, go for the totchos, served on a giant pizza plate.
What’s up: Pull tabs, bar bingo on Thursdays
Where to find it: 919 Randolph Ave., St. Paul; 651-228-1947; skinnersmn.com
McCARRON’S
So the furniture at this Rice Street pub and eatery might be new and the bar less well-worn than some of the other spots on this list, but the clientele here is definitely neighborhood, down to some guys probably playing cribbage at a high-top table, and they absolutely turn to look and see which friend is walking in when you open the door. The food here is a step above most bar food, too. McCarron’s uses house-made corned beef in their Reuben sandwich, a proprietary dry rub for their tasty wings and freshly fried tortilla chips for their nachos.
What’s up: Pull tabs, tri-wheel, bar bingo on Mondays and Saturdays, meat raffle Fridays and Saturdays
Where to find it: 1986 Rice St., Maplewood; 651-788-7362; mccarronspub.com
HALF-TIME REC
This has been one of our favorite bars since the 1990s, and luckily for us, in the past few years, they’ve added a kitchen that’s serving up some really great Irish bar food. Despite the kitchen addition, the decor and furniture have not changed a bit since we first started coming here, or since a bar scene from “Grumpy Old Men” was filmed here about that same time.We love the Paddy Shack burger, the house-made corned beef sandwich and the fish and chips. Oh, and it’s possible to order a pitcher of Guinness here, perfect for sharing with pals.
What’s up: Dart board, pool table, pull tabs and bocce ball in the basement, meat raffle on Fridays
Where to find it: 1013 Front Ave., St. Paul; 651-488-8245; halftimerec.com
KEENAN’S
Bare bones and appropriately dimly lit, this West Seventh Street bar is the epitome of a neighborhood watering hole. Pull up a comfy, padded bar stool and watch the game, or sit at a table with friends and order some seriously good food — we recommend the burgers, popping fresh, crisp shrimp in a basket or their serious-contender Coney dogs.
What’s up: Dart board, pool table, pull tabs, old-school jukebox
Where to find it: 620 W. Seventh St., St. Paul; 651-227-3840
KELLY’S DEPOT
We absolutely love watching the servers hand-patty burgers behind the bar at this Lowertown staple, and the smell from the tiny, behind-the-bar kitchen is intoxicating. The regulars here all know each other, so expect to be in the crosshairs of some good-natured ribbing, with maybe a few cuss words sprinkled in. Those loosely pattied, thick, juicy burgers are worth a trip, the Coneys are darn tasty, and the onion rings and crinkle-cut fries are top-notch, as far as deep-fried snacks go.
What’s up: Dart board, pull tabs
Where to find it: 241 E. Kellogg Blvd., St. Paul; 651-298-0099
TIN CUP’S
This bar, which has been around the North End in one form or another for nearly a century, is named for Rudolph “Tin Cup” Tschida, as Rice Streeters were quick to point out when we recently wrote that the apostrophe seemed misplaced. It’s fitting that the neighborhood is so attached to this place — the atmosphere is comfortable, and the food is a cut above your average bar food. The burgers are |
0, according to a 2015 report by climate science publication Climate Central. In this scenario, rising sea levels would displace 76 percent of Shanghai’s population.
The project coincides with increasing scrutiny of China’s stance on climate change. The country emits more carbon dioxide than any other, and with the U.S.’s recent withdrawal from the Paris Accord, some in the international environmental community have turned to China to lead the way. But current efforts to curb climate change through domestic emissions standards sidestep the issue rather than meet it head-on, given that much of the country’s carbon footprint can be traced to investment in energy-intensive projects beyond its borders.
Sixth Tone spoke to the “researchers” behind three works on display at “Seeds of Time,” an exhibition that opened to the public in April. Chinese-born American science fiction author and translator Ken Liu shared his vision of a city harnessing its innovative spirit to deal with its submersion; renowned oil painter and Beijinger Yu Hong invoked humans’ indifference to the crisis surrounding them; and Taiwanese light installation artist Lin Shu-min focused on the health care challenges that Shanghai’s uncertain future will herald.
Detail from ‘Route of the Future,’ an illustration by Qiu Anxiong used in Ken Liu’s ‘Shanghai in 48 Hours,’ 2017. Courtesy of the artist
Science fiction author Ken Liu penned “Shanghai in 48 Hours,” a droll and disorienting four-page guidebook welcoming tourists to a mostly submerged and deeply changed city. Liu, perhaps best known for his English translation of the highly successful “The Three-Body Problem” by Chinese sci-fi author Liu Cixin, moved from China’s northwestern Gansu province to the U.S. at the age of 11, and his work draws on concepts and traditions found in both English and Chinese science fiction.
Despite lying largely submerged in water — Liu conducted his own calculations based on the city’s terrain elevation — the author’s future Shanghai is still largely inhabited thanks to its residents’ ingenuity. The city center is preserved in an underwater structure, while most residents live in iceberg-like megastructures — cities in themselves — that float above. Despite its predicament, the city has become a hub for the global virtual reality market.
Technology and design of the past focused on isolating us from the effects of nature. But it doesn’t have to be that way. - Ken Liu, sci-fi author
If it weren’t for the somber circumstances to have befallen Liu’s future Shanghai, the city’s current leaders might applaud the prediction. In recent years, the municipal government has championed a multisector campaign to brand Shanghai as the “city of innovation.” “It’s important to present human ingenuity as being useful,” Liu said, speaking to Sixth Tone over the phone from his home office just outside of Boston. “Otherwise, you just end up being helpless against all of this.”
But Liu’s faith in a technological solution to climate change goes beyond the salvation of humankind. In his vision of Shanghai, once-endangered sea mammals glide between Pudong’s skyscrapers. A genetically engineered coral reef flourishes in acidic oceans that devastated its organic predecessors.
“Technology and design of the past focused on isolating us from the effects of nature,” Liu said. “But it doesn’t have to be that way.”
This concord between humankind and the natural world, Liu hopes, presents a lesson from classical Chinese philosophy that is at odds with the climate crisis facing the world today. “We don’t do what we do in binary opposition to nature,” Liu said. “We do what we do as part of nature. We’re children of nature. We are part of its forces and part of its consequences.”
Detail from ‘Ever Higher, Ever Further,’ an acrylic painting on three panels by Yu Hong, 2015. Courtesy of the artist and Long March Space
Painting a bleaker image of humans’ response to the climate crisis is Yu Hong, one of China’s leading oil painters known for her exploration of the relationship between the individual and the country’s rapidly changing society. In her towering 6-meter-tall acrylic painting, titled “Ever Higher, Ever Further,” humans populate the length of a vertical pylon that houses wires, speakers, and surveillance cameras, as torrential waters swirl below. Yu contributed her painting to “Seeds of Time” after one of the curators saw it in her Beijing studio and was struck by its resonance with the project.
Our economic overreaching has continued to impact the environment. - Yu Hong, painter
“The pylon on which our existence relies is trapped in the floodwater, along with our memories,” Yu told Sixth Tone. “It’s a reflection on the environment and the crisis surrounding our state of survival.”
Yet in a commentary on humans’ inaction in the face of destruction, the characters in Yu’s work appear unfazed by the crisis below. In the lowest of the piece’s three panels, a young person stands with their arms around the pole, surveying the torrents of water at their feet. In the middle panel, a smartly dressed urbanite leans against the pylon with his eyes closed, as two bored-looking youths reminiscent of China’s widely derided rural-chic shamate style squat beside him. In the highest panel, a pair of feet protrude from an oversized bird’s nest, their owner apparently oblivious to the outside world.
“Our economic overreaching has continued to impact the environment,” said Yu, whose most intimate experience of humankind’s impact on the environment has been Beijing’s suffocating smog. “Everyone is always talking about development, about affluence. But bit by bit, we are losing the basic, precious, and essential things in our lives,” she said.
‘Information Field,’ an installation by Dai Zhikang and Lin Shu-min at the Shanghai Himalayas Museum, 2017. Courtesy of Lin Shu-min
For the exhibition, Taipei digital imaging artist Lin Shu-min — working with Shanghai-based entrepreneur Dai Zhikang — focused his predictions of the city’s future on the trajectory of health care, placing faith in a resurgence of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM).
In the interactive artwork “Information Field,” an imagined medical device uses images of the five traditional elements and electronic pulses to stimulate participants’ qi, or vital force. Lin believes that Western medicine prioritizes profit over well-being, and as such will fail to provide adequate care for humans as environmental conditions aggravate health issues.
We need to work ahead of time, to know our bodies and direct them in the right direction ourselves. - Lin Shu-min, light installation artist
It’s a controversial stance, given TCM’s increasingly divisive position within public discourse. In June, a prominent chemist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences presented a lecture about qi and its theoretical links to quantum mechanics, eliciting widespread backlash labeling him a crackpot and characterizing qi as witchcraft.
But Lin believes that TCM has been unduly written off as “superficial,” arguing that the Western model of medicine has its fair share of flaws. “Over the past 100 years, hospitals have been dominated by Western medicine,” Lin told Sixth Tone. “It is focused on profit. It is very capitalist.”
Lin doesn’t believe that Western medicine alone is enough to deepen our knowledge of the body; he feels that a more proactive, preventative understanding will be necessary to preserve humankind in the face of worsening environmental conditions and increasing social pressures.
“If you go to your yearly checkup, it’s an examination of what has gone wrong — it’s a bit like passing a test,” Lin told Sixth Tone. “We need to work ahead of time, to know our bodies and direct them in the right direction ourselves.”
Additional reporting: Lin Qiqing; editor: Owen Churchill.
(Header image: An atrium view of the exihibition ‘Seeds of Time’ at the Shanghai Himalayas Museum, March 29, 2017. Courtesy of The Shanghai Project)Michael Bloomberg, man of the people, has an explanation for why the number of homeless people in New York City’s shelters has jumped 18 percent so far this year: Hoi polloi have just never seen amenities like these. “We have made our shelter system so much better that, unfortunately, when people are in it — or fortunately, depending on what your objective is — it is a much more pleasurable experience than they ever had before,” he said yesterday. “When we came into office, the shelter system was an abomination. People were driven around all night. The kids slept on benches. None of that happens again,” — none! — “so there’s less pressure on people to move out today.” Oh, and maybe the economy a little bit, too, he noted.
More than 18,000 children, and more than 43,000 people overall, were living in shelters as of two weeks ago, numbers requiring the opening of nine new shelters in the last two months, the Times reports. All of them will presumably come with Whirlpools and complimentary eggs Benedict in bed, according to Bloomberg’s billionaire logic.
But the mayor, despite his out-of-touch bumblings, likely knows full well what’s going on, even beyond the glossed-over crummy economy:
One likely cause of the increase is the phasing out of a signature Bloomberg administration program called Advantage, which gave employed homeless people rent subsidies for up to two years, part of an effort to help them transition toward self-sufficiency. The state withdrew its financial support last year, leading to the loss of federal funding, as well. The city, which had previously provided only a third of the financing, said it could not continue the program with only its own money.
“The mayor’s assertion that homeless New Yorkers are staying in shelters longer because they’re ‘much more pleasurable’ is shocking and offensive,” said the executive director of the Coalition for the Homeless in the Post, which even had to laugh at Mike’s ridiculousness. “Mayor Bloomberg systematically closed every single path to affordable housing once available to homeless families with vulnerable children. His failed policies are the major factor leading to the record shelter population this summer.”
The Daily News, meanwhile, has photos from the Auburn Family Shelter in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, proudly referred to by one resident as “the slummiest place you can imagine.” At night, she said, her kids go to the bathroom in a bucket. Maybe it’s time for Bloomberg, who has homes from Bermuda to London, to come have a sleepover, just so he doesn’t miss out on all of the pleasure.Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Jackie Hung, protest organiser:"We want universal suffrage...we have been asking for more than 20 years"
Thousands of people in Hong Kong have taken to the streets on the first day of the new year to call for the city's chief executive to resign.
They say CY Leung is not to be trusted following claims he lied about illegal structures at his home, a politically sensitive issue in the city.
They are also calling for the right to be able to vote for their leader, who is currently selected by a small committee loyal to Beijing.
Pro-Leung rallies were also held.
Organisers of those demonstrations said 60,000 people took part, although the police put the number at 8,500.
Those behind the anti-Leung marches claimed they attracted at least 130,000 protesters, although the police said the number was more like 26,000.
'Not honest'
Young families pushing children in buggies and the elderly were among those who streamed into Victoria Park in the centre of Hong Kong for one of several anti-government rallies across the territory, the BBC's Jennifer Pak reports.
The protesters carried banners and posters depicting Mr Leung as Pinocchio or a wolf. Some waved the British colonial-era flag.
At one point, traffic came to a halt when hundreds of members of a small radical party staged a sit-in on roads in the centre of the city. Some protesters were seen being taken away by the police.
Mr Leung has been under pressure ever since it emerged that he had not declared illegal building at his house. A similar scandal brought down his rival for the Hong Kong leadership Henry Tang.
The issue of enlarging homes without permission is sensitive in a territory where living space is tight, and many families are forced to live in cramped conditions.
Mr Leung has acknowledged and apologised for the structures, blaming forgetfulness for failing to be fully open about the issue, but he has not persuaded his critics.
"[CY Leung] is not honest," one protester told the Associated Press. "As chief executive he cannot convince the public that he is a leader with credibility. I don't want Hong Kong to be led by a person without credibility."
But the New Year's Day protests were not just directed at Mr Leung. The demonstrators also called for more democracy and the freedom to choose their next leader.
These types of protests are becoming more frequent and getting bigger, and they are a worry to Beijing, our correspondent says.
But the fact that Mr Leung's supporters held similar rallies of their own shows that Hong Kong is a territory more divided than ever, she notes.
Hong Kong was returned to China by Britain in 1997 and has enjoyed a high degree of autonomy from Beijing. But the Chinese leadership has resisted public pressure for full democracy in Hong Kong.SCP-2919
An image taken in one of the heavily damaged parts of SCP-2919.
Item #: SCP-2919
Object Class: Euclid
Special Containment Procedures: SCP-2919 is to be contained within Provisional Site-31. SCP-2919-1 instances are to be monitored at all times for changes in behavior. Interaction with SCP-2919-1 instances must be approved by personnel with Level 3-2919 clearance. Minkowski Spacetime Monitors are to be set up around SCP-2919 and Provisional Site-31, and will monitor any gravitational distortions within an area of 1 kilometer. These are to be routinely checked and repaired. If a major spacial distortion occurs, personnel at Provisional Site-31 are to follow Protocol Eureka-4 (detailed in Document 2919-E4). Non-Foundation personnel who discover SCP-2919 or Provisional Site-31 are to be administered Class-A Amnestics.
Description: SCP-2919 is a large abandoned factory located in Norrbotten County, Sweden. SCP-2919 is not accessible by road or footpath. It is believed that SCP-2919 was constructed at some point during the 1960s-1980s, based on the architectural style and apparent age of the building. A black and white mural has been painted on the Eastern wall, to the right of what is presumed to be the facility's main entrance. The mural depicts an authoritarian figure in its center. Men and women believed to represent scientists and engineers are on the left side, and instances of SCP-2919-1 are on the right. All of them are saluting. The background resembles the flag of the Kalmar Union. On a wall opposite to the mural there is red text reading, "SUOJAA KANSAMME." The function SCP-2919 served when it was in use is unknown.
SCP-2919-1 instances are Caucasian males of varying height and apparent biological age. Each instance wears a white metal helmet that extends to cover the shoulders and upper chest. A cylinder approximately 1 meter in length with a rounded end protrudes from the middle of the front of the helmet. On the left side of the cylinder is a rectangular box with a small, square hole on the front of it. On the upper half of the helmet's back is a similar cylinder that is roughly 0.5 meters long. Each instance is clad in a long-sleeved shirt, trousers, and a belt. SCP-2919-1 instances do not have difficulty with movement, despite the shape of the helmet. SCP-2919-1 instances will stand in pairs at each entrance to SCP-2919, and prohibit entry. Instances will rotate in six hour shifts, and are relieved by SCP-2919-1 from within the facility. SCP-2919-1 instances are conversant in Swedish, Finnish, Danish, Norwegian, Russian, and English.
SCP-2919-1 instances will actively prevent human subjects from entering SCP-2919, starting with verbal warnings. Non-compliance will result in escalating use of force, culminating in the use of what appears to be the generation of localized gravitational distortions to remove individuals from the premises of SCP-2919. The distortions can be generated within a radius of 4 meters around the instance. SCP-2919-1 instances will also use said gravitational distortions as a form of self defense, via physically repelling attackers and deflecting or neutralizing projectiles fired in its direction.
Current observations have shown them not to be hostile without provocation. So far only three subjects have been killed by SCP-2919-1 instances, due to gravitational distortions appearing on or in their body after attempted attacks by the subjects. Further details are in Document 2919-D7. This is believed to be caused by attempts by the SCP-2919-1 instances to relocate the subjects, and was unintentional. These abilities have prevented the capture and study of SCP-2919-1 instances. This has also prevented any exploration of SCP-2919.
Addendum:
+ Interview 2919-K5 - Interview 2919-K5 Interviewed: An SCP-2919-1 instance, which has been named SCP-2919-1H for the purposes of the interview. Interviewer: Dr. Jared Vadim, who imitated a journalist during the interview. <Begin Log> [Dr. Vadim enters SCP-2919] SCP-2919-1H: Stop right there, sir. Dr. Vadim: What is it? SCP-2919-1H: Please identify yourself. Dr. Vadim: I'm Emanuel Enok, a journalist from The Newspapers' Telegram Bureau. SCP-2919-1H: State your reasons for visiting. Dr. Vadim: I'm here to write a news report on this building and the work you guys do here. SCP-2919-1H: May I see your identification? [Dr. Vadim takes out a Swedish press card and shows it to SCP-2919-1H.] SCP-2919-1H: You have invalid credentials. I cannot let you in. Dr. Vadim: Well, can I ask you some questions about this place? SCP-2919-1H: You are going to have to leave, sir. Dr. Vadim: What work do you do at this factory? SCP-2919-1H: Be assured that our work will greatly benefit our nation. Please leave now. Dr. Vadim: Why is this so important that the public can't know about it? SCP-2919-1H: Leave- [An electric hum begins emanating from SCP-2919-1H. Distorted audio could be heard during the pauses in speech] to volunteer- show your credentials- will protect- feels weird- against enemy- our work will greatly- Project Dažbog- did not see a sky- our nation. Please leave now. [The electric hum ceases] Dr. Vadim: What's Project Dažbog? SCP-2919-1H: There is no Project Dažbog. Leave now. [Dr. Vadim was removed from SCP-2919 via gravitational distortions. Attempts to go back to SCP-2919-1H and SCP-2919 were prevented in the same manner. SCP-2919-1H did not respond to further questioning.] <End Log>
Addendum-2: On █/██/████ at 10:54 am, an SCP-2919-1 instance (named SCP-2919-1V for the autopsy log) began to spasm and subsequently collapsed. Three minutes later, another SCP-2919-1 instance emerged from SCP-2919 and took its place at its post, ignoring the collapsed instance. SCP-2919-1V was able to be retrieved with no complications arising. After confirmation that the instance was dead, an autopsy was performed on the corpse.
The helmet is composed of stainless steel, painted in white. The helmet contained differentiated biological tissue and organs connected to multiple electronic components, grafted to a series of metal struts. In the center of the helmet is a brain, which many of the electronic components are connected to. It is currently unknown what purpose the organs served. It is theorized that they were able to generate an alternating current of a constant voltage to power the electronic components, and process glucose and other nutrients for the body via ██████. The helmet is connected to the rest of the body's skeletal system, and cannot be removed without causing a collapse of the spine and chest. The letters "KU-21" have been tattooed above the navel. The rest of the body and its attire showed no abnormalities.
During the autopsy the instance was surrounded by a gravitational lensing effect, and subsequently vanished along with the autopsy table and various instruments. Sensors picked up a large spatial and gravitational distortion in the area when this occurred, which pulled the instruments towards SCP-2919-1V's body. A hole was reported appearing in the lens, which led to a dark, gray area. The body and the equipment have not been found.
Addendum-3:
+ Exploration Log 2919 - Exploration Log 2919 Foreword: Experimentation with interactions between SCP-2919-1 instances and machinery have determined that small robotics and machinery are largely ignored. Horus Camera Drone H765 (1 cm x 1 cm x 1 cm) was attached to an SCP-2919-1 instance (named SCP-2919-1U) on the front of its helmet. After 2 hours at 6:00 PM, SCP-2919-1U left its post and entered the building. The following is a transcript of what H765 recorded inside SCP-2919 before the signal was lost. Further explorations are planned. <Begin Log> SCP-2919-1U walks towards a series of doors. These doors open on their own, presumably caused by SCP-2919-1U's gravitational distortions. It enters through them and begins walking down a long hallway. The hallway has various exits along the walls, presumably leading to other segments of SCP-2919. The walls are less worn than the outside of SCP-2919. Despite the apparent age of SCP-2919, lights inside the building are still operational, suggesting there is a running source of electricity. The end of the hallway splits off into two corridors, with a door in the middle. Next to the door is a bulletin board, with a map and other documents on it (further details are in Addendum-4). The door leads to a stairwell, which appears to have been designed to accommodate the helmet shape of SCP-2919-1 instances. SCP-2919-1U descends down this stairwell for several minutes. The stairwell leads to a catwalk above a large room, with various other catwalks near the upper area of it. On the catwalk floor is a wrinkled poster. The poster has a gray silhouette of a person wearing black glasses, on top of an orange background. An orange gear symbol is on each lens of the glasses. A caption underneath says, "If you see someone wearing glasses, ask them to remove them! They might be CONSTRUCTED! " SCP-2919-1U walks down the catwalk for two minutes before reaching a set of stairs at the end of it. As SCP-2919-1U walks down the stairs at the end of the catwalk, H765 is able to see more of the room. This area has various deactivated conveyor belts and machinery that appear to have been assembling SCP-2919-1 helmets. Metal vats are attached to the walls, some of which have fallen off and spilled blood and organs on the floor. These organs resemble the ones found in SCP-2919-1V's helmet. Several SCP-2919-1 instances are patrolling this area. Much of the machinery is either in a state of disrepair or broken entirely. On the floor are two documents (detailed further in Addendum-4) and the back of a human body protruding from the floor, as if submerged. On the wall is a propaganda poster, depicting a soldier planting the Kalmar Union flag into a cracked outline resembling the United States of America. The outline has the Great Seal of the United States in the center. The caption says "We beat the States, and we can beat the communists too!" SCP-2919-1U goes through a set of metal doors into another room similar to the previous one. At this point connection with H765 is lost for one minute. Upon connection with H765 being restored, SCP-2919-1U enters an elevator, and turns around to face the doors. The elevator's walls and doors are made of glass, allowing a view of a tall metal chamber. Inside the chamber is an object resembling an enlarged version of an SCP-2919-1 helmet, with various electronics and machinery connected to it. At the top of the chamber is a broken window, which leads into an unknown area. The elevator descends below the chamber, and only shows concrete. Connection to H765 begins to decrease. The doors open to reveal a large gray cylindrical room. In the center of it is a metal ring that is connected to the floor and ceiling with rods. A machine is in the center of the ring, with wires and tubes connecting to the inside of the ring. Along the sides of the ring are 20 naked human bodies, all of which are headless and have tubes extended from their necks to the ceiling. Some of the bodies are in a state of decay, while others appear healthy. One of the bodies has been segmented diagonally from its right shoulder to the left side of its hip, while another one appears to have been exploded from the inside. Decayed organs, dried blood stains, and broken glass are visible on the floor. At random intervals one of the bodies spasms (including the decayed and heavily damaged ones). The letters "KU2-S" can be seen on the chest of each body. Various organs been assembled into the words (in Finnish) "DID I SAVE YOU?" on the ground. On the wall the words (also in Finnish) "PLEASE TALK TO ME" can be seen, having been written in blood. As SCP-2919-1U approaches the center of the room H765's signal is lost.
Addendum-4: The following are documents seen by Horus Camera Drone H765 in SCP-2919. All text has been translated from Finnish to English. Any text written in italics were written in pencil on the documents. Images of each document can be seen in Document SCP-2919-E1R.
+ Recovered Document 2919-1 - Recovered Document 2919-1 Project Dažbog End of Week Report - 21/10/1979 This has been a week of great progress for Project Dažbog. Our engineers have put the finishing touches on the construction systems, which have produced 11 new Karewit Units in a single day. The organ construction cells are healthy, though at times the organ production has gotten out of control. Four days ago one of our growth vats broke apart after rapid organ growth pushed too hard against the vat's walls. Even during the cleanup operation the cells were still attempting to construct more organs. However, this is believed to be a freak incident, and is unlikely to happen again. However, we have added a system to our vats that will get rid of unneeded organs if too many grow. Karewit-U2 continues to grow stronger. In one experiment KU2 was able to hold a 3 m x 4 m x 3.5 m rock in the air for approximately 2 minutes outside Facility 63, better than it has ever done so far. Other tests have shown that KU2 can now manipulate gravity anywhere within Facility 63. If we are able to keep KU2 in this state for a long period of time, the next year might see militarization of KU2. However, its personality is still that of a child. It is unknown why this is, considering the brain size and augments. Some believe that KU2 needs time to mentally develop, due to there being more space in its brain to use than a normal human. At some point next week we will look into this further. Currently this seems to have no negative side effects. The biggest advancement we've made so far happened during testing of a Karewit Unit. While testing how many objects can be manipulated at once, the unit vanished and reappeared several meters away. This means we can create artificial wormholes with the units, though we don't know how this works. This discovery has been made today, so little testing has been performed, but research will be continued on this next week. Lastly, the Democratic Council has agreed on giving us more money for our research. With the increasingly difficult war against Mekhantos, they want us to finalize our Karewit Units soon. However, this will not override any planned projects and experiments for next week, as the Karewit Units are close to being finished. Hopefully next week brings further progress. Dr. Eino Jere - Lead Project Dažbog Researcher
+ Recovered Document 2919-2 - Recovered Document 2919-2 NOTE: A majority of this document is missing, due to it being obstructed by the first document when seen. Below is the text that could be seen. vanished after the transport, with the cord sliced in half. Footage from the Unit only showed static and a blue sky. One researcher who went through with a Unit, Dr. Cai Egil, claims he saw another world for a brief second, though he can't give any specific details about it. Based on other footage taken by units, it is theorized that the wormhole passes through another dimension, then reenters into ours. While this opens up many possibilities, wormhole transportation is very dangerous. One Unit ended up inside a wall after transporting itself, with parts of its body filled with concrete. The only reason we knew where it went was when we saw its hand sticking out of a wall a few hours later, twitching. It is unknown where the rest of the concrete was displaced to. I hope that our missing scientists haven't suffered the same fate. Due to these dangers related to wormholes, there is worry that KU2 will be able to do the same thing, but on a larger scale. After having studied on how the wormhole creation is performed, our engineers have developed an inhibitor that prevents this from happening. We have also had to call off any further testing on the wormholes, due to the escalated tensions on the border and government worries. Karewit Units are currently being produced at the fastest rate possible right now. Hopefully we will live to see further developments next week. Dr. Eino Jere - Lead Project Dažbog Researcher The Soviets have broken the treaty, and have crossed the Finnish-Soviet border while we were distracted. With our proximity to the fighting, I worry we will be attacked soon. I don't know how long the guards will hold them off for, but whatever happens we can't let them get in. They can't be allowed to learn. The inhibitor hasn't been installed.
+ Recovered Document 2919-3 - Recovered Document 2919-3 This is a written description of a map seen on the bulletin board in SCP-2919. The map is titled "Map of the Modern World - 1979." Various countries are depicted in the colors blue, red, and gray. A legend on the map says "Blue: Capitalist and Allied Nations, Red: Communist Territory, Gray: Neutral, Yellow: Old Government Territory, Bronze: Mekhantos, Black: Lost" The countries present on the map are different than maps made during 1979. One of these differences is North America being composed of ten countries, ranging in size. Three of the western countries are colored in red, with a majority of the central and northern ones in gray. The largest country is colored blue and goes along most of the east coast. Cuba and most of Central America are blue. The countries in South America are a mix of blue, red, and gray, with a resemblance to Cold War era South America. The only major difference is that Chile is smaller in size, and that the area where Brazil would be is two countries, one blue and the other red. Africa and the Middle East remain fairly unchanged, with slightly different borders. On the west coast of Africa is a small yellow country, which is the only country colored in yellow. In Europe, Italy isn't a single country, and is made up of various smaller ones. Portugal and Spain are both one country. Sweden, Finland, Norway, and presumably Norway's overseas territories are also one nation. What is presumed to be the Soviet Union extends up to its 1945 borders. Asia (including Japan) is predominantly red, though what is believed to be China is blue and smaller in size. All the Pacific island nations are in gray. In the South Atlantic Ocean is a bronze circle roughly the size of Brazil. Four smaller bronze circles are in the Pacific Ocean. Greenland is the only area of the map that is colored black.
+ Recovered Document 2919-4 - Recovered Document 2919-4 NOTE: This document is a piece of paper seen on the bulletin board in SCP-2919. - IN MEMORY OF THOSE WHO DIED OR WERE CAPTURED DURING THE INVASION OF IRELAND. MAY MEKHANTOS BE LEVELED. SIGN YOUR NAME IN THEIR HONOR [Below this are various signatures] Peace, Prosperity, Progress, Freedom - New Kalmaris
+ Recovered Document 2919-5 - Recovered Document 2919-5 NOTE: These documents are pieces of paper seen on the bulletin board in SCP-2919. They appear to be newspaper clippings. - New Kalmaris Ambassador Traveling to the Old Government Remnants Ever since the Kalmar Union was toppled during World War I and New Kalmaris was founded, one territory continued to pledge allegiance to the old government. The African country of New Oslo has refused to rejoin New Kalmaris, and has shown a strong distaste towards our government. However, after 61 years of separation they might finally join. Their location has made them suffer greatly from the war against Mekhantos, and recent attack from neighboring countries are straining their defense. An ambassador from New Kalmaris is traveling to New Oslo, to arrange for negotiations. It is unknown what these negotiations entail, but hopefully it means we can get them to rejoin in exchange for support from our nation. The negotiations will take place in two days. A Mysterious Machine Rises From the Ocean On August 5th, a freighter heading from Argentina to Morocco made a shocking discovery. While going through large waves the crew saw a large bulge appear in the ocean. One crew member said, "We noticed our ship begin to rise on top of what we thought was a large wave. However, it just kept getting large and larger until it looked like a massive wall. Then it burst." Out of the water was massive, bronze complex of machinery. They said it looked like a wall made of various rotating gears, with a loud grinding noise coming from inside. The ship's captain, Captain Hector Yenien said, "It was the most haunting sight I've ever seen in my life. It was as if I could feel something deep within that mass of cogs and gears, something horrid. We couldn't go any further with that thing blocking our path, so we turned around. I'm glad I did." When the ship returned to port at Mar del Plata, they were the first of many sailors who began to spread tales of the machine. Yesterday on August 9th the Argentinian military launched an investigation and confirmed that these tales are true. An investigation of the so called "Gear Island" is underway.0.31: Reading you the news, some serious business, spooky hackery and a breaking Z-Wave change October 22, 2016 14 minutes reading time
Hello again friend,
How are you? Having a good day? We sure are. If you aren’t having a good day, this might cheer you up…
Every other weekend around here gets a little hectic leading to a big sigh of relief as we release a new version of Home Assistant to the world. And this time is no different. Our developer community has once again built us a beautiful new release with lots of new features and improvements. We hope you like it.
One last thing before we get going though, I should warn you… @balloob got a bit lazy this week and let me (@robbiet480) step up to the plate again to write the blog post and do the release. I guess I didn’t do such a bad job in 0.27. You’ll never know what surprises I have in store. Now that i’ve got all that stuff out of the way, let’s get started…
Stats Update
Sadly, no big amazing stats to update you with this time, but we did recently pass 7,000 commits! This release featured submissions from 45 contributors. Hopefully with the new updater component we will be able to give you some really good stats in the 0.32 blog post.
Hacktoberfest
October means Hacktoberfest time and our community has really come through with some excellent improvements and additions. As of this writing, we have 194 merged and 41 open pull requests to the home-assistant repository and 209 merged/28 open pull requests submitted to the home-assistant.github.io repository. If you want to get in on the fun check out our Hacktoberfest blog post or the Hacktoberfest website. You get an awesome t-shirt for free if you have 4 pull requests merged in the month of October! We even have tasks that a non-developer can easily accomplish with a tiny bit of work. Better hurry up though, only 9 days left and most of the easy tasks are gone!
⚠️ A greatly improved updater component (Please read this!) ⚠️
This release includes an update to our updater component. The responsibility of the updater component is to check if a new version is available and notify the user if this is the case.
It used to be that this component would check with PyPi (the Python package manager) to see if a new update was available. This had a couple of problems:
We are unable to do a slow rollout We are unable to show the user extra information (like a link to a changelog or the release date) We are unable to warn users for critical security updates
So to work around these problems, we decided to start hosting the version check service ourselves. Since we had to get some infrastructure spun up anyway, we figured we would take it a step further. Which leads me to this bit of the update (the most important part):
What you need to know (the important bit!)
Remember how I mentioned that up there in the title |
help them.
In the U.S., we wish basic work on the germ line could be carried out with federal funding because it would provide more resources and greater transparency, but such research will have to get money from private and state-funded initiatives. In the wake of the Protein & Cell study, the National Institutes of Health reiterated that it will not fund research involving modification of human embryos, citing legal prohibitions as well as safety concerns.
Those issues show that scientific and government groups must engage the public in discussions about germ line changes and use that dialogue to form new policies. CRISPR is the most powerful genome-editing tool that scientists have. We need to explore its potential to avert the horrors of genetic diseases but do so without jeopardizing our values or harming generations of human lives.LOW BLOW: Inner-city apartment residents opposed war veterans drinking at the new Christchurch Returned Services Association (background), a move RSA president Pete Dawson called "a blow below the belt".
Inner-city residents have given Christchurch war veterans the all clear to serve drinks at their new RSA.
The last remaining opponent to the Returned Services' Association's liquor licence application withdrew their objection today.
Several neighbours, including two apartment building body corporates, opposed the application for the Armagh St RSA, due to open next month, believing it would be a noise nuisance.
The RSA, due to re-open on Armagh St next month, applied for a liquor on-licence to serve alcohol from 8am to 1am, seven days a week. Proceeds from drink sales would supplement their veterans' welfare trust.
The RSA made assurances about how it would operate and altered its proposed opening hours. Two withdrew their objections. A third backed down yesterday after publicity about the conflict.
The council's district licensing authority confirmed the last remaining objection to the application was withdrawn today.
Christchurch RSA president Pete Dawson said it was "a relief".
"We have come to an agreement with our neighbours. It's all been sorted. We're on good terms now [and] it's time to put this behind us," he said.
He said neighbours had the right to object, but it had beenrustrating after 95 years of "exemplary" behaviour on the site. About 75 per cent of the RSA's 1100 members were war veterans. More than 200 were more than 90 years old.
"We've never been bad boys," Dawson said. "I think the last time there was a big party outside the RSA was V-J day at the end of World War Two."
The matter would go to the District Licensing Committee to make a decision within the next two days, a council spokeswoman said. A public hearing was no longer required.
Dawson said the RSA did not want to be "at loggerheads" with neighbours.
"If they see us as a problem from time to time, I want to hear about it. We are all part of the same community and we have to work together and support each other," he said.
The $6.5 million Warren & Mahoney-designed RSA will open on March 27.
It replaces the 1920s-era RSA torn down due to earthquake damage.When my coauthor and I began working on Programming Scala last year, the most frequent comment I got was, “you’re never going to want to write another book once you’re done.” Well, as of this morning, I’m pretty much done, and I can say that I’d very much like to write another book. I don’t think, though, that I would commit to another one while working a full-time job, and I certainly wouldn’t recommend trying to write a book while working at a rapidly growing startup.
When I announced that I was going to be working on the book, a critic insinuated that it would detract from my work at Twitter. In practice, the opposite was true. I had many an evening or weekend afternoon of writing interrupted by fires at work that needed fighting. For that reason, I wouldn’t consider taking on another book project until I can give it my full attention. The value of sabbaticals as practiced in the academic world was made crystal clear to me throughout the writing process.
There’s a reason why Dean’s name comes first on the book’s cover: he is unambiguously the principal contributor to Programming Scala. We worked from his outline, and though much was changed and reorganized collaboratively, the backbone of the book is absolutely Dean’s. I couldn’t have asked for a better coauthor. If anything, I wish that I could have contributed more equally to the text. What I did contribute, though, I’m proud of. We handed off our content to the production team at O’Reilly earlier today, and I can hardly wait until October to have the final product in my hands (and on my Kindle).
I took on the book in part to develop a mastery of Scala, and I’ve looked forward to learning something new every time I sit down to write, week after week. Though I understand more of the language than I did when I started, I still don’t feel that I’m on the level of folks like David Pollak, Jorge Ortiz, Daniel Spiewak, and the rest of the Scala gurus who dove into the language well before Dean or I. Still, it’s been an incredible learning experience, and I’m extremely grateful to everyone who made it possible, not least of all our editor, Mike Loukides.
This coming weekend will be my first in many months that is completely open, free of examples that need to be written, sections that need to be reorganized, reader feedback to incorporate, and unfamiliar concepts that need to be researched before I can write about them with confidence. With the free time I now have again, I can get back to writing open source code, mixing music, exploring the Bay Area, posting to this blog, and all the other things I’ve set aside while working on the book.
It’s liberating to be done, but bittersweet.
Since I Left You
I have managed to do a bit of this and that while wrapping up the book. We’ve set up a blog for the Twitter platform, and I’ve contributed a few posts to that. I’ve managed several talks, and committed to a couple more later this year.
Most cathartically, I’ve laid open my virtual notebook of ideas for all the web to see. I’m going to be at Twitter for a couple more years at least, if all goes well, and it seems a shame to let ideas sit in a text file and rot in the interim. Some of the ideas I fully intend on seeing through myself, in time. Others I hope will be picked up, improved upon, or made irrelevant by people smarter and more talented than myself. Either way, it’s been an experiment in radical openness (a topic I’m preoccupied with), and one that’s paid off from day one.
It should be less quiet around here, again, now.Please enable Javascript to watch this video
DENVER -- For weeks, protests in Denver have taken place regarding town halls and whether or not elected officials in Washington will hold them.
Few are on the schedule, with many leaders out of the country.
Perhaps the one politician in the hot seat the most is U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner. Gardner is Colorado's lone Republican voice in the U.S. Senate and with Republicans in charge, protests have erupted over his lack of town halls.
Outside the Renaissance Hotel in Stapleton on Wednesday, there were more protests -- this time with Gardner inside.
After Gardner spoke to farmers at the Governor's Agriculture Forum, he took questions where he committed to do no future in-person town halls, instead committing to telephone town halls.
I caught up with @SenCoryGardner today about why he isn't hosting a townhall. This is our two minute exchange. #copolitics #kdvr #kwgn pic.twitter.com/clXPnOjzvb — Joe St. George (@JoeStGeorge) February 22, 2017
Here is text of the full exchange:
St. George: As you know, there’s been protests outside your office. There’s a protest outside this hotel, people wondering, during this week of recess, why aren’t you hosting a town hall?
Gardner: Well look, we’ve had a number of opportunities to engage with a number of Coloradans around the state. And we’ll continue to do that, whether it’s through this opportunity to visit with the Governor’s Agriculture Forum. I just spoke at the Colorado Space Coalition. I was out at Fort Morgan and Burlington earlier this week. We’ll be in northern Colorado (on Wednesday) and (Thursday). And so it’s a great opportunity to hear from Coloradans, and I appreciate the people who are expressing their points of view, whether they support what the President has done or whether they oppose what the president has done, it is very good to hear what’s going on.
St. George: But no town hall? Will you commit to doing a town hall sometime in the future?
Gardner: In my time in Congress, we’ve held over 100 town halls. Last year, we were across all 64 counties in the state. We’ve met with protesters. My office has met with protesters. We’ll continue to do that. We’ll hold a number of tele-town halls in the future. And I hope that people will go onto our website and join them.
St. George: Is a tele-town hall a way to avoid that confrontation, because as you know, some of these town halls are getting heated. Is that why people like yourself are choosing telephone town halls?
Gardner: Well, I think it’s a great opportunity to reach people across the state. And we try to do it as often as we can. We do it at different times in the day. Sometimes we do it in the morning. Sometimes we do it at night, just depending on when people are able to answer the phone. That’s why we want to vary the time of day that we do this at. And we can reach out to more people. We take positive questions. We take negative questions. We take them all. It’s a great way to hear what’s on people’s minds. In addition to the many meetings we’ve held with people across Colorado. The office outreach that we’ve had. The time to meet with protesters throughout the state, individually at these forums as well. It’s very important.
St. George: So as of right now, no plans to hold a town hall?
Gardner: Look, we’ve had a number of tele-town hall opportunities. We’ve had a number of opportunities to go to open forums.
St. George: But no in-person town halls?
Gardner: We’re going to continue working on meetings where we can meet people across the state. That’s what we’re doing today. That’s what we’re doing tomorrow. We’ll continue doing it throughout the week.(Experienced Growers Only) Controversial Defoliation Increases Marijuana Yields
by Keef Treez "The Defoliator"
Defoliation is an extreme marijuana growth control technique. It's not to be done lightly by beginners.
(For those interested, here's a cannabis defoliation tutorial by a different grower)
The topic of cannabi defoliation is one of the most controversial subjects in the marijuana growing field. People on both sides defend their position vehemently.
I'm on the side that believe there is absolutely nothing stressful about defoliation or bending branches. Honestly, there is no way to achieve nearly a pound of buds from a 2-3 foot tall plant indoors, except using defoliation.
Opponents often have arguments like, "PLANTS NEED THOSE LEAVES! If they didn't, they wouldn't be there."
Or my all-time favorite, "I have a friend who used to grow, and he insists that will hurt the plant."
Yet the saddest part of all is how so few people are willing to look at the evidence.
In some ways, I almost would prefer the rest of the growing world keep up their ill-advised lollipopping, removing growing tips, and other low-yield techniques. The defoliation technique has been loudly condemned by "experienced" growers for decades. Nevertheless, I am determined to educate other growers about defoliating and let them see the results for themselves.
So let me start by giving you some picture proof that defoliation works (make sure you scroll down to see all of them!).
You see, I've been defoliating intensively for 30 years. I am now training plants to be 32" tall and 32" round and yielding 250-400 grams under 400 watt lamp.
Nebula Haze from GrowWeedEasy.com: Yes, that's right, he said 8-14 OUNCES of
buds of marijuana harvested off each short, easy-to-manage 32" tall plant, using
just a regular 400 watt HID grow light.
Here are two of my beauties (the one on the right needs a good plucking)
How-To Tutorial: The Controversial Technique of Defoliation
Despite all the evidence (I've posted hundreds of pictures and shown dozens of growers in person), there is still somehow so much skepticism about defoliation techniques. Growers, especially new growers, often just say variations of, "It's common sense, how could removing any part of the plant cause you to get higher yields?"
I recently attended an advanced seminar with a prominent fellow grower and got roundly booed when attempting to describe the defoliation technique, even with pictures showing dramatic benefits.
Unlike many other growers, I believe what's most important is studying how the plant actually grows, instead of assuming she grows how we think she should grow. Real experimentation and unbiased observers are the only way growers are going to learn how to get the best yields for the amount of time, money, and effort.
And it's true that some types of defoliation are brutal to the plants (such as when misguided growers removing all the leaves off extremely young marijuana plants), but other types of defoliation are actually hugely beneficial to increasing yields (I'll be showing you exactly what do do shortly).
And defoliation is beneficial for more than just marijuana, it also has been proven to increase yields for certain other types of crops. For example, it's well-known that cowpeas experience significant increases in yields when up to 50% of their leaves are defoliated during their flowering stage… (source)
This marijuana girl is 32" tall (the dimensions of this girl are 32"x32"x32" to be exact). She was intensely defoliated throughout her life.
And it's true that the real beauty of defoliation is difficult to translate in pictures and verbally.
But I will do my best to give you everything you need to start producing your own huge yields with marijuana defoliation.
But First, Let Me Show You About Increased Bud Production With Defoliation During the Flowering Stage
Before plucking
Immediately After Plucking
Just 4 days later, look at the incredible bud growth
Only 4 Days After That (after another defoliation session)
Are you beginning to see the power of defoliation?
How Early Do You Start Defoliating?
I first started defoliating in desperation after many years of SOG, which I feel has proven to be too much work for inconsistent yields. After much experimentation, I've found my yields have been more consistent when training a single plant to use this space instead of 4 or 9 or 25 SOG clones.
Never mind the fact that in many states, patients are limited to just a handful of plants, removing SoG as a viable option.
Most growers who are curious about this do not want to perform defoliation on small plants. They consider the practice in veg to be too radical. And I 100% agree that totally stripping your seedlings of all leaves will be devastating to their growth.
And the honest truth is that defoliation isn't for everyone. Beginners are often already dealing with the drawbacks to their choice of method or media, and defoliation can be disastrous to any but the healthiest of plants.
Because of this, I sometimes hesitate to throw defoliation into the mix of challenges for beginning growers and I strongly advise any growers to experiment with defoliation (or with any extreme growth control method) in the vegetative stage only where there is nothing at stake.
That being said, I believe the only reason you should allow a marijuana plant to leaf out completely is in an outdoor situation where you want as large a plant as possible. In that case you can save deleafing for mid to late summer after full-stretch and branching.
The way I practice this method (growing indoors) leaves never get a chance to age. No leaves are allowed more than about two weeks existence. I start at the top in order to remove the shading. Removing lower leaf contributes nothing to the strategy of exposing usually shaded out mid and lower growth to premium light. I still remove older shabby leaves to keep it all tidy.
And this is where defoliation gets controversial. Many growers feel that controlling their plant in any way during the vegetative stage will significantly reduce yields. And I understand how it can seem that way, especially to new growers, before you've gone through the entire life cycle of the marijuana plant a few times.
Experiments show, again and again, that large plants with intensively prepared structure during extended Veg cycle yield far more than untrained, smaller, force-flowered inpiduals.
Nebula Haze from GrowWeedEasy.com : I've also found this to be the case.
Small marijuana plants that are forced to flower when extremely young are
can be fun as an experiment, but produce pitiful yields. Investing more time
in the vegetative stage to gain girth, while controlling the shape and growth
of the plant, has dramatically increased yields for me.
The truth is, that with marijuana, the real'secret sauce' to getting enormous yields is when you've perfectly prepared your plants for the flowering stage. As any grower knows, once you're deep into flowering, there isn't a whole lot you can do about huge, out-of-control plants except hold on, pray for the best, and do better next time.
I DO NOT lollipop and advice strongly against it. I use defoliation to skillfully and artfully prepare plants during the vegetative stage, so that lollipopping becomes completely unnecessary. I am on a mission to refocus growing technique to never remove ANY productive growth. I believe only leaves should be removed.
Ultimately, the defoliation technique is a huge tool in the grower's toolbox that allows you to dominate the Vegetative stage. Then it can be used in the Flowering stage to maximize yields.
Defoliation is the Big Secret to High-Yield, Compact Marijuana Plants
My style involves intensive defoliation along with the twist and train method (a version of supercropping) using a basic net for support.
I only top once, if at all, at the 5th or 6th node(approximately) depending on the height and structure of a given clone. I also deleaf them at this time. The only plants that get more topping than that are because they had clones taken from them. I don't usually keep dedicated mothers, instead, I just clone the clones and cycle everything through.
Here is a close-up of a veg clone getting it's second stripping.
Before
After
To get the best results, you should start defoliation in the vegetative stage. Leaf removal in bud is beneficial after stretch but most important to yields is management and the creation of a more compact plant with more budding sites in a given size.
Stripping and bending takes practice but you must do it to get practice. By starting in veg you risk no bud. Veg plants are replaceable so experiment and be ready to devote a little more time to prepare them.
I'd describe my stripping as "aggressive." Once your plant is trained to deal with defoliation, it's hard to go wrong. Plus, after years of experience, I've become very familiar with how these plants grow and always know what my outcome will be.
But defoliation doesn't end in the vegetative stage. I also continue to pull the fan leaves off of my flowering plants to expose the buds.
As far as when and how often, I don't get too scientific about it.
Usually if things look leafy, meaning that you see more leaf than budsites when viewing the crop, it may be time for another deleafing. It usually takes a week to 10 days for a plant to releaf to the point that there are 2-4 new leaves that have flattened and greened enough to deleaf again.
This repeated releafing process allows that lower growth to benefit from the maturing of the immediate leaf mass.
Leaf removal stimulates lower and mid bud growth by exposing those normally shaded out areas to premium light. Of course those new to the technique should start slow, but if you start too slow you won't remove enough leaf to see the best result.
You basically want to prevent any'shade' from happening.
Here's an example of how I deleaf a girl who is 2 weeks into 12-12 (flowering)
Before
After
Notice how, you can now see light all the way through the plant. This is a good thing for light, as opposed to seeing nothing but leaves in the before pic.
Wait, did you say you wanted to see what kind of buds I get at the BOTTOM of the plant?
You get extensive bottom growth on defoliated plants
This is on the morning of harvest. While some are obsessed with top growth I like well developed bottoms. Tops are a given. If bottoms are this well developed the tops are certainly getting their share of light. Some guys like tops, some like bottoms. I like my girls to be equally well developed.
Ready to Get Started?
You can start easy and try to save leaves but what happens when you see the results like all the mid growth exploding with the new exposure. It would serve logic that if you remove a little and there is good results than remove more and on and on until you get comfortable with stripping down these girls.
I recommend you start deleafing as soon as your plants start looking 'bushy' at all. Start with removing the fans from all the branches and watch the results. Then remove progressively more. Don't remove any branches or sites if you want to commit to this method.
The idea is shade removal, NOT budsite removal. Allow them to releaf for a week or so and remove again when they look leafy.
This girl is 32"sq. and under 30" tall. She was thoroughly plucked continuously through her 11 week flowering cycle as well as during veg. No shortage of branches or buds, all of them chunky and exposed. I ended up harvesting 12 ounces off her. Marijuana plants do not get like this on their own. Stripping in veg and throughout bud is the only way to get results like this.
Answer to the 3 Most Common Questions About Marijuana Defoliation
1.) Which Fan Leaves Can Be Plucked?
All of them.
That was the short answer.
I remove everything that is easily pinched off with the thumbnail and forefinger. I keep a little bit of a cutting tool for a thumbnail specifically for that purpose.
I don't try to get in super close to the buds once they get sticky unless it is just intolerably crowded. Any leaf that is attached by enough of a peristem to be plucked easily is fair game.
Bud leaves are attached deeper in the bud cluster and are difficult to remove by hand. I do not yank or pull down on the leaf. I snip it off with the thumbnail. Don't sweat the stubs that are left, they dry out and fall off. Best not to try to cut so close to the plant, especially in mold prone climates.
2.) Can Defoliation Be Used with Any Growing Medium?
Yes. Medium is not a factor. Go with what you like.
Defoliation works great for marijuana grown in soil, coco coir, perlite, vermiculite, DWC, bubbleponics, and any other growing medium that marijuana grows in.
3.) I've Never Defoliated and Now I'm Several Weeks into Flowering with Tall, BUSHY Out-of-Control Plants… Can I Still Start Defoliating?
If you've never defoliated before, go conservative to start, even if your plants look healthy.
Do it moderately at first and a little more daily. Pluck fan leaves to prevent branches from growing taller. During the flowering stage, you'll be able to see the increase in bud production.
So there you have it, a basic introduction to defoliation for huge yields. It's about time defoliation went mainstream!
Here's another cannabis defoliation tutorial by a different grower!
Read about more cannabis training techniques
About the Author:
Keef Treez "The Defoliator" has run several threads on ICMag.com, Overgrow, and CannabisWorld which continue to be very popular and controversial even years after they were created, receiving millions of hits. He is located in a beautiful high country area where he legally provides as a caregiver.
View his thread about defoliation on ICMag.com: http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=174163
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Happy growing!Compared to President Obama, "President Reagan rushed home from Santa Barbara vacation, from the Reagan ranch when the Korean jetliner was shot out of the air by the Russians."
For Fox News, the downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 in Ukraine evoked memories of another disaster, the shooting down of Korean Air Flight 007 by the Soviet air force in 1983. The commercial flight with 269 people aboard had strayed into Soviet airspace on its way to Seoul. After tracking the plane for several hours, a Soviet SU-15 Interceptor opened fire, crippling the plane and sending it into the sea. About 60 Americans were on board, including a member of Congress.
Several pundits on Fox News used the 1983 crash to illustrate how unfavorably President Barack Obama compares to President Ronald Reagan. They criticized Obama for attending a fundraiser and sticking with his regular schedule on the day the Malaysian plane went down.
They said it was completely different with Reagan.
Chris Stirewalt, the Fox News Online editor, described how Reagan and his Secretary of State George Shultz "immediately went on the offensive" to "show resolve in the face of aggression."
Conservative commentator Kate Obenshain echoed the speed of Reagan’s response.
"President Reagan rushed home from Santa Barbara vacation, from the Reagan ranch when the Korean jetliner was shot out of the air by the Russians," Obenshain said July 17 on The O’Reilly Factor.
We looked at the sequence of events in late August and the first few days of September 1983. What we found is that it fails to line up as neatly as Obenshain said.
An abbreviated timeline
Korean Air 007 left Anchorage, Alaska, on Aug. 31, 1983. We now know that an incorrect setting in its autopilot system sent it slightly off course, enough to put it into Soviet airspace. At about 2:30 p.m. the plane vanished from radar screens. There was significant uncertainty as to what had happened.
It took until the middle of the night Thursday Sept. 1 before U.S. officials knew that the plane had been shot down with no survivors. Secretary of State George Shultz spoke to the press that morning. At that time, he had not spoken to Reagan, although others had briefed the president.
Up to this point, Reagan was on vacation at his Santa Barbara, Calif., ranch. The day that Shultz held his news briefing, White House spokesman Larry Speakes gave a statement to reporters in California.
"The president is very concerned and deeply disturbed about the loss of life aboard the Korean Air Lines flight overnight," Speakes said. "There are no circumstances that can justify the unprecedented attack on an unarmed civilian aircraft. The Soviet Union owes an explanation to the world about how and why this tragedy has occurred."
When asked if Reagan would be returning to Washington, Speakes said he would not.
"There are no plans for the president to return to Washington earlier than anticipated," he said. The president "has every facility, every capacity, every capability to do, perform any function that he could perform in Washington."
About eight hours later, Speakes called the reporters together again and announced that Reagan would return to Washington, D.C., the next day, Friday.
As Reagan was leaving California, he read a brief statement.
''I speak for all Americans and for the people everywhere who cherish civilized values in protesting the Soviet attack on an unarmed civilian passenger plane,'' Reagan said. ''Words can scarcely express our revulsion at this horrifying act of violence."
Reagan wrote this in his diary that evening: "We were due to return to Wash. on Labor Day but realized we couldn’t wait so we left on Fri. It was heartbreaking. I had really looked forward to those last three days. When we got in Fri, I went directly to a NSC (National Security Council) meeting re the Soviet affair."
On Sept. 5, 1983, four days after the jet was shot down, Reagan spoke to the nation for about 18 minutes in a televised address.
A Fox News host corrects his colleagues
Chris Wallace, host of Fox News Sunday, tried to correct the record on Fox. During an interview on the network’s morning show Fox and Friends, Wallace explained his experiences covering Reagan in 1983.
"He was in Santa Barbara at his ranch when this happened, and quite frankly he didn't want to leave," Wallace said. "And his advisers realized how terrible this looked, and eventually persuaded him he had to fly back to Washington and had to make this speech to the nation."
Reagan biographer Paul Kengor described the president’s reaction in his book The Crusader. Kengor quotes Reagan telling his National Security Advisor William Clark "to be careful not to overreact to this."
According to press reports at the time, Reagan wanted arms control talks with the Soviets to continue and resisted putting economic sanctions on Russia.
As for Obama, news of the Malaysia plane crash started appearing around 11:30 a.m. Washington time. By 12:05 p.m., White House reporters said Obama had been briefed on the crash. By shortly after 1 p.m., Obama and Russian Vladimir Putin discussed the crash and shortly after 2 p.m., Obama made a few brief remarks at a previously scheduled event in Delaware.
"Obviously the world is watching reports of a downed passenger jet near the Russia-Ukraine border. And it looks like it may be a terrible tragedy," Obama said. "Right now, we’re working to determine whether there were American citizens onboard. That is our first priority."
The president attended two fundraising events in New York City the night of the crash and returned to the capital that evening. He held a news conference at the White House the next morning. He called the deaths "an outrage of unspeakable proportions," and said that "Russia, these separatists, and Ukraine all have the capacity to put an end to the fighting."
Our ruling
Obenshain said that when the Russians shot down a Korean passenger plane in 1983, Reagan rushed home from his Santa Barbara vacation. The actual timeline shows that even after the White House concluded that the Soviets were responsible, administration officials decided that the president would remain in California. It took about half a day for them to change their minds.
Aside from a brief statement, it took Reagan several days before addressing the issue with the American public. In a practical sense, the delay was not long but there was more deliberation than Obenshain’s words would suggest.
We rate the claim Mostly False.Coordinates:
The Lion of Amphipolis
Another view
The Lion of Amphipolis is a 4th-century BC tomb sculpture in Amphipolis, Macedonia, northern Greece. According to Oscar Broneer and archaeologist Dimitris Lazaridis, the first person excavating in the area in the 1960s, it was set up in honor of Laomedon of Mytilene, an important general of Alexander the Great, king of Macedon.
History [ edit ]
The finding of the monument is connected to the modern history of Macedonia in Greece, as the first parts of it were found initially by Greek soldiers during the Second Balkan War that had camped in the area during 1912-13. They were followed by British soldiers a few years later in 1916, during World War I, who also discovered significantly large parts of the monument. The British tried to steal the pieces, but a Bulgarian attack prevented their plans.
In the early 1930s, during works for drying part of the Lake Kerkini nearby, there was a discovery of an ancient bridge and close to it within the mud of the river further very large pieces of the marble lion. In 1937, and thanks to Lincoln MacVeagh, the US ambassador in Greece at the time, there was a private initiative along with support and funds from the Greek government to restore the Lion of Amphipolis, which eventually came to be in its current form. The whole process has been documented thoroughly by Oscar Broneer in his book The Lion of Amphipolis published in 1941.
Description [ edit ]
Although in seated position, the lion is larger and bulkier than the one erected at Chaeronea and has a height of more than 4 meters in its main body. Taking into account the base, it is taller than 8 meters. The head has a width of 2 meters. Its craftsmanship shows a work of the 5th or first half of 4th century B.C. As to when it was erected, there is no agreement between experts as there is no mention of it in ancient sources.
There was recent speculation that the lion used to be on top of the Kasta Tomb.[1] but this theory has now been discounted.[2]Photo by Attila Kisbenedek/AFP/Getty Images
I wrote on Sunday that gold is a lousy hedge against inflation fears, but an excellent Pawel Morski post reminds us that it’s not a totally useless investment. Gold is, essentially, a hedge against total collapse and breakdown. If you compare gold as an investment to stocks, gold looks terrible over the long term if you look at stock markets that have a long record of continual operation. But “compared with shares in pre-revolutionary China or pre-war Poland, gold returns look pretty good.”
You can smuggle gold. You can hide it. You can bury it in the backyard and dig it up 25 years later when the political system has changed and be pretty confident that it’ll still be considered a precious metal. Even in a world of yearslong winters and dragons and undead monsters, people want gold.
And that’s why, as Joe Weisenthal says, the collapse in gold prices over the past week seems like good news. When rich investors want to put their money in stock markets, that’s essentially a sign that they think complex, law-bound patterns of peaceful human interaction are likely to hold up and lead to some kind of useful undertaking. When rich investors want to put their money in gold,* that’s essentially a sign that they think it’s important to hedge against total political breakdown.
Correction, April 15, 2013: This post originally said investments in the stock market are a hedge against political catastrophe instead of investments in gold.From Walmart to Hershey to Campbell's Soup, America's biggest retailers and manufacturers are warning their shareholders that flat growth is a fact of life because of "consumer bifurcation," which is plutocrat-speak for "everyone is broke except the one percent." The companies' plan for rescuing themselves is to turn themselves into luxury brands targeted at the wealthy.
The share of households in the middle tier of income earners has fallen to 43% from 55% since the 1970s, according to The New York Times.
And those households in the middle tier haven't gotten a raise since 1999.
After adjusting for inflation, US median household income, at $53,657 in 2014, is still 6.5% lower than pre-recession levels in 2007, and 7.2% lower than its peak in 1999, according to the US Census Bureau.It’s one day before the Democratic primary for the governors seat, and the ticket with the strongest tech-based contender has finally unveiled their tech policy platform. Tim Wu, the candidate for Lieutenant Governor stood with running mate Zephyr Teachout to lay out their plans should they somehow beat Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
“It’s a model for what candidates who really want to call themselves tech friendly — as opposed to just give lip-service — need to do,” Mr. Wu said this morning at the New York headquarters of Meetup.com.
For the sake of some star power, Mr. Wu was joined by his old friend Alexis Ohanian, a prominent teach leader and investor, cofounder of Reddit and “Mayor of the Internet.”
“When I saw this tech policy proposal, I got giddy,” Mr. Ohanian said. “It’s a 21st century plan that actually makes my heart grow a few sizes.”
Though Mr. Cuomo has been looking down his nose at his primary challengers and their qualifications, Mr. Wu is perhaps one of the few candidates on any ballot who knows what he’s talking about in terms of tech. Mr. Wu, besides working with the Obama administration on consumer protection and serving as a Supreme Court law clerk, is a long-time expert in tech policy. This is the guy who coined the term “net neutrality” — the idea that all of the internet’s content should be treated equally |
tuition fees and with them higher debt. When the government refuses to negotiate in good faith for over two months, and slams the door when negotiations finally begin, is it any wonder that people would turn their frustrations on the symbols of that government and those who back them?
The response of police was unannounced and muscled. I was just a few metres from where the first percussion grenade went off, in the middle of the crowd, and I feel confident saying that the use of these weapons came before most - if anyone - in the streets knew that the march had been declared an illegal assembly. It was only after that the crowd scattered that a voice was heard over the police loudspeaker announcing the march an illegal assembly. And looking to accounts posted on social media, I'm definitely not alone in that assessment. By the time the announcement was heard, police were already forcing into the crowd, separating it, with small groups of people scattering in all directions near the corner of Peel and Ste-Catherine.
From other parts of the march have come reports of police on horses charging crowds, excessive use of pepper spray and gas, battoning and tear gassing. It was only after this excessive intervention that the more aggressive tactics - a car lit on fire, more windows smashed, rocks thrown at police - took place.
Some will clearly argue that once a single window is broken, that the law is broken and police have every right to intervene. But can six broken windows justify the police aggression documented last night? And if six broken windows can make 15,000 people targetable for dispersion and arrest, then what does a tear gas cannister to the chest, or a concussion grenade to the eye, or a baton to the head or ribs, or a car ramming through a crowd equal? All are clearly more dangerous to the health and safety of individual people: police aren't taking on objects when they agress, they are taking on flesh and blood.
When all was done - around 1am - 85 people were arrested (70 in a mass arrest near St-Dominique and des Pins at the very end), accounts of police brutality were innumerable on social media, and students and supporters were vowing to fight on.
This morning, Quebec Premier Jean Charest was once again denouncing student violence as the obstacle to continue negotiation, playing out the same tired lines he and Minister Beauchamp have had on repeat for weeks. Tired lines that have, and will, do nothing to end this conflict.
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1232 wordsIt’s a bad day to be a bigot. In the wake of Arizona governor Jan Brewer vetoing a turn-away-the-gays bill, the Mississippi legislature has done the same.
Mississippi’s bill was actually a lot worse than Arizona, since the discrimination was hidden away. Legislators thought that they were voting on a bill to add “In God we trust” to the state seal, which is problematic enough as it is. But then the ACLU pointed out that the obscure language would actually have allowed anyone to disregard the Civil Rights Act.
The Mississippi bill would also have allowed government agencies to hire and fire on the basis of religion. Of course, Mississippi already permits all employers to fire people for being gay, so it’s unclear what this law would have changed — other than making the discrimination even more overt.
A revised version of the bill now refers only to actions taken by the government, rather than applying to private businesses. That actually still seems pretty bad! Does that mean that cops can refuse to take a domestic violence report if they believe the Bible requires women to submit to men?
Whatever the case, it’s lucky that the ACLU was keeping a close eye on the proceedings. These turn-away-the-gays bills are very trendy right now, so we’ll likely see multiple attempts to pass them in super-conservative states. And while antigay forces are doing their best to pass them, so far saner heads have prevailed — but only just barely.FORMER Big Brother star Rebekah Shelton appeared on Judge Rinder today, and got caught in an argument with the ex-Strictly contestant.
Rebekah originally appeared on Big Brother as Rodrigo in 2009, before having operations to switch genders five years later. The transgender call girl was a defendant for having missed a payment for her emergency £1,400 breast augmentation. She said of her sex change journey: “Nobody chooses to take the hardest path. It is hard to become what is considered different: I had to face my family and friends.
ITV BACK IN THE UK: Rebekah went back to Brazil to reassign her gender but has come back to the UK
ITV QUICK TEMPERED: Rebekah tried to argue with Judge Rinder when he told her to be quiet
Celebrity face transformations These celebrities don't look how they used to, in fact they hardly look like themselves. From Kylie Jenner to Cher Lloyd, here are celebrities who appear to have an altered look. 1 / 53 Getty/Instagram Kylie Jenner has had a makeover since this fresh-faced 2010 red carpet appearance
“I have been through the worst three weeks of my life.” She also described what she has had changed in her whopping 16 surgeries, which she paid for by becoming a prostitute. She said: “I had my nose done twice, adams apple shaved, my chin, they removed my face to shave my facial structure back.
ITV CUTTING CONTACT: Rebekah wouldn't pay the money back to Teena because she felt she was obses...
Shocking celeb surgery All of Hollywood's plastic isn't just in their wallets, it's all over their faces, boobs, bums and tums... 1 / 46 Yazmin Oukhellou/Instagram TOWIE's Yazmin Oukhellou flaunts results of boob job in dangerously low-cut top
“They lifted my eye brows up, I had fillers, and of course, my gender assignment surgery.” She was legally challenged by pal Teena who claims she leant her the money yet has only received £600 back. Rebekah claimed she wouldn’t pay the money back because Teena had become so obsessive in contacting her, and had called her twenty times while she was having sex.
ITV HARD THREE YEARS: Rebekah has had 16 surgeries to change gender to femaleScientists of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have cracked the science behind why a dress appeared black and blue to some but gold and white to others, differing perceptions that went viral on the Internet.
In a survey of 1,400 individuals, with over 300 who had never seen ‘The Dress’ before, researchers found that people who perceived it as white and gold might have just been exposed to natural daylight, while those who saw a black and blue garment might be spending most of their time in artificial light.
Neuroscientist Bevil Conway believes ‘The Dress’ phenomenon marked the greatest extent of individual differences in colour perception ever documented.
In February, Caitlin McNeill, a 21-year-old singer, had posted a picture on her blog of a dress that was blue and black, but was being seen as white and gold by some people. The dress went viral on the Internet, with celebrities like Taylor Swift jumping in to debate the colour.
Mr. Conway and his team asked people to identify the colours they saw on ‘The Dress’. They found that people fell into one of three camps corresponding to the main groups identified by the social media: blue/black, white/gold and blue/brown.
“It could have been the case that you had a continuum of perceived colours, but if you plot the colours people picked, you see two main clumps falling into the two categories for what words people used to describe the colours of ‘The Dress’,” Mr. Conway said.
Researchers also found that older people and women were more likely to report seeing ‘The Dress’ as white and gold, while younger people were more likely to say it was black and blue.
Mr. Conway believes that these differences in perception may correspond to the type of light that individuals’ brains expect to be in their environment.
The study is published in the journal Current Biology.
PTI
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The orders imposed a 90-day ban on the entry of nationals from seven predominantly Muslim countries — Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. It also indefinitely paused the entry of refugees from Syria.
Green card holders from the seven countries were initially denied entry on Saturday as officials sought to implement the order, though White House chief of staff Reince Priebus said Sunday that those with green cards would be allowed to come into the United States.
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Trump defended the policies on Sunday, saying they did not constitute a ban on Muslims and arguing they were necessary to give the U.S. control over its borders and protect the country from terrorist threats.
A number of GOP lawmakers have expressed concern or opposition over the administration's policies, which could raise pressure on Trump to make additional changes. Here's a look at the Republicans opposing, critical or supportive of the order.
SENATORS OPPOSING THE ORDER (7)
Sen. 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 (Tenn.)
Alexander said in a statement to a local TV station that "this vetting proposal itself needed more vetting. More scrutiny of those traveling from war-torn countries to the United States is wise. But this broad and confusing order seems to ban legal, permanent residents with ‘green cards'... And while not explicitly a religious test, it comes close to one which is inconsistent with our American character.”
Collins said Trump's executive order is "overly broad and implementing it will be immediately problematic." She added that "religious tests serve no useful purpose in the immigration process and run contrary to our American values."
Sen. Cory Gardner Cory Scott GardnerJon Stewart, 9/11 responders call on Congress to fund victim compensation program The Hill's Morning Report — Emergency declaration to test GOP loyalty to Trump Don’t look for House GOP to defy Trump on border wall MORE (Colo.)
Gardner said in a statement that while he supports strengthening the screening process "a blanket travel ban goes too far.”
"Lawful residents of the United States should be permitted to enter the country. I urge the Administration to take the appropriate steps to fix this overly broad executive order,” he said.
Sen. Lindsey Graham Lindsey Olin GrahamHouse to push back at Trump on border Trump pressures GOP senators ahead of emergency declaration vote: 'Be strong and smart' This week: Congress, Trump set for showdown on emergency declaration MORE (S.C.)
Graham, in a joint statement with Sen. John McCain John Sidney McCainGOP lobbyists worry Trump lags in K Street fundraising Mark Kelly kicks off Senate bid: ‘A mission to lift up hardworking Arizonans’ Gabbard hits back at Meghan McCain after fight over Assad MORE (R-Ariz.) on Sunday, said the order wasn't "property vetted," and the two senators said they "fear this executive order will become a self-inflicted wound in the fight against terrorism."
Sen. John McCain (Ariz.)
McCain said the order has created a "very confusing process," adding, “I think the effect will probably in some areas give ISIS some more propaganda."
In a joint statement with Graham, he added, “We are particularly concerned by reports that this order went into effect with little to no consultation with the Departments of State, Defense, Justice, and Homeland Security.”
Sen. Jerry Moran Gerald (Jerry) MoranThe Hill's Morning Report — Emergency declaration to test GOP loyalty to Trump The Hill's 12:30 Report: Trump escalates fight with NY Times The 10 GOP senators who may break with Trump on emergency MORE (Kan.)
Moran said in a statement that "while I support thorough vetting, I do not support restricting the rights of U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents. Furthermore, far-reaching national security policy should always be devised in consultation with Congress and relevant government agencies."
Sen. Ben Sasse (Neb.)
"The President is right to focus attention on the obvious fact that borders matter. At the same time, while not technically a Muslim ban, this order is too broad," Sasse said.
SENATORS EXPRESSING CONCERN ABOUT THE ORDER (18)
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman said in a statement that "this executive order has been poorly implemented, especially with respect to green card holders. The administration should immediately make appropriate revisions."
Sen. Joni Ernst (Iowa)
Ernst said in a statement that “there must be more clarity surrounding the order’s implementation. In our efforts to protect our nation from ISIS, we also must ensure we are not inadvertently penalizing our allies in the fight against radical Islamic terrorism — especially those who have supported U.S. military efforts in Iraq.”
Sen. Jeff Flake Jeffrey (Jeff) Lane FlakeBrexit and exit: A transatlantic comparison Poll: 33% of Kentucky voters approve of McConnell Trump suggests Heller lost reelection bid because he was 'hostile' during 2016 presidential campaign MORE (Ariz.)
Flake said in a Medium post that while the Trump administration is "right to be concerned about national security... it’s unacceptable when even legal permanent residents are being detained or turned away at airports and ports of entry."
Sen. Chuck Grassley Charles (Chuck) Ernest GrassleyOvernight Health Care: Drug execs set for grilling | Washington state to sue over Trump rule targeting Planned Parenthood | Wyoming moves closer to Medicaid work requirements Senate reignites blue slip war over Trump court picks Lower refunds amplify calls to restore key tax deduction MORE (Iowa)
Grassley said in a statement that "the goals of the Executive Order are commendable, and something President Trump promised during the campaign, but implementation will be key to ensuring the bad guys are kept out while remaining a welcoming nation to people of all backgrounds and religions."
Sen. 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 (Utah)
Hatch said the administration should "move to quickly tailor its policy on visa issuance as narrowly as possible, delivering on our security needs while reducing unnecessary burdens on the vast majority of visa seekers."
Sen. Dean Heller Dean Arthur HellerTrump suggests Heller lost reelection bid because he was 'hostile' during 2016 presidential campaign Trump picks ex-oil lobbyist David Bernhardt for Interior secretary Oregon Dem top recipient of 2018 marijuana industry money, study finds MORE (Nev.)
"I share the president's desire to protect our nation from harm," Heller said on Twitter.
"I agree that better vetting and border protection measures are necessary. That's why I support the thorough vetting of individuals entering our country. However, I am deeply troubled by the appearance of religious ban. The use of an overly broad executive order is not the way strengthen national security. I encourage the administration to partner with Congress to find a solution."
Sen. Johnny Isakson John (Johnny) Hardy IsaksonOn The Money: Lawmakers wait for Trump verdict on border deal | Trump touts deal as offering B for security | McConnell presses Trump to sign off | National debt tops T | Watchdog details IRS shutdown woes Trump criticizes border wall deal: 'Can't say I'm happy' GOP senators offer praise for Klobuchar: 'She’s the whole package' MORE (Ga.)
“I think they need to clarify the confusion that’s out there on green cards and things like that. The people who are actually on the ground need to know exactly what it is they’re doing,” Isakson told the Atlanta Journal Constitution.
Sen. James Lankford (Okla.)
Lankford said on Twitter, “We should value freedom & not surrender security. We can protect the homeland while upholding #religiousfreedom & refuge for the persecuted."
Sen. Mike Lee Michael (Mike) Shumway LeePush to end U.S. support for Saudi war hits Senate setback The Hill's Morning Report — Emergency declaration to test GOP loyalty to Trump The Hill's 12:30 Report: Trump escalates fight with NY Times MORE (Utah)
Lee told the Salt Lake Tribune he does "have some technical questions about President Trump's Executive Order” and said he and his staff “will continue to reach out to the White House for clarification on these issues.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell Addison (Mitch) Mitchell McConnellHouse to push back at Trump on border Democrats block abortion bill in Senate Overnight Energy: Climate protesters storm McConnell’s office | Center-right group says Green New Deal could cost trillion | Dire warnings from new climate studies MORE (Ky.)
McConnell said "it's a good idea to tighten the vetting process, but I also think it's important to remember that some of our best sources in the war against radical Islamic terrorism are Muslims."
He did not specifically say he opposed the executive order, noting it would be up to the courts to decide if it's "gone too far."
Sen. Lisa Murkowski Lisa Ann MurkowskiHouse to push back at Trump on border GOP Sen. Tillis to vote for resolution blocking Trump's emergency declaration Pence meeting with Senate GOP ahead of vote to block emergency declaration MORE (Alaska)
"Trump has made it clear that the security of Americans is his top priority,” Murkowski said in a statement. “I agree. I also believe we must strike a balance between national security and our values as Americans and that how we implement policy matters.”
Sen. Rob Portman Robert (Rob) Jones PortmanAddressing repair backlog at national parks can give Congress a big win Texas senator introduces bill to produce coin honoring Bushes GOP Green New Deal stunt is a great deal for Democrats MORE (Ohio)
Portman told CNN that the executive order wasn't "properly vetted" and that the administration should "slow down."
“We ought to all take a deep breath and come up with something that makes sense for our national security and again for this notion that America has always been a welcoming home for refugees and immigrants."
Sen. Tim Scott (S.C.) In a statement, Scott and Rubio said they are “seeking clarity on the changes to the Visa Waiver program, which is critical to the economies of our respective states." “And we are uneasy about the potential impact of these measures on our military and our diplomatic personnel abroad, as well as those who put their lives on the line to work with us.” They said they are both “committed to doing what we must to keep America safe” while also remaining “equally committed to the defense of religious liberty and our tradition of providing refuge to those fleeing persecution.”
Sen. Thom Tillis Thomas (Thom) Roland TillisGOP Sen. Tillis to vote for resolution blocking Trump's emergency declaration The Hill's Morning Report — Emergency declaration to test GOP loyalty to Trump Don’t look for House GOP to defy Trump on border wall MORE (N.C.)
Tillis posted a statement on Twitter that said “there is a lot of confusion surrounding the order” and said that implementation should be “refined to provide more clarity and mitigate unintended consequences that do not make our country any safer.”
My statement on the immigration executive order. #ncpol pic.twitter.com/qbjAvu9qme
— Senator Thom Tillis (@SenThomTillis) January 29, 2017
HOUSE MEMBERS OPPOSING THE ORDER (9)
Rep. Justin Amash Justin AmashHouse to push back at Trump on border Ex-GOP lawmakers urge Republicans to block Trump's emergency declaration This week: Congress, Trump set for showdown on emergency declaration MORE (Mich.)
Amash outlined his concerns in a string of tweets, arguing that while more refugee vetting is needed, "a blanket ban represents an extreme approach not consistent with our nation's values."
Rep. Mike Coffman (Colo.)
"While I've supported heightened vetting procedures, I have never, nor will I ever support a blanket travel ban for people solely based on ethnic or religious grounds," Coffman said.
Rep. Charlie Dent (Pa.)
"I guess I understand what his intention is, but unfortunately the order appears to have been rushed through without full consideration," Dent told the Washington Post.
Rep. John Faso (N.Y.)
Faso, who represents a swing district, is criticizing the drafting and implementation of the order.
"After careful review of the recent executive order regarding immigration policy, I believe that the order was neither well drafted nor well implemented," he said in a statement. "Given recent events both here and abroad, we need to take steps to strengthen our nation's security; however, this is most effectively pursued through thoughtful and deliberative legislation. While I acknowledge that the president may act in the event of a national security threat or emergency situation, this process was rushed and led to confusion. There is no doubt that we need to thoroughly vet people coming from countries where there are strongholds of ISIS and al-Qaida. At the same time, we have to balance our security with the need to respect the rights of US citizens and people who are subject to valid immigration proceedings, including lawful permanent residents."
Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (Pa.)
Fitzpatrick said in a statement to the Philadelphia Inquirer that the order "entirely misses the mark." He added that, "while serious actions are needed to protect our country, these must not be done in a way that singles out any specific nations or ethnicities."
Rep. Will Hurd (Texas)
"This visa ban is the ultimate display of mistrust and will erode our allies' willingness to fight with us,” Hurd told CNN. “The ban also provides terrorists with another tool to gain sympathy and recruit new fighters."
Rep. Leonard Lance (N.J.)
Lance said in a Facebook post that the "executive order appears rushed and poorly implemented. Reports of green card holders and those who assisted us in the War on Terror being denied or delayed entry into the U.S. is deeply concerning and must be remedied immediately. It is Congress’ role to amend our immigration laws and I strongly urge President Trump to work with legislators to enact a clear, effective and enhanced vetting and monitoring process."
Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (Fla.)
Ros-Lehtinen said in a statement that she opposes "the suspension of visas from the seven named countries because we could have accomplished our objective of keeping our homeland safe by immediate implementation of more thorough screening procedures."
Rep. Elise Stefanik (N.Y.)
Sefanik wrote in a Facebook post that "our first role as the federal government is to protect our national security and I believe we need to work in Congress to reform and strengthen our visa vetting process. However, I oppose President Trump's rushed and overly broad Executive Order."
Rep. Fred Upton (Mich.)
Upton said in a statement that he supports bolstering screening, but "this executive order needs to be scaled back. It has created real confusion for travelers and those who enforce the laws. A wiser course would have been to work with Congress to ensure that all visitors to our nation are properly vetted with appropriate documentation.”
HOUSE MEMBERS EXPRESSING CONCERN ABOUT THE ORDER (15)
Rep. Mike Bishop (Mich.)
Bishop said in a statement that while the administration is not able to properly vet refugees, "we need greater clarity from the administration to ensure this order is not carried out in a way that infringes on civil liberties and the protections guaranteed by our Constitution."
Rep. Carlos Curbelo (Fla.)
In a Sunday tweet, Curbelo said, “US permanent residents shouldn't be detained, deported, or discriminated against. They've already been thoroughly vetted #executiveorders.”
He later added that he was "grateful" to see Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly say “the entry of lawful permanent residents to be in the national interest."
"Seems the @POTUS #executiveorders were hastily issued & need a lot of work," Curbelo said.
Rep. Barbara Comstock (Va.)
Comstock said Trump's executive order "went beyond the increased vetting actions that Congress has supported on a bipartisan basis and inexplicably applied to green card holders.... This should be addressed and corrected expeditiously."
Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler Jaime Lynn Herrera BeutlerJuan Williams: Racial shifts spark fury in Trump and his base The Hill's 12:30 Report: Sanders set to shake up 2020 race House Dems release 2020 GOP'retirements to watch' for MORE (Wash.):
Beutler said in a statement "surely there is a way to enhance the security at our borders without unnecessarily detaining innocent individuals who have followed the rules, stood in line, and pose no threat to our country, and I hope this Administration takes quick action to ensure that we’re focused only on those who pose a threat to our safety."
Rep. Virginia Foxx Virginia Ann FoxxBlack Caucus sees power grow with new Democratic majority A 2 billion challenge: Transforming US grant reporting Trump calls North Carolina redistricting ruling ‘unfair’ MORE (Va.)
Foxx noted that she supported a House bill to strengthen the vetting process but said "the Executive Order signed by the president on Friday came with little clarity and caused much uncertainty for foreign travelers. Additional implementing guidance is needed to ensure that the order can be applied in a fair and equitable manner."
Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen Rodney Procter FrelinghuysenTop House GOP appropriations staffer moves to lobbying shop Individuals with significant disabilities need hope and action Exiting lawmakers jockey for K Street perch MORE (N.J.)
"This weekend’s confusion is an indication that the details of this executive order were not properly scrutinized,” Frelinghuysen in a statement. “Among others, reconsideration should be given to courageous individuals who served as interpreters for our military and properly vetted refugees."
Rep. Randy Hultgren (R-Ill.)
Hultgren in a statement said the order "is overly broad and its interpretation has been inconsistent and confused." He said America must keep "our principles first by having "our arms open to those who are fleeing oppression and seeking safety."
Rep. Adam Kinzinger (Ill.)
Kinzinger wrote in a Medium post, "I support a comprehensive look at our vetting process.... However, reports of green card holders and those who assisted us in the war on terror being denied or delayed entry is deeply concerning."
Rep. Raúl Labrador (Idaho)
Labrador called Trump's order a "sound policy" and criticized the media for calling it a Muslim ban. But he said permanent U.S. residents should not be denied entry and criticized the administration's rollout. Interesting statement from conservative Rep. Raul Labrador, R-Idaho: Trump refugee policy is necessary but implementation was poor pic.twitter.com/RBQGWbrmYz — Paul Singer (@singernews) January 29, 2017
Rep. Michael McCaul (Texas)
“In light of the confusion and uncertainty created in the wake of the President’s Executive Order, it is clear adjustments are needed,” the House Homeland Security Committee chairman said in a statement.
“We should not simply turn away individuals who already have lawful U.S. visas or green cards—like those who have risked their lives serving alongside our forces overseas or who call America their home.”
He added that, “In the future, such policy changes should be better coordinated with the agencies implementing them and with Congress to ensure we get it right—and don’t undermine our nation’s credibility while trying to restore it.”
Rep. Dan Newhouse (Wash.)
Newhouse said in a statement that "the manner in which this Order is being implemented at airports and other points of entry appears that some innocent people... are having their lives needlessly disrupted. I encourage the administration to review its order in consultation with its national security team to ensure our enforcement resources are being targeted where they can be most effective."
Rep. Erik Paulsen (Minn.) Paulsen said in a statement that he supports increasing oversight, but said "the President's executive order is too broad and has been poorly implemented and conceived. It is clear from the events this weekend that the executive order does not ensure that legal residents, including green card holders, and non-threats … are treated fairly and with the dignity they deserve."
Rep. Mark Sanford (S.C.) Sanford told a local newspaper, "I'm hearing a voice of concern that things are moving from weird to reckless in their view. And that even if you're going to enact this policy, the way in which it was done just seems bizarre."
Rep. Steve Stivers (Ohio)
Stivers said he believes the vetting process must be improved, but, "I believe the executive order risks violating our nation's values and fails to differentiate mainstream Islamic partners from radical Islamic terrorists.... I urge the administration to quickly replace this temporary order with permanent improvements."
Rep. Pat Tiberi (Ohio) "There are questions that need to be answered on how it is being implemented,” he said in a statement. “Together with Congress, we should reevaluate our visa vetting process so that we effectively strengthen national security, uphold our values and protect our freedoms, while ensuring we are welcoming individuals and families fleeing persecution."
REPUBLICANS VOICING SUPPORT FOR THE ORDER
Senate (10)
Blunt told USA Today that Trump "is doing what he told the American people he would do. I do support increased vetting on people applying to travel from countries with extensive terrorist ties or activity. These seven countries meet that standard."
Cotton said "it's simply wrong to call the president’s executive order concerning immigration and refugees ‘a religious test’ of any kind. I doubt many Arkansans or Americans more broadly object to taking a harder look at foreigners coming into our country from war-torn nations with known terror networks."
Sen. Steve Daines (Mont.) Daines said in a statement that "we need to take the time to examine our existing programs to ensure terrorists aren't entering our country. The safety of U.S. citizens must be our number one priority.”
Toomey said in a statement that he supports the administration's decision. He added while the "initial executive order was flawed... the administration has clarified that this order does not apply to Green Card holders and that the Secretaries of State and Homeland Security have the ability to grant exceptions."
Young released the following statement:
"The federal government has no more important responsibility than protecting the American people, and refugees from any country should only be permitted to enter the United States if we are certain they do not represent a threat to our citizens. I look forward to carefully analyzing this temporary executive order and its effects, and working with this new administration and my colleagues in Congress to keep America safe while finally ending the unspeakable suffering of the Syrian people. I want to ensure that the administration's new policy allows Iraqis and Afghanis who faithfully supported our troops and who face threats to their safety -- and who do not represent a terrorist threat -- are able to come to the United States."
House (44) Rep. Ralph Abraham (La.) Abraham tweeted, "On immigration, I stand w/ President @realDonaldTrump 100%. We must focus on protecting Americans first!"
“Quite frankly, I think it is commonsense for additional vetting to occur for the countries that are home to ISIS and AL Qaeda," Aderholt said in a statement.
Rep. Rick Allen (Ga.) Allen said in a statement that "first and foremost we must protect our homeland— the executive order does that— and keeps Americans safe until the legislative branch can reform our visa process and the vetting of refugees."
Rep. Jodey Arrington (Texas)
Arrington told The Washington Post that “given concerns about the inadequate vetting of refugees and problems with our immigration system, this temporary pause is intended to ensure the safety of our citizens.”
Rep. Brian Babin (Texas)
Babin reacted to the executive order on Facebook, saying, "Great news — now let's get it into law!"
Rep. Jim Banks (Ind.)
A spokeswoman for Banks told USA Today, "Congressman Banks supports tightening the vetting process to ensure radical extremists who wish to harm American citizens cannot enter the United States. He is studying the president's executive order and hopes to learn more next week about how it is being implemented."
"I commend President Trump for suspending the refugee program, and in particular for Syria and the six other countries, because they are unquestionably terrorist havens and hotspots," Barletta said.
Rep. Joe Barton (Texas) Barton told McClatchy that he supported the ban, but, "We have heard of brief delays among constituents and are empathetic to any inconveniences while traveling."
Rep. Rod Blum (Iowa)
Blum told the Cedar Rapids Gazette that "the bottom line is they can’t properly vet people coming from war-torn areas like Syria and Iraq. If we can’t vet people properly, then we shouldn’t be allowing them into our country. I’m supportive of that.”
Rep. Vern Buchanan (Fla.)
Buchanan called the executive order "long overdue," adding, "a freeze on Syrian refugees and a crackdown on sanctuary cities! Time to protect Americans.
"I support temporarily restricting the admittance of refugees and other travelers from these select areas until a verifiable system is in place to fully and completely vet whether or not the individuals admitted pose a threat to the safety of the American people," Bucshon told a local newspaper.
Rep. Chris Collins (N.Y.)
Collins told a local NPR station that he supported the order, adding "I get a little frustrated with the folks who don't like Trump trying to make something into something it's not. So I'm just disappointed that we can't have a true and honest debate without someone inflaming the situation and claiming there's religious overtones."
Rep. Kevin Cramer (N.D.)
Rep. Dan Donovan (N.Y.)
"President Trump's decision is in America's best interest, and I support exploring safe zones in the region to protect innocent life," Donovan said in a statement.
Rep. Jeff Duncan (S.C.)
Duncan posted on Twitter: "I'm grateful that @realDonaldTrump is making the safety & security of the American people his top priority. His actions are very appropriate."
The House Judiciary chairman said in a statement that "Trump has begun to fulfill this responsibility by taking a number of critical steps within his authority to strengthen national security and the integrity of our nation’s immigration system."
Rep. Jody Hice (Ga.)
Hice told a local newspaper that "while we welcome refugees, I believe that the fundamental responsibility of the federal government is to provide for the common defense, including ensuring those who reach our shores are first fully vetted through a reliable screening process.”
Rep. Clay Higgins (La.):
Higgins told a local TV station that "radical Islamic Terror should not be a partisan concern. The President's executive order for a short-term restriction on visa entry from 7 countries... that are known to foster terrorists... combined with a systematic review of our immigration and vetting procedure, is reasonable." Rep. Richard Hudson (N.C.)
Hudson told a local newspaper that "Trump is right to pause the flow of refugees from countries where terrorism is rampant until we can properly vet them and implement additional screening for individuals."
Rep. Bill Johnson (Ohio)
Johnson posted on Facebook that he backs the "temporary, three month, precautionary action directed towards a handful of countries with a history of producing and exporting terrorists. These countries are either torn apart by violence, or under the control of hostile, jihadist governments."
Rep. Peter King (N.Y.)
King told Newsday that he backs the executive order, saying "I don’t think the Constitution applies to people coming in from outside the country, especially if there is a logical basis for it."
"It is the federal government's responsibility to protect the American people, and the Trump administration is following through on that responsibility," McMorris Rogers said in a statement.
Rep. Luke Messer (Ind.)
Messer said the "details will of course matter, but it's way past time for us to develop this capability, and President Trump is right to prioritize American safety until we get this done."
Rep. Kristi Noem (S.D.): Noem said in a statement, "I support putting a temporary pause on accepting refugees from terrorist-held areas — at least until the administration can certify that asylum seekers do not present a safety threat." Rep. Devin Nunes (Calif.) Nunes, the House Intelligence Committee chairman, called the order “a common-sense security measure to prevent terror attacks on the homeland. While accommodations should be made for green card holders and those who’ve assisted the U.S. armed forces, this is a useful temporary measure on seven nations of concern until we can verify who is entering the United States.”
Rep. John Ratcliffe (Texas)
"I applaud President Trump's actions to vamp up the vetting of refugees attempting to enter our country.... I've been very vocal about the threats posed by the woeful inadequacy of our current screening process," Ratcliffe posted on Facebook.
Reichert told a local radio station that "we must be absolutely certain we have systems in place capable of thoroughly vetting anyone applying for refugee status on American soil.”
Rep. Jim Renacci (Ohio):
Renacci said in a statement that "while I strongly encourage the administration to examine more closely whether it is effectual and necessary to subject green card holders from these nations to this temporary order, I fully support our government's renewed commitment to keeping Americans of all faiths safe and free across our homeland."
Rep. Todd Rokita (Ind.)
Rokita told an Indiana newspaper that "this is not a ban on Muslim refugees, as the order specifically targets a select few nations with known terrorist networks and is similar to an executive order signed by President Obama without controversy in 2011."
Rep. Dennis Ross (Fla.)
Ross said "this is long overdue. We must ensure our country is safe from radical Islamic jihadists who want to kill Americans."
Rep. Ed Royce (Calif.) Royce, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told The Washington Post that a pause of “refugees from terror hot spots is the right call to keep America safe,” but added, “I hope cases of individuals with visas traveling as this executive action went into effect — including some who served alongside U.S. troops — will be resolved quickly.”
Ryan was among the first to support the ban, with his office telling The Washington Post that "this is not a religious test and it is not a ban on people of any religion."
Rep. Steve Scalise (La.)
Scalise told Fox News that "it's very prudent to say, 'Let's be careful about who comes into our country to make sure that they're not terrorists.'"
Rep. Pete Sessions (Texas)
Sessions said in a statement that "just as President Obama suspended the refugee program in 2011 for six months, the Trump Administration is working to protect national security by making adjustments in the refugee vetting process."
Rep. John Shimkus (Ill.)
Shimkus said in a statement that |
system, the information on each player will be pertinent to your leagues scoring system. Please keep in mind projections are being created in July and in most cases, potential for injury will not factor in to these rankings. Exceptions to this rule do exist (Mr. Vick), however for the most part we assume a healthy QB for the year. I welcome any comments or criticisms in the comments or through whichever medium you prefer.
This week, we will look at QB 17-32. For Dynasty and Keeper leagues, QB17-32 is extremely important as you’ll be potentially building your future roster from this pool of players. These positions are immensely valuable if you’re the type of owner who likes to keep a #2 QB on the bench, or if you’re playing in a two QB league and looking to bolster you’re already potent offense. Yes, I am assuming your offense is already potent. I assume this as you’ve been reading phenomenal analysis from the writers at this site, which means you have an awesome team and will be winning like Sheen. Is that joke still viable? Either way, poor yourself a snifter of tiger blood and enjoy the ranks.
17. Ben Roethlisberger – Big Ben had the 2nd best year of his career in 2013, so it may come as a surprise that I have him ranked outside the top 16. Last season, his stats were elevated by the amazing performance of Antonio Brown, strong support from Emmanuel Sanders and (surprisingly) Jericho Cotchery. 2013 was also the first time the talented signal caller was able to play all 16 games since 2008. My concern with Roethlisberger lies specifically on the “parting of ways” with Sanders and Cotchery; as well as the emergence of stud RB Le’veon Bell. Bells’ emergence, coupled with the desire for Pittsburgh to re-establish the run game, is an early signal for a decline in fantasy production for Roethlisberger. A fine #2, but nothing more than that.
Projection: 3850 Yards, 24 Touchdowns, 13 Interceptions, 302/520)
18. Josh McCown – If you read this site, you will know that I am a huge advocate for Josh McCown. McCown, combined with Cutler, would have stats equivalent to the #3 QB in fantasy in 2013. McCown had crazy numbers (1829 yards, 149 completions, 13/1 TD-INT ratio) in the small sampling size he had. He surpassed Cutler in vertical yards per attempt, completion percentage and winning percentage. He had the league’s second highest total QBR on vertical throws (Thanks ESPN). McCown goes from one of the most dynamic offenses in the league, to a team which is only a small step below the potency level of ‘Da Bears. I don’t believe it’s in jest to draw parallels between the Bears trio (Marshall/Jefferies/Forte) to the Bucs (Jackson/Evans/Martin). Yes, it’s a step down, but one that still allows us to expect big things from McCown. McCown has top 13 upside.
Projection: 4101 Yards, 26 TD’s, 10 Int. 310/520
19. Eli Manning – It pains me, absolutely pains me, to rank Eli Manning so high. After all, in 2013 Eli had a league high 27 interceptions. He was also behind a 31st ranked offensive line (in terms of pass protection) and was constantly throwing under pressure. All signs point to Manning having another bad year, which begs the question, “Why do I have him inside my top 20.” Well, Manning seemingly rebounds from bad years with decent years. The offensive line should be healthy and more aligned this season, and a stabilized running back should provide him with a bit more time. Manning is likely to throw a few picks, but it will be nothing like 2013. Also, I have huge beliefs in Cruz/Beckham giving defenses fits. This is a risky pick, and also one whom could quite possibly drop to the sub 25 area. If you’re drafting Manning, make sure you have a very solid #1.
Projection: 3898 Yards, 24 TD’s, 14 INTs, 328/530
20. Carson Palmer – It seems like Palmer has been around forever doesn’t it? Truth is, Palmer came into the season only 1 year before the likes of Eli Manning, Philip Rivers, and Ben Roethlisberger to name a few. Palmer was the number 1 pick in 2003, which included other standouts, at the QB position, such as: Seneca Wallace, Chris “Ouch my appendix” Simms, and Kyle Boller. Palmer is a very reliable second option as the position, and plays for a coach, Bruce Arians, who loves to go deep. Palmer still has Larry Fitzgerald and the much underrated Michael Floyd. This duo will represent one of the top 10 threats at the WR position. Palmer’s only negative factor is an arm which seems losing the battle with Father Time. My firm belief is the emergence of Floyd and greater utilization of RB Andre Ellington will give Palmer a bit more time in the pocket, thus allowing him to cut down on his interceptions. You could certainly do worse than Palmer, but he will be good for 20+ TD’s and 4000+ yards. Also know that his 22 interceptions from 2013 will be the outlier and not the standard.
Projections: 4290 Yards, 25 TD’s, 15 INT, 350/560
21. Ryan Tannehill – Despite my own feelings about Mike Wallace (DEAD TO ME), I cannot ignore the quietly awesome season that Ryan Tannehill had in 2013. Tannehill has always been a little disrespected, or should I say underappreciated, and I’m here to tell you 2014 will begin to change that mentality. Tannehill is often forgotten as he’s stuck on a team that cannot seem to find a winning formula. To his credit, he has had a very good year without many weapons or options. Mike Wallace has proven to be a massive bust, as well as a giant waste of money. Breakout star Brian Hartline will continue to excel and maintain the title of most forgotten receiver, while putting up over 1000 yards and 8 touchdowns. Mike Wallace, shudder, has one shot to make an impact; and new OC Bill Lazor should allow him to flourish. Finally, Charles Clay is an absolute monster and could be poised to make a lot of noise in 2014.
Projection: 4010 Yards, 26 TD’s, 14 INT, 379/559
22. Johnny Manziel – Mike Pettine be damned, when September 7th rolls around, Johnny Football will be behind center and NOT Brian Hoyer. Hey, I like Hoyer as much as the next guy (how much is that actually?), but Manziel is the future in Cleveland. Opinions on Manziel are usually on opposite ends of the spectrum. Some believe he’ll be a complete bust, others think he’ll be the NBT. Since I’m a Paul Heyman guy, I think he’ll be the Next Big Thing. Manziel represents a rare talent in the NFL, and has the potential to change the scope of the game. The last time the NFL saw a player like Manziel, it was Michael Vick. I’m not comparing the two, as Manziel has a much better football IQ; but they both are uniquely talented athletes who present a problem for the opposing defenses. Manziel has a few things going against him: No Josh Gordon (idiot), not being defined as the starting QB (Coach should just name him and move on), a sketchy supporting cast of receivers (Miles Austin, Nate Burleson, Andrew Hawkins) and finally his size is working against him (5’11ish). However, much like Tim Tebow with 5 minutes left in a game; Manziel finds a way to make things happen. His respectable arm, evasion and decision-making abilities will allow him to thrive this season. This guy has top 15 (easily) upside, but he’s a huge gamble in year 1.
Projection: 3210 Yards, 18 TD’s, 8 Int, 240/390. 600 rushing yards, 6 TD’s.
23. Ryan Fitzpatrick – My wife is a big believer in Fitzpatrick, so that could be something slightly swaying me and ranking Fitz higher than he should be. Fitz has never been a bad QB, but he’s been injury plagued and saddled with a bad team for his entire career. He has had output that’s consistent, when healthy and playing, and really only had a bad year in 2011 when he threw 23 interceptions. Otherwise, you can expect over 3000 yards and 20 TD’s. Fitzpatrick also benefits strongly from an incredibly underrated ability to run the ball. He’s had his moderate success with the Bills, whom have always lacked a serious threat at the WR position and never had the offensive line surrounding him that he needed to flourish. His move to Houston will mark a dramatic shift in output, as he’ll now be throwing to one of the best and most consistent WR’s in the game (Andre Johnson), as well as soon to be break-out stud DeAndre Hopkins. Oh, and then there’s that guy Arian Foster whom is a perennial top 10 RB. Finally, new head coach Bill O’Brien is an absolute genius when it comes to developing quarterbacks. He will turn Fitzpatrick into something special this season. Fitz has top 17 upside.
Projection: 3680 Yards, 19 touchdowns, 15 interceptions, 272/439. 279 RuYard, 2 RuTD
24. Joe Flacco – I want to believe in Flacco, I really do. If only Flacco performed as well as his clay trap destroying, commercialized self; he wouldn’t be placed so low in the rankings. Flacco has a decent enough receiving core (Torrey Smith, Jacoby Jones, Steve Smith) and two very high level tight ends (Dennis Pitta and Owen Daniels). It seems that all signs should be pointing up for Mr. Flacco. However, a questionable running game, as well as an offensive line which continues to deteriorate and is the noted weak point for the offense; all point to Joe Money (I just made that up) having another questionable year. This is the year Flacco has to show it wasn’t all about the money, that he still has something left in the tank, and that he will not be relegated to being a mid-tier QB for the remainder of his career.
Projection: 3845 yards, 22 touchdowns, 14 interceptions, 320/568.
25. Alex Smith – Smith was a bit of an anomaly last season, as the historically weak-armed QB ended up being 15th in QB rankings at season’s end. Smith wasn’t asked to go deep with the ball, but instead to play smart and excel in the short game. He had a really good touchdown to interception ratio (23-7) as well as a career high in yardage (3313). Smith doesn’t have weapons, outside of Jamaal Charles, but he’s proving that you don’t need a big arm to be a threat. As well as his tremendous decision-making, he also proved to the serious ability to run as he amassed 431 yards on the ground. It would be nice to imagine Smith repeated his amazing 2013, but we assume he will see some regression. Smith does have some viable upside, but again you’re looking at a number 2 QB. Don’t reach for Smith too much, as others less read will draft early hoping for a repeat performance.
Projection: 3028 Yards, 21 Touchdowns, 8 Interceptions, 300/491. 374 RuYard, 1 RuTD.
26. Sam Bradford – I understand and recognize that Sam Bradford is truly a talent at the position, but he’s done nothing to prove that to me. Over the course of 7 games, Bradford had 1687 yards, 14-4 TD/INT ratio and a 60% completion percentage. He did this despite having a subpar receiving core (Sorry boss, I don’t buy the Tavon Austin hype), and a TE who proved to be a complete bust. This will be his (rumored) final season in St. Louis, unless he’s able to put together a very impressive season. They invested heavily in 2010 when they drafted Bradford, but he’s yet to produce a winning record. Not all of that is on him, but he is considered the general and leader of the team. He’ll be throwing to a hodge-podge core of Tavon Austin (still waiting), Chris Givens (still waiting), Kenny Britt (I don’t even know which joke to insert here) and Austin Pettis. None of these receivers evoke fear in opposing teams, so it’s a huge uphill battle. Hopefully, Zac Stacy will be solid enough to allow Bradford time to throw. If Bradford can slightly mirror Alex Smith, he could have a really good year. For now, I remain filled with trepidations.
Projection: 3190 yards, 26 touchdowns, 14 interceptions, 299/5506
27. Matt Schaub – It is stunning the fall from grace Matt Schaub experienced in 2013. Prior to his abysmal 2013, he was fairly reliable for 20+ touchdowns and 4000 yards. Schaub had given some hope to the city of Houston and, along with two elite level talents (Andre Johnson and Arian Foster), the Texans offense began putting up numbers. In 2013, however, Schaub seemed to do everything wrong. He started the season throwing pick sixes in four straight games (an NFL record I see) and had one of the worst interception rates in the league. In 2014, Schaub takes his talent (stop laughing, I’m serious) to Oakland in hopes of revitalizing his career. Oakland, unfortunately, seems to be where veteran players go to fade off into the sunset. The only hope Schaub has is James Jones, realizing his true potential as number one receiver, and Rod Streater (no comment). Schaub may come to form, but I would stay away from him this season.
Projection: 2875 Yards, 17 Touchdowns, 13 interceptions, 268/420
28. EJ Manuel – I’m told I should believe in this young player, but last season gave me no reason to feel optimistic. Manuel is a very talented player, but 2013 was so uneventful. One must take into account him missing six games, but even when playing he didn’t show the “it” factor. In conversations with others, I’m told that he is really a very good player. He is saddled with a horrid Buffalo team, though they did add rookie Sammy Watkins who has exceptional speed and ability, and is expected to struggle somewhat. He is surrounded by a very solid run game and should be able to make plays while on the move. If there is one thing noted about Manuel, it’s his great decision-making ability and propensity to successfully scramble when needed. Manuel has a great upside, but it is very possible for him to bomb. However, he’s worth a roll in deep leagues or dynasty leagues.
Projection: 2610 Yards, 16 touchdowns, 12 interceptions, 240/390. 390 RuYD, 4 RuTD
29. Jake Locker – Locker represents broken potential to its fullest. It seems that the young quarterback was highly touted coming out of Washington, but has yet to complete an entire NFL season. Even his best season only saw him throw 2100 yards, and 10/11 (td-int) over the course of 11 games. As with a few other QB’s, this will be a career defining season for Jake Locker. Should he fail to produce, he’ll most likely be relegated to 2nd or 3rd string; or cut all together. Locker will have an uphill battle as the team is without multiple threats on offense, outside of Kendall Wright, and will be pressured by rookie Zach Mettenberger who was drafted out of LSU to be the future of the Oilers Titans. Steer clear of Locker unless you’re completely desperate, but even in a case of desperation; I’d advise rolling the dice on one of the other young QB’s fighting for a starting role.
Projection: 2480 yards, 14 touchdowns, 10 interceptions, 200/373
30. Teddy Bridgewater – As a diehard Vikings fan, it’s hard for me to remain objective when talking about the QB of our future. If Bridgewater were announced as the starting QB before the season began, you’re looking at a top 20 player. He has weapons in the passing game (Greg Jennings, Cordarrelle Patterson, Kyle Rudolph) and he has the greatest RB in the NFL in Adrian Peterson. He’ll benefit from having a very solid offensive line, and the great Norv Turner calling the offensive plays. Bridgewater was one of the best talents coming out of the draft, and most likely the most “NFL Ready” of the group. However, the word in Minnesota is that Bridgewater will not be starting, but could see games this season. As such, he’s only worth a pick in a dynasty league or a deep league where you have the roster spot. When he does become the starter, grab him immediately as he will have tremendous value towards the end of your season.
Projection: (8 games) 2450 Yards, 16 touchdowns, 6 interceptions, 235/439.
31. Michael Vick – To those who think Geno Smith is the starter, I have to ask, “Why?” Why in the world would you think the J-E-T-S, JETS, JETS, JETS, would start a guy who threw 12 touchdowns to 21 interceptions? Sure, he’s the QB of the future (so they say) for your New York Fighting Jets; but he proved only to be a spotty player in 2013.
The Jets, in a response to this horrid first year showing, went out to sign professional injury risk Michael Vick. Say what you will about Vick on a personal level, but professionally he is always a threat on offense. Prior to his injury, Vick was having a very respectable first 5 games. In addition to having a huge arm, Vick is also (arguably) the most threatening running QB in the history of the NFL. His move to New York, which is almost as loving to its players as Philadelphia, comes as the Jets look to re-invigorate their team with off-season signings of Eric Decker, Jacoby Ford, David Nelson and Chris Johnson. Hell, you could even look at the addition of Daryl Richardson as a sign the Jets are willing to make every effort to fill in the empty puzzle pieces. If you draft Vick, know that you’ll get elite fantasy value for as long as he stays healthy. Just know that he will get injured and you must be able to slot someone else into the QB spot on your team.
Projection: (9 games) 2019 yards, 11 touchdowns, 5 interceptions, 97/184. 410 RuYds, 3 RuTD
32. Chad Henne – Though they say Bortles will sit on the sidelines, I imagine the leash will decrease in length with each negative performance. I have never been a fan of Henne, nor do I believe he has much to offer Jacksonville. He’s on, arguably, the worst offense in the NFL with a very underwhelming line. Even in the deepest of leagues, I couldn’t suggest investing in Henne. I would much rather roll the dice on a player like Michael Vick, Brian Hoyer, or even Matt Cassel. Henne offers absolutely no upside and should be avoided at all costs. He is only ranked 32 over Bortles, as the head coach insists Bortles will be holding a clipboard for the entire season.
Projection: (6 games played) 1100 yards, 6 touchdowns, 9 interceptions, 120/241
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Major League Fantasy Football Radio kicks off tomorrow, Sunday July 13th from 11:30am-12:30pm EST brought to you by our friends at Sports Palooza Radio Network. Our featured guest is Jeff Nelson a high school defensive coach in PA. We will discuss Corners and how their teams scheme will effect their numbers. Also how to properly draft these players. Chase Jacobs will also be a guest and we will be discussing the Wide Receiver position in depth. Click the link or call in (646) 915-8596. You can also listen to the podcast if you can not make the show live. We will have a football show every Sunday until the season is over from 11:30am-12:30pm EST. Also tune in for Major League Fantasy Baseball Radio every Monday from 1pm-2pm ESTIn the second part of this two-part blog Onespacemedia's Creative Director James Dellar offers his expertise and advice to young designers moving into their first commercial role. While the first article focuses on the steps from University to getting your foot in the door with an agency, this article is aimed at giving you advice about the ins and outs of agency culture.
The first day of school
Congratulations, you’ve got your first job in a design agency. This is where the real work begins. A big part of a junior designer role is learning the foundations of commercial design. This is everything that they don't tell you at University. The first few years are crucial so here are a few tips that might just give you the edge.
Don’t get ahead of yourself
Every design agency will have a hierarchy and you’ll need to understand it quickly. It may not be obvious from job titles but all of your colleagues will have worked hard to achieve their positions in the company so make sure that you give them the respect they deserve. Their experience and expertise can help you become the designer you want to be. Listen, learn, and know your place. You’re up in the premier league now.
Open, crop, save, repeat
Sometimes your creative director or senior designer will give you a task that seems so boring and mundane that you can lose the will to live. It may be to resize 2,000 images to make them ready for the web, or path out 500 product shots and position them on white backgrounds. Believe me, I’ve done both in the past. At the time it seems horrendous and feels like you’ll be working on it forever. Now, before you moan or roll your eyes, this type of work is character building and here’s why – firstly, every designer should want to help their team members deliver a professionally crafted end product. Secondly, you should approach every piece of work, no matter how small, mundane or stressful, with the same work ethic and attention to detail and quality. Make sure you have a ‘can do’ attitude in everything that you do. You will become a better designer in the long run and these characteristics will stay with you throughout your career.
Don’t become a 'John Doe'
Agency life can be a daunting experience. There will be internal politics and lots of rules, policies and processes. Sometimes work can be stressful - creative people are usually opinionated and disagreements can create tension in the workplace. Designers are passionate people and when tension is riding high it's easy to hide away at your desk and stay out of the way. Remember that you were hired for your skills and personality. This includes your ability to think for yourself and solve problems so if you have an idea about how to solve the creative challenge that two team members are disagreeing over, then speak up. It's far too easy to be a shrinking violet and you'll be the first on the exit list if the company needs to downsize.
Rocking the boat
You may be the only designer or a member of a larger design team; either way you’re there to support the entire company for its creative needs. It's hard to summon creativity on demand but you need to be self-motivated, consistently deliver your best work, and stand by it. Sometimes your boss or peers won't agree with your approach but before you lose the plot, remember that companies have a lot of personalities to manage and the world is bigger than the problems you have on your desk. It's easy to misinterpret your passion for frustration so it's vital that when you do have to defend your work you ensure that your responses are clear and that you have a solid rationale behind any design decisions you have made.
If there is something on your mind about a job, client or colleague make sure that you exercise professional sensitivity and address it with the right person at the right time. For example it's probably not the best idea to bring up your grievances with Dave from accounts when the year-end accounts are due. Low morale effects everyone so if you are going to rock the boat, do it carefully.
Finger on the pulse
Knowledge is power - a phrase especially true in the creative industries. Do you want to be on the cutting edge of design? Then you need to stay up to speed with the latest news, trends, and styles in the industry. Share links though your social channels and with your team. If you don’t have an internal system of sharing inspiration within the agency, be proactive and create one. This not only shows your peers that you’re thinking for yourself but also that you want to help evolve the creative think tank.
Your first live client project
Lets be honest, you’re scared. It’s like a dream where you’re naked at school, and everyone is watching you. And that’s not a bad thing. Suck it up and get on with it.
Go old school
A pen and pad are your best friend. Use either lined paper or off white rough paper, even unused print outs. This means that you’re less precious about how things look. Draw fast and large. Stay clear of details, it’s rough after all.
It’s good to talk
Before you open your software, see if you can grab the attention of another designer. Hit them up when they've come up for air from their work - the kitchen or other communal areas are always good places to strike up a conversation. Talk them through your ideas (they’ll probably already know the brief) and see what their thoughts are. They will give you feedback on your ideas and possibly unlock something that you hadn’t considered.
Gather the essentials
Make sure you've got everything organised to start the project - typefaces, images, branding, colour schemes. Getting prepped means that you don’t waste time sourcing all this stuff down the line and interrupting someone who may be busy. Organise your files and write paths/locations down on your pad so it’s right in front of you rather than hidden away in an epic email chain.
It's time to put that first pixel down. Go for it, don’t be scared of a blank canvas, this is your time. You know you've got the skills and everything you need to do the job so get all the elements onto the canvas. All designers work in different ways but I prefer to design fast and I don’t usually worry about organising layers and folders until later in the process. Edit, share, discuss, repeat. By the end of the process you'll have something you and your team are proud of.
Know which battles are worth fighting
Critique sessions, both internal and external can be draining. These meetings are there to ensure that everything is designed for a purpose. If there is no purpose or rationale behind a visual element or piece of functionality then it shouldn’t be there. Common sense is your friend when you’re in these meetings. Know when to listen, and when to fight for something. A strong rationale that is grounded in common sense will help you move forward.
The results are in
So there’s a couple of things the client didn’t like; that’s all part of the industry that we’re in. There can be numerous reasons given, or none at all. They may just not like the colour blue! You have to remember that this is an iterative process. Just because you, your peers, and your Mum and Dad like it doesn’t mean that the client will too. Sometimes you will have to compromise and adapt to client ‘must haves’.
Chin up
Every designer’s heart is firmly affixed to their sleeve when it comes to their own work. Rejected ideas aren’t the end of the world, they make you evolve as a designer. Believe in yourself. This belief will get stronger over time as you tackle increasingly challenging briefs.
My wife makes great wallpaper choices
Now of course this doesn’t mean that she can design. By the same token, you're not a surgeon just because you've played the game 'Operation'. The client will likely hold the views and opinions of those who normally make the creative decisions in high regard. Be prepared for anything, this is where good rationale for design decisions will be crucial. Sometimes a client can find it difficult to understand why your idea will work as it may be a new approach and bucks tradition or accepted norms. This is where your research will help you to provide examples of why your ideas will work.
A slice of humble pie
Hurrah! The design has been signed off. Now remember, being humble should be at the heart of your job. Creating a successful, and well-delivered final design that everyone is happy with is your day to day job.
'OK kid, don't get cocky'
You’ve finished the project and everyone is stoked. Don’t down tools, you can celebrate later. If you’re on a roll keep that momentum going — a positive attitude can spread like wildfire and galvanise a team into delivering better and better work. Don't expect your success to make you a hero but rest assured that your efforts will have been noticed. Congratulations, you have become a designer.
Follow us on twitter.Texting, emojis, and lolspeak (the awful Internet patois derived from LOLcats) are destroying the English language. But with its latest app, Ginger hopes to strike a blow for quality writing.
Ginger Page, now available for iOS, Android, major web browsers, and PCs, is a souped up spin on grammar correction. In addition to checking your spelling and offering synonyms, Ginger’s technology can also offer up better ways of phrasing entire sentences.
“We see ourselves as trying to raise the level of English from the pre-mobile days,” said Ginger CEO Maoz Schact in an interview with VentureBeat. “We’re able to make you look good on your mobile with minimal effort.”
Image Credit: Ginger Page
Ginger’s natural language processing engine is based on semantic analysis of high-quality writing from around the Web. It’s also aware of the context of what you’re writing about, so its recommendation should actually be useful. Ginger started developing its technology for people who use English as a second language, but its latest apps seem useful for anyone who wants to seem like a competent writer.
The company recently sold its virtual personal assistant business to Intel for around $30 million, which came on top of its $20 million in funding. Now, Ginger is ready to focus on building up its language correction business.
The Ginger Page experience differs depending on the platform you’re using. On the iPhone, it’s a standalone writing app, while Android users also have the option of using Ginger as a replacement keyboard to correct their writing in any app. Naturally, Schact assured me that Ginger is also working on an alternative keyboard for iOS 8, following Apple’s decision to open up its mobile platform.
On all of its available platforms, you just need to hit a button in Ginger Page to have it start analyzing your text. I received some helpful tips on both the Ginger iPhone app and Chrome extension, though Ginger generally performed better for longer phrases and sentences. Getting writing suggestions typically took just a few seconds (as with most apps these days, Ginger requires a network connection).
Schact envisions the app being useful to anyone who wants to appear a bit smarter on their social channels. But he also noted that several professional writers are using Ginger to proofread themselves.A.B. said: @Large Donner, the term functional status refers to ability to carry out the tasks of everyday life. Take a shower, clean the house, work or study, buy groceries, have a social life, and so on. It has nothing to do with functional disorders. Click to expand...
Yes but if you don't have a mental health diagnosis or an organic proven disease, as according to the CDC, and the very definition of ME/CFS pretty much all around the world exactly who has a functional disorder according those very alphabet organisations?When a doc tells you you have a functional issues or talks about your functional status in the absence of organic disease it means one thing only."Functional" is the third way but has all its routes in neurasthenia, psychosomatic, hysteria, conversion disorder etc etc.Speak to a neurologist and talk about your functional status being as impaired as someone with MS and that you dont have "objective proof of disease" you will most likely be told to try CBT.Alnwick Treehouse, UK
Exterior
Front view showing the two levels, interlocking room sections and the chimney for the open fireplace in the restaurant. The restaurant is directly beneath the chimney on the lower floor. The room in the upper left can be privately hired.
The kitchen for the restaurant. Curves in the roof and walls create a more natural form for the exterior surface, echoing the lean of the tree.
The back of the house from the tree walkway. The two structural towers are more clear from this angle. They are constructed using traditional masonry from a concrete foundation under the treehouse and carry much of the weight of the upper floors and restaurant ceiling. The foreground tower carries a spiral staircase that leads up to the toilets and down to an emergency exit beneath the house.
One of the smaller houses attached to the main deck, used for storage or for private hire. The semi-shingled sides and boarded up windows soften the geometric structure underneath. Despite its size, this technique allows the treehouse to blend very well with the trees and landscape of this part of the garden.
The massive floor area is supported by the two towers in the background and many of these knee braces. They are positioned mostly in groups of eight with a metal web restraint. All the structural joints on the treehouse are made in custom-fabricated galvanised steel. This provides the high strength and reliability needed for a huge structure like this but they are expensive. This level of bracket use would usually not be an economical option for someone building their own treehouse. The braces meet at ground level where they terminate via brackets in a concrete foundation.Home > Archives (2006 on) > 2016 > India’s Cost of Evading ‘Western Enlightenment’
by Arup Maharatna
In this essay we seek to posit that many of the major ills that presently afflict Indian politics, society, and culture are attributable, in a large measure, to its resolute escape from the core ideational and attitudinal influences of the Western enlightenment, the mainspring of the modern industrial democratic civilisational world. We use the term ‘escape’, because India has neither wholeheartedly rejected, nor sincerely embraced, the basic insights, wisdoms and messages of the epoch-making Enlighten-ment movement across the West.
No doubt, due to a deformed developmental trajectory, shaped largely by British imperial interests (until independence), India had to miss out the historic opportunity of sharing or experiencing the classic Enlightenment move-ment and its progressive aftermath since the early 19th century. For instance, Japan, having been free from colonial subjugation, did witness a progressive socio-cultural and economic trans-formation at the behest of its native emperors of the Meiji dynasty with its inspired programme for infusing modern ideas and values through rapid expansion of elementary education, culmi-nating into a glorious phase of all-round Japanese progress since the mid-nineteenth century. Arguably, therefore, just after independence, India could have embarked on a prioritised bunch of initiatives/programmes toward inculcating, on a countrywide scale, an unwavering admiration and appreciation of the universal power of reason and rationality, particularly through mass public school education with suitably designed curriculum (which emphasises the fundamental value of reason, rationality and secular attitudes). This could well have made the masses intrinsically or ideationally ‘enligh-tened’, but not exactly ‘Westernised’ in terms of socio-cultural ethos, spiritualism, lifestyles and so on. This was broadly the conviction with which a sort of ‘renaissance’ project was spearheaded by the intellectually enlightened thinkers and reformers—albeit on an elitist scale—in a few pockets of nineteenth-century colonial India.
But as Amartya Sen aptly argues, India’s renaissance intelligentsia’s self-characterisation and pride in spiritual and philosophical supe-riority were substantially influenced by the contemporary dominant Western perceptions of India full of exotic praise for her old literature, philosophy and spirituality. In the words of the historian Sumit Sarkar, ‘[d]epen-dence on the foreign rulers and alienation from the masses were to remain for long the two cardinal limitations of our entire “renaissance” intelligentsia’. Accordingly, the Swadeshi move-ment was plagued by an ideological conflict between modernism (reason-based attitude/rationality) and traditionalism (existing social mores based on a glorious past). In contrast, the entire Western enlightenment experience shows how ideational modernism won over traditiona-lism by affording centrality and key instrumen-tality to the mass public elementary education.
In his bid to mobilise the native masses for the freedom movement, Mahatma Gandhi utilised a rugged sentimental stance of glorifying traditional India’s indigenous lines of thinking, spiritualism, life-styles, and many religious-cultural attributes and norms.Thus, the prime necessity of people’s awakening to the profound significance of enlightenment values, objective reasoning and pragmatic rationality was easily overlooked. While the Gandhian project worked well in achieving political independence, it was of little help in enlightening the citizens’ minds with rationalistic, scientific and secular spirits and outlook instrumental to ensuring social and political stability, coherence and hence broad-based economic development.
Many Indian authors and political leaders often made explicit the necessity of bringing scientific attitude and objectivity to people’s minds, but they typically bypassed the key question of how best could we bring these attitudinal or ideational changes on a mass scale or the question of detailed practicalities of meeting this necessity by redesigning the content of the school curriculum. Pandit Nehru was appreciative of the fruits of modern science and technological advances (and he heralded within a relatively short span several high-profiled institutions for scientific, technological, and nuclear research). But he showed little urgency over the needs and means for inculcating scientific, pragmatic, and reason-based attitudes and mental make-up among the entire populace. This was largely because of Nehru’s misper-ception (as time proved it) that rapid industriali-sation along with modern science, technology and techniques of production would almost inevitably perform the job of modernising (and |
childhoods. And some of us are lucky to stand tall and proud on our forebears’ shoulders. For all of us, they are still the people to whom we owe our beginnings. We can love them, hate them, live in illusion, or see them for who they are — but we cannot disclaim them. The same is true of our political ancestors — and we need to talk that way. If we want to share our inheritance more broadly, and convince our cousins to do the same, we need first to be able to demonstrate that we cherish it, that we recognize that it is our inheritance, something we, as individuals, did not create, but was given to us by those who came before, and that we are responsible for passing on. If it is ours, then we have the right to remodel it to better suit the needs of the present and the future — we don’t have to be shackled by the past. But if we care about it as an inheritance, then we’ll show gratitude for what we have received, and make changes in that spirit, even if we know that many of those who came before would have cringed to see just who has taken up residence in what was once their house, and what they’ve done to the place.
Read the whole thing there.The sea today is 30 percent more acidic than preindustrial levels, which is already creating corrosive water that is washing over America’s coasts. This ongoing decline in pH is making it harder for some animals, like tiny pteropods as well as corals, to form their shells out of calcium carbonate, while other creatures whose blood chemistry is altered become disoriented and lose their ability to evade predators.
The sea today is 30 percent more acidic than preindustrial levels, which is already creating corrosive water that is washing over America’s coasts. This ongoing decline in pH is making it harder for some animals, like tiny pteropods as well as corals, to form their shells out of calcium carbonate, while other creatures whose blood chemistry is altered become disoriented and lose their ability to evade predators. Tricia Thibodeau/National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Human-generated carbon emissions are making the ocean more acidic, which has become a cause for concern to the fishing industry and scientists.
Human-generated carbon emissions are making the ocean more acidic, which has become a cause for concern to the fishing industry and scientists.
Human-generated carbon emissions are making the ocean more acidic, which has become a cause for concern to the fishing industry and scientists.
Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire (D) ordered state agencies on Tuesday to take steps to address the ocean’s increasing acidity, making it the first state to adopt a policy to take on what scientists describe as a growing environmental concern.
Ocean acidification poses a threat to the state’s $270 million shellfish industry, as well as to critical habitat off its shores.
The order signed by Gregoire, whose term will end in January, calls on the state to invest more money in scientific research, curb nutrient runoff from land, and push for cuts in greenhouse gas emissions on a regional, national and global scale. It accepts the recommendations that a blue-ribbon panel issued Tuesday on how to assess and limit the effects of ocean acidification. The group was co-chaired by former Environmental Protection Agency administrator William D. Ruckelshaus and former Gregoire chief of staff Jay Manning.
“Let’s get to work,” Gregoire told an audience at the Seattle Aquarium, adding that she would propose that the legislature reallocate $3.3 million in state funding to pay for research and other actions. “Let’s lead the world in addressing this global challenge.”
Ocean acidification stems from the sea’s absorption of human-generated carbon emissions. The ocean absorbs 30 percent of the carbon dioxide put into the air through fossil-fuel burning. This triggers a chemical reaction that produces hydrogen, thereby lowering the water’s pH.
1 of 71 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad × Curiosity on Mars View Photos View the NASA rover’s images, including self-portraits, from the Red Planet. Caption NASA’s rover has found evidence of an ancient lake — with water that could plausibly be described as drinkable — that was part of a long-standing, wet environment that could have supported simple forms of life on Mars. New data from NASA’s Mars rover, Curiosity, reveal that the rover’s landing site — the Gale Crater — once harbored an ancient lake that was theoretically capable of hosting microbes known as chemolithoautotrophs, which are able to break down rocks and minerals for energy. Science/AAAS Buy Photo Wait 1 second to continue.
The ocean is becoming more acidic worldwide, but certain regions are affected more than others because local factors such as ocean currents or farm runoff can intensify the impact. Washington state policymakers have focused on the problem for several years because increasingly corrosive waters off the state’s shores threaten oyster-farming operations.
“Washington’s moving not by choice but out of necessity,” Manning said in an interview. “Ocean acidification came and found us.”
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Administrator Jane Lubchenco, who said she expects other coastal states to follow suit in the coming years, praised Washington for “seizing this issue and really wrestling with what can be done.”
California has commissioned a panel on ocean acidification, and officials in states including Alaska, Maryland and Oregon are studying its impact.
Scientists are just beginning to document how the change in the ocean’s pH — which is 0.1 lower, or 30 percent more acidic, than pre-industrial levels — is affecting marine organisms worldwide.
On Sunday, American and British researchers published a study in the journal Nature Geoscience showing that the shells of snails essential to the marine food web are dissolving off Antarctica because of more corrosive seas.
“We simply cannot sit idly by while this happens,” Ruckelshaus said of ocean acidification. He added in an interview that it will be difficult to implement some of the panel’s recommendations.
“The hardest thing to do is the thing we’ve been trying to do for decades: try to control runoff from land,” he said. “We haven’t figured out as a nation how to do that.”
Jay Inslee (D), who will become Washington’s governor on Jan. 16, expressed support Tuesday for Gregoire’s actions.
Inslee spokesman Sterling Clifford wrote in an e-mail: “We know that the leading cause of ocean acidification is carbon pollution, and Governor-Elect Inslee is committed to reducing carbon pollution in Washington and setting an example for other states to follow.”Earlier today, DJ Khaled made an appearance on ESPN's First Take to talk about his beloved Miami Heat. And during his appearance, he made a lot of really valid points about LeBron James & Co. and demonstrated that he had clearly done his homework in the days leading up to the show. He used stats to back up his arguments, he provided hard evidence while debating Stephen A. Smith and Skip Bayless, and he…
OH, WHO ARE WE KIDDING?! This is DJ Khaled we're talking about! So he did none of those things. Instead, he yelled a lot, he put a ton of extra emphasis on the "King" every time he referred to King James, and he even cited "the streets"—yes, "the streets"!—as a legitimate source when he told Skip Bayless that he believes the Spurs shut the air conditioning off on purpose before Game 1 of the 2014 NBA Finals. And Twitter had an absolute field day after watching Khaled's appearance on the show:
DJ Khaled made every Heat fan look like an idiot — christopher columbus (@TheLordFelix) June 10, 2014
Also plz tell me DJ Khaled did not go on a nationally televised sports debate show and cite "the streets" as a source for his argument. — Hanif Abdurraqib (@NifMuhammad) June 10, 2014
Can TSA or government agencies please corruptly profile DJ Khaled just this time so we don't have to ever hear him again? — Duke Chanabhan (@authenticduke) June 10, 2014
DJ Khaled has no idea how Stupid he sounds. — Peter Parker (@AwesomeFrank7) June 10, 2014
DJ Khaled: Spurs turned the air off on purpose. Skip: Who's your source on that? DJ Khaled: THE STREETS! Stephen A: pic.twitter.com/mzyCvlekqD — Matt Jarman (@itsJarm) June 10, 2014
Part of us wants to tell ESPN to never, ever invite Khaled back to First Take again—and part of us wants him to become a regular contributor. Where do you stand after watching him on the show?
POST CONTINUES BELOW
RELATED: The Most Ridiculous Arguments in ESPN's First Take History
RELATED: Skip Bayless' Most Jackass Arguments
RELATED: How ESPN Lost Its Way
[via YouTube]Obscenity: Alan Moore and the Miller Test
by Bobby Derie — 2015
In Providence #6 by Alan Moore and Jacen Burrows, the character of Elspeth Wade is portrayed as a 13-year old girl. During the course of the issue, this character strips nude and is raped.
While no penetration is shown, readers in the United States might be honestly concerned as to whether or not this constitutes child pornography under current laws. Given the personal interest this might invoke in readers of this comic, a review of the actual laws involved might be beneficial.
The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States states that “Congress shall make no law […] abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.” However, the United States Supreme Court recognizes several exceptions to free speech, specifically affirming that obscenity and child pornography are not considered forms of protected speech under the First Amendment, and that the Federal and state governments can pass laws restricting such works. (Miller v. California 413 U.S. 15 (1973), New York v. Ferber, 458 U.S. 747 (1982))
Laws restricting or outlawing child pornography are enacted to protect children from sexual abuse and exploitation, but in the case of comic books, where no actual child is depicted or harmed, lawmakers have to tackle with more fundamental issues of free speech. To address this, the PROTECT ACT of 2003 was passed into law, and contained a provision specifically regarding artistic depictions of child pornography: 18 U.S. Code § 1466A. This law makes it illegal to produce, distribute, receive, or possess with intent to distribute visual depictions of child pornography—provided they are obscene, or “lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.” The constitutionality of the law has not yet been fully tested, and it remains to be seen if the PROTECT ACT would hold up under judicial scrutiny. But given that it currently is law, two questions need to be asked: is the rape sequence in Providence #6 pornographic, and is it obscene?
Well, the character of Elspeth Wade is nude, and does engage in sexual intercourse. However, the definitions given in 18 U.S. Code § 2256 specify “graphic sexual intercourse, including genital-genital, oral-genital, anal-genital, or oral-anal, whether between persons of the same or opposite sex, or lascivious simulated sexual intercourse where the genitals, breast, or pubic area of any person is exhibited.” At no point in the issue are the character’s genitals depicted, and there is no depiction of genital-genital contact. However, as the character is nude, that might bring the Dost Test into play. The Dost Test is a set of guidelines for determining if an image of a minor is a “lascivious exhibition” under 18 U.S. Code § 2256. Given the sexual nature of the events in the comic and the ambiguity of those guidelines, it seems likely that a judge or prosecutor could determine it was pornographic if they chose to. (United States v. Dost, 636 F. Supp. 828 (1986))
The ultimate question, then, is whether or note the Providence sequence is obscene, which requires the administration of the Miller Test for obscenity:
A work may be subject to state regulation where that work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest in sex; portrays, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law; and, taken as a whole, does not have serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.
Miller v. California 413 U.S. 15 (1973)
Breaking this down into its constituent parts, it seems obvious that the series as a whole, or the individual issue as a whole, does not appeal to prurient interest in sex: the bulk of the issue is given over to ruminations on a fictional grimoire. The sequence where Elspeth Wade’s body is raped may meet the definitions of the applicable law, as an underage character is depicted nude (her breasts are seen, but no genitalia), even if no genital-genital contact is shown. We can probably generally rule out political and scientific value. Artistically, Jacen Burrows’ art is technically excellent, but it is difficult to determine whether that alone qualifies as having “serious value,” though prosecutors might have a difficult time arguing against the overall artistic merit shown in Providence.
From a literary standpoint, I do believe the sequence has serious literary value. In The Horror of Rape, I put forth the argument that Moore has never used rape without a purpose in his works; even the instances with the Invisible Man and Hyde and Pollyanna in League of Extraordinary Gentleman, though played for laughs, served the purpose of comic relief—blackly comic, it is true, but not without some purpose.
In this specific incident in Providence #6, I read the episode as a commentary on H. P. Lovecraft’s “The Thing on the Doorstep.” In that story, Asenath Waite (more specifically a malevolent wizard entity occupying her body) is married to Edward Derby, and the two become engaged in a contest where Waite is switching bodies with Derby. In the story, Lovecraft never examines the lascivious possibilities of this gender-swapping (except for one possible hint), but recall what Alan Moore said about Neonomicon:
This is a horror of the physical with Lovecraft – so I wanted to put that stuff back in. And also, where Lovecraft being sexually squeamish, would only talk of ‘certain nameless rituals.’ Or he’d use some euphemism: ‘blasphemous rites.’ It was pretty obvious, given that a lot of his stories detailed the inhuman offspring of these ‘blasphemous rituals’ that sex was probably involved somewhere along the line. But that never used to feature in Lovecraft’s stories, except as a kind of suggested undercurrent. So I thought, let’s put all of the unpleasant racial stuff back in, let’s put sex back in. Let’s come up with some genuinely ‘nameless rituals’- let’s give them a name. So those were the precepts that it started out from, and I decided to follow wherever the story lead.
(“Alan Moore: Unearthed and Uncut”)
In that context, this scene doesn’t look like Moore and Burrows are attempting a bit of prurience, as much as they are showing some of the physical horrors that Lovecraft left off the page in “The Thing on the Doorstep.” We never get even a hint in Lovecraft of how the possibility of switching genders might change the dynamic of the sexual relationship between Asenath and Derby, or how such a physical, sexual assault might parallel or complement the psychic contest of domination that had subsumed their normal relationship with each other.
Need it have been sexual? Probably not; non-sexual violence might have as easily underlined the power struggle between Black and Wade. Yet it is also true that Black’s sexuality has been an important aspect of his character, and it will be interesting to see what the long-term effects of this temporary gender reversal and assault will have on Black. Moore has made a habit of using sexual assault as catalysts for change within his characters, such as Janni Dakkar in League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century (2009), and it may be that in the context of the entire work, this may turn out to be a key scene in the development of Black’s character and the entire Providence narrative.
This is, of course, not the first time that Moore has flirted with this kind of controversy. Lost Girls (2006) with Melinda Gebbie, also depicts underage characters engaging in sex, albeit in much more explicit detail than in Providence. As of this writing, no one in the United States has been charged with child pornography or obscenity for producing, distributing, receiving, or possessing a copy of Lost Girls, and in other countries that work has avoided the label of “child pornography” due to its literary merit. (“Lost Girls’ Cleared”)
Which bodes well for Providence. However, the individual laws and definitions of child pornography vary from state to state, and the legal opinion of authorities in Canada or the United Kingdom do not determine verdicts in the United States legal system; it is impossible to say definitively that Providence will not spur some legal interest at some point.
But it is important that readers keep these questions of free speech in mind. For those readers that are interested in comics as literature for adults, and not just simply a medium exclusive to children, it still a struggle about what creators are and are not allowed to create, and what readers are and are not allowed to read.
Works Cited[Here is a newspaper account of the unusual death of Clement Vallandigham, a leader of the Copperhead Democrats during the Civil War. This article is reproduced as it is in the paper, including an occasional typo.]
Fatal Accident to Mr. Vallandigham.
On last Friday night, at Lebanon, Warren County, Ohio, Mr. C. L. Vallandigham, who was one of the counsel in the case of the McGehan murder trial going on at that place, accidentally shot himself. He was in a room with ex-Lieut. Gov. McBurney, and while showing with a pistol how Myer’s, the man murdered, might have shot himself, the pistol was discharged, the ball entering the right side of the abdomen below the ribs. By telegraph the following particulars have been reported: Governor McBurney, who had been associated with him in the defence of McGehan, had expressed some doubts as to the theory that Meyers had shot himself and Mr. Vallandigham picked up the pistol from a table, saying he would show him in a second. Two pistols were on the table, one unloaded, and he by mistake took up the loaded one, put it in his pocket and withdrew it, keeping the muzzle next his body, just as it was leaving his pocket it was discharged, the ball entering, it is said, near the same place Meyers was shot. He at once ejaculated, “Oh murder!” and said he had taken the wrong pistol. while the examination was going on he watched the surgeons at work with eager eyes, and even assisted them in their seach for the ball. the locality of the ball is not known. It appears to have taken a downward course, in the direction of the bladder. At 12 M. Dr. Scoville asked Vallandigham if he was aware of his condition? He replied, “Yes.” He has thus far shown no alarm. There seems now no doubt of internal hemorrhage. Vallandigham’s son arrived with Dr. Teeves at a quarter to one. The father had an interview with the son and told him to be a good boy, and gave directions about dispatching for his mother.
Cincinnati, June 17.—Mr. Vallandigham died at eighteen minutes before ten o’clock this morning. He went down very rapidly after three o’clock, having no pulse scarcely after that hour. Dr. Dawson, of Cincinati, arrived at three o’clock, but was too late to do any good for the dying man. Judge Haynes, his law partner from Dayton, reached Lebanon this morning with other personal friends who were with him in his last hours. there has been much sorrow manifested here to-day concerning the tragic end of Mr. Vallandigham, and it has been by no means confined to his political friends. Persons who have differed with him and animadverted severely upon his course during the rebellion, have expressed no less regret at the terrible calamity which has befallen him than have his political associates.
The news concerning his last hours has been devoured with avidity. The newspaper reporters who have came from the scene this evening have been dilligently sought. From the details thus far published, it appears that when the pistol was discharged Mr. Vallandighem was hardly aware of the severe nature of the wound, as he walked around the room awhile before lying down. Governor Mc Burney, alarmed at the sudden appearance of a tragedy, rushed to the adjoining rooms and at once summoned aid. As soon as the persons came Vallandigham said it was a foolish act, and later adverted to it as the most reckless act of his life. Though he seemed to be conscious that he was badly hurt he appeared decidedly hopeful during the early hours.
Rev. Mr. Haight called to see him, and Mr. Vallandigham, taking him by the hand, said substantially that he had too much faith in the Calvinistic doctrine to believe that he would not get safely through this misfortune. Once he told the surgeon to take care of the pain and he would manage the rest. When impressed with the approach of death he was calm, and met the news of his condition bravely. After Dr. Reeve arrived from Dayton he soon had the room cleared, and, when no one was present, intimated to Mr. Vallandigham the very nature of his wound. The patient, seeking from something on which to build hope, reminded the doctor of two bad cases of injuries, not fatal, known to both and asked if this were worse than they, to which the reluctant reply was, “Possibly not.” The doctor then told Mr. Vallandigham, who was suffering from pain, that they would have to administer medicines of a sedative nature, and suggested that if he had anything to say, he had better communicate it then. Mr. Vallandigham then conversed with the doctor concerning his private matters, giving direction in regard to his business, after which, medicine to relieve the pain was injected by hypodermic process. After this there was no time when he was not under the influence of opiates that affected somewhat his sensibilities. He, nevertheless, appeared to keep possession of his faculties to the last. At 3:30 o’clock he seemed to be dying, and his friends were called to his bedside. From that time he rapidly sank. The pulsations at his wrist appeared to have ceased, though he was remarkably calm, so much so that Dr. Drake said he was the coolest man under such circumstances he had ever seen. He still showed sign about the face of agony. As death approached his face wore an ashy paleness. His last words were a request for ice and medicine to allay his pain. In his last moments there were signs about the face that indicated great physical suffering. At eighteen minutes before ten o’clock this morning he was dead. The boby was immediately placed on ice. From this time, till the departure of the remains, the hotel was besieged with persons who come to see the face, which was left exposed. The features and expression were admirably preserved.
The sad feature of the case was the absence of Mrs. Vallandigham, who had gone the same evening to Cumberland, being called there by the death of her brother, Judge McMahon. She was telegraphed for and will reach Dayton to-morrow morning at ten o’clock.
The Times and Chronicle this evening publish an interview had between Mr. Vallandigham and one of its editors on Wednesday, in which Mr. V. said there can be no more political campaigns fought on the issues of the last few years. they are dead, and if the democratic party refuses to move to the front to accept the new order of things it will simply pass away and some other party made up of the earnest, progressive elements of both the old parties will take possession of the government. When asked if he did not think the campaign of 1872 would be fought on the present issues, he said, “That may be undertaken by our party, but it will fail. A year ago Grant gave promise of his intention to lead the Republican party into a new departure, and he would have done it, but a gang of old politicians at Washington, held him back; they scared him with gabble about defeat until he went square back into the old routes. Grant is an honest man, and would do right if the politicians would let him, but that they won’t do. He took the back track on the San Domingo question, in which, apart from corrupt means used, he was clearly right. I tell you sir, that annexation of territory and the control of all outlying fragments of this continent is the destiny of the American people. We shall have San Domingo, Cuba and Mexico, and all the rest, mark that. We missed the greatest chance that we ever had in not getting Cuba during the Spanish troubles; we could have had it then for mere asking, and in a few years we would have been owners of the richest and most productive piece of territory in the world. Why! they used to talk about me and call me a disunionist. I tell you, sir, earnestly and honestly, that I never was a disunionist. I always believed that this Union will be perpetuated and extended till it embraces the continent. His denial of disunion views Mr. V. thrice repeated, with marked emphasis. In reply to a remark of his interrogator, that he did not see how, with the hatred exhibited toward him by the dead issue Democracy, he could stay in that party, he smiled and said: “Why, what can I do? The Republican party won’t move forward; it wants to stick to its old clothes, and my best hope is to get the Democracy to the front. However, there is no telling what three hundred and sixty-five days may bring forth; and of one thing I am certain; if the Democratic party fails to become the party of progress and advanced political ideas, and I, from conviction, decide to act with any other party, that other political party will never stop to inquire what my past political record has been. Parties don’t manage things in that way.”
The interviewer says: “Those who read may construe this expression as they please. I write it almost verbatim as he spoke it. The speaker’s earnest manner convinced me he meant all he said. The same sentiment was subsequently reported in various forms during our conversation, which lasted altogether fully half an hour.”
New York, June 17.—The news of the death of C. L. Vallandigham has created a profound impression in political circles here. All unite in expressions of sorrow at his untimely end, and sympathy for Mrs. Vallandigham in her double bereavement.
Dayton, June 18.—The remains of Mr. Vallandigham arrived at Dayton yesterday, in custody of the St. John’s Lodge of Masons who have charge of the body, at his late residence, and will conduct the obsequies. The body was at once prepared for preservation until the return of Mrs. Vallandigham, who left Cumberland, Maryland, at 3:45 this forenoon and arrived by a special train at 9:20 to-night. During the day a large number of persons from the city and country visited the house. But few were admitted in consequence of the decomposition of the body which is very rapid. Profound sympathy for the bereaved family is universally expressed. A bar meeting will be held to-morrow. The funeral will be held on Tuesday at one o’clock P.M. Dispatches from surrounding towns, Cincinnati, Columbus, &c., indicate a large attendance. The political friends of Mr. Vallandigham in this county will attend en masse. The funeral will probably be the largest ever in Dayton.The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has set in motion an investigation into a flash crash of Ethereum on Coinbase’s exchange to determine what role leveraging might have played in the plunge.
This past June, on Coinbase’s GDAX exchange, Ethereum suffered a precipitous drop, falling to 10 cents from $317.81 in milliseconds before quickly recovering.
The agency is investigating a number of factors that might have caused the plunge, focusing in on what role leveraging had to do with it. Coinbase allows traders to borrow money, called leveraging, in order to make bigger wagers than would otherwise have been possible. For instance, a trader with $5,000 could actually buy or sell as much as $15,000 worth of a token, if using 3:1 leverage.
Federal authorities getting restless
With the spate of crackdowns across the globe, from China to Korea, shows that regulators are growing interested in the largely unregulated cryptocurrency markets. The US SEC has also shown growing interest of late, particularly with respect to ICOs.
The CFTC is essentially a watchdog in the US for currency futures, and as such companies do not usually fall under its jurisdiction - unless they allow swaps trading, which Coinbase does.
Coinbase is cooperating
So far, the investigation is quite low-key. The CFTC sent Coinbase a letter with a list of questions, including queries about margin trading. Coinbase offered margin trading in March, but after the flash crash they suspended that service.
Coinbase wrote in an emailed statement:
“As a regulated financial institution, Coinbase complies with regulations and fully cooperates with regulators. After the GDAX market event in June 2017, we proactively reached out to a number of regulators, including the CFTC. We also decided to credit all customers who were impacted by this event. We are unaware of a formal investigation.”
The $12.5 mln trade
It was thought that the crash was caused by a single $12.5 mln trade that prompted selling by other investors. The decline triggered automatic sell orders from traders who’d requested to bail on the currency if prices dropped to certain levels, and led GDAX to liquidate some margin trades. These liquidations caused further cascades.
The $12.5 mln sell order came from an address associated with Ethereum’s genesis block, meaning that the funds were owned by an original investor in Ethereum’s ICO. That ICO took place in the summer of 2014, where ether tokens were offered at about 30 cents each. Today ether trades at nearly $300.
CointelegraphA couple of weeks ago at AMD’s Ryzen event we saw a Vega 10 Radeon GPU running with 8GB HBM2 memory, knocking through DOOM 4K at a rock solid 60 frames per second. This raised a number of questions about the pricing of Vega 10. HBM2 yields are low and incorporating them on all Radeon cards could be commercial suicide. According to a new report, AMD is looking to sidestep this issue with its upcoming Vega chips, offering users the choice between GDDR5, GDDR5X and HBM2.
Both AMD and Nvidia have ran into a few teething troubles with HBM (High Bandwidth Memory). We thought Nvidia’s flagship Pascal GPUs would but alas no. HBM (and HBM2) can be considerably more expensive that GDDR5(X) and also harder to produce in mass quantities. “ In the mainstream GPU segment, GDDR5 remains an extremely cost-effective, efficient and viable memory technology,” said AMD’s Robert Hallock.
This change from AMD will offer PC gamers the choice - get a cheaper card with GDDR5, or pay a little extra for the premium HBM2 version of the next-gen Radeon Vega graphics card.
In addition to this, it looks as if Vega will cover the entire range from flagship graphics cards all the way down to entry level units, with AMD adapting the memory as necessary. Right at the top end we're expecting to see a premium Vega card, possibly with up to 16GB HBM2, designed to go toe-toe with the imminent arrival of the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti. There should hopefully then be an introductory range all the way down to GTX 1060-level performance, filling the current gap in AMD’s lineup.
AMD is planning to roll out the entire range very soon so we can hopefully look forward to these early next year.
Would you be willing to pay considerably more to have higher bandwidth memory? Is AMD perhaps confusing the market? Let us know what you think of this below!A Toronto man has been charged with second-degree murder after police allege he assaulted another man in a downtown parkette and caused his death.
Toronto police say that on Friday afternoon a citizen flagged down some officers about an alleged assault at a parkette near Wellesley Street East and Parliament Street.
Police allege that a 53-year-old man was in the parkette when he was approached by a man he knew and attacked.
At the scene, police say they found the victim with "obvious facial injuries."
The victim was taken to hospital, where he died the following day.
Police have identified the victim as 53-year-old Alexandre Joseph Lavallee.
An arrest was made on Saturday.
Police say that 56-year-old Paul Douglas Richard has been charged with second-degree murder. He was due to appear in court on Sunday.
Police are thanking members of the community who have already spoken to investigators.
Anyone with information is asked to contact investigators at 416-808-7400, or to call Crime Stoppers at 416-222-8477.Galindez writes: "The time has come to stop trying to be more like the Republicans to compete for corporate cash. It's time to be Democrats again and represent the people. As Bernie Sanders is showing, the people will reward the party that represents them."
Sen. Bernie Sanders. (photo: John G. Mabanglo/EPA)
Bernie Is Pointing to a "New Way" - Well, the "Old Way"
By Scott Galindez, Reader Supported News
“In politics, the Third Way is a position akin to centrism that tries to reconcile right-wing and left-wing politics by advocating a varying synthesis of right-wing economic and left-wing social policies. The Third Way was created as a serious re-evaluation of political policies within various centre-left progressive movements in response to international doubt regarding the economic viability of the state; economic interventionist policies that had previously been popularized by Keynesianism and contrasted with the corresponding rise of popularity for economic liberalism and the New Right. The Third Way is promoted by some social democratic and social liberal movements.” – Wikipedia
s this the last gasp of a dying political philosophy? Will the “Third Way” ushered in by Bill Clinton end with Hillary Clinton? I do not see a Third Way candidate emerging as the leader of the Democratic Party again. I believe the centrist movement will die with the end of the Clinton machine. Let’s look back at the history of the Democratic Leadership Conference, the architects of the “Third Way” in America.
It was 1985, and Walter Mondale had just lost to Ronald Reagan. Many Democrats were pointing to Jimmy Carter as the only Democratic candidate who had won the White House since LBJ. They were looking for a way to nominate a moderate Southerner instead of Northern liberal. We will focus on the US, but the “Third Way” movement had already swept through Europe, with politicians like Tony Blair in the UK and Gerhardt Schroeder in Germany. The idea was that they could be socially liberal while being fiscally conservative.
The first attempt for the DLC was the 1988 Presidential election. It was the first “Super Tuesday.” A bunch of Southern states – Texas, Florida, Tennessee, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Kentucky, Alabama, and Georgia – came together and held their primaries on the same day, with the goal of nominating a Southern moderate. Jessie Jackson spoiled their plan and had the best day. The results did nothing to boost the prospects of their rising star, Tennessee senator Al Gore.
The centrist movement did not surrender; they instead recruited another Southern rising star, the governor of Arkansas, William Jefferson Clinton.
The DLC wasn’t the beginning of the move to the right by the Democrats. After Ronald Reagan clobbered the Democrats in 1980, a young congressman from California named Tony Coelho took over the DCCC. His philosophy was that the party needed to compete for corporate money. What he told the corporations was that as long as Democrats controlled the House they (corporations) were going to have to deal with us. The logic was that it was cheaper to influence the incumbent Democrats than to fund challengers in districts that were safe for Democrats. Coelho was successful, he convinced Tip O’Neill to hire Chris Matthews, and the rebranding of the Democratic Party began. It was the end of the days when the Democrats were the party of working people. They were now the party that was competing with the Republicans for corporate cash. That cash of course came with strings, and big business got the results they were looking for. Here are just a few things the DLC and corporate cash brought to the billionaire class.
NAFTA and other trade deals. In the 1970s, if unions opposed legislation, the chances of getting support from the Democrats were slim. Of course there were the Dixiecrats, but with the DLC and the new source of cash many Democrats, including President Bill Clinton, sided with big business and ignored labor’s opposition to NAFTA.
Welfare Reform. The New Deal, the war on poverty, had become the war on the poor. Despite strong opposition from labor and other traditional constituencies of the Democratic Party, the Clintons and a Democratic Party-led House of Representatives forced millions of people into deeper poverty. The Clintons have championed welfare reform for over 20 years, despite study after study showing that it has severely harmed poor families and driven a historic number of black and Latino children into deep poverty. In the early 1990s, they designed a strategy to lure white voters back to the Democratic Party: capitalize on white disgust toward “dependent” black and Latina mothers on welfare. It wouldn’t have passed in the ’70s.
Crime Bill. Okay, Bernie voted for this too. But would it have passed through a traditional Democratic Party-controlled House with opposition from the Black Caucus? The mandatory minimum sentences and other measures have led to a country that leads the world in incarceration. There were some good portions of this bill. Those portions would have gone forward in a progressive Congress without the bad parts that were there at the request of the “new Democrats,” who again were exploiting white middle class fear of black criminals. The Clinton-led centrist Democrats were reaching out to the same electorate that Donald Trump is reaching out to in 2016.
Deregulation. This may have been the biggest win for big business. Deregulation of the banks plus the telecommunication and agriculture sectors of the economy benefited the billionaire class at the expense of consumers. The Democratic Party was no longer looking out for the interests |
to contain botulinum toxin type A and was being administered as an injectable treatment for cosmetic purposes. The Lift II is an absorbable suture, primarily used to close incisions after surgery.
Botulinum toxin type A is used to treat severe muscle spasms in the neck, eye and foot, as well as chronic migraines, incontinence, and excessive sweating. It is also used for cosmetic purposes to treat wrinkling.
Authorized botulinum toxin type A products should only be used under specialist supervision.UL to give sanctuary scholarships to asylum seekers
From next year refugees and asylum seekers currently studying at second level will be able to apply for the scholarships at UL
Seventeen asylum seekers are to be given sanctuary scholarship to enable them to study at the University of Limerick, as part of its University of Sanctuary designation, on what is UN World Refugee day.
The awards-the first such awards at a University in Ireland will enable those living in Direct Provision to begin Mature Student Access certificate courses beginning in September, and the scholarship will cover all their fees and travel costs, college subsistence, stationary, and IT costs.
Sixteen of the recipients are living at Direct Provision centres in Limerick city, and one in Killarney.
From next year refugees and asylum seekers currently studying at second level will be able to apply for the scholarships.
Once the pre-degree course is completed, most of the scholarships students will be able to apply for all eligible Department of Education and University grants available to all Irish students.
For those who still struggle and who have been in direct provision for three years, further sanctuary scholarships will be available to enable them to complete their four years degree courses.
It is one of the initiatives being undertaken by the University of Limerick to promote access and to integrate those from a refugee and asylum background into third level education.
Dr Mairead Moriarty, Chair of the University of Limerick's Sanctuary steering committee said "the current refugee crisis tests the inner strength of our educational culture, and at UL we believe that a University education should be a possibility for all".
"We have been committed to providing access to our University for people from all backgrounds and we are delighted to extend this to people currently living in Direct provision." she added.
UL President Dr Des Fitzgerald said the sanctuary designation was a huge honour for UL and they will use it to be a regional leader in promoting a culture of welcome, and to provide a space for the celebration of the richness and diversity a multilingual and multicultural group brings to its community, both culturally and economically.
The designation awarded to the University is also a step toward Limerick being designated a City of Sanctuary, already awarded to a number of cities in the UK which are committed to building a culture of hospitality and welcome, especially for refugees seeking sanctuary from war and persecution.Apr 6, 2015; Cincinnati, OH, USA; A general view of ceremonies prior to the game between the Cincinnati Reds and the Pittsburgh Pirates at Great American Ball Park. Mandatory Credit: Frank Victores-USA TODAY Sports
After a 3.00 ERA in three rehab starts, Cincinnati’s Brandon Finnegan expects to return to the Reds’ pitching rotation.
Cincinnati Reds’ starting pitcher Brandon Finnegan expects to rejoin the team, he told Call to the Pen Wednesday evening. The 24-year old made his third rehab start in Triple-A Louisville and allowed four earned runs on four hits in five innings.
“As of now there is nothing [scheduled],” said Finnegan, who threw 71 pitches and struck out five. “I’d assume I will join them in Washington or whenever I’m scheduled to start again.
“Hopefully, Washington. I’d like to get back with the team and hang out a couple of days before I can start pitching again.”
Finnegan, who is 1-0 with a 2.70 ERA in three Major League starts this season, has been out with a strained left trapezius muscle. He began a minor league rehab assignment on June 11, after missing nearly two months, and threw a combined seven scoreless innings in a pair of starts with Double-A Pensacola.
“The lat is fine,” Finnegan said. “There hasn’t been anything wrong with my lat since I started throwing again.”
Finnegan emphasized he must receive final word before returning to Cincinnati’s active roster.
“I’m about to find out,” said the TCU product. “They told me all they wanted me to do was get up to five innings, and I’ve done that. I’ve done my job. Hopefully, that’s it.”
The next date with a yet to be announced Reds’ starter is June 27 when the team returns home to face the Milwaukee Brewers.YouTube Player Prokofiev,
Piano Concerto No 1, Martha Argerich & Alexandre Rabinovitch COMPLETE Movie Description from YouTube Filmed at the La Roque d'Anthéron festival on July 29th, 2005.
YouTube Results Page 2 of 6 « Prev Next » 16:08 Terence Judd Prokofiev Piano Concerto No 1 Live 15:37 Prokofiev Piano Concerto No. 1 in D-flat 17:28 Prokofiev - Piano concerto No. 1. (Full) (BFZ / Fischer) 16:51 Prokofiev, Piano Concerto No 1, Martha Argerich & Alexandre Rabinovitch COMPLE... 14:04 Sviatoslav Richter plays Prokofiev Piano Concerto No 1 15:28 Denis Matsuev and St.-Petersburg Philharmonic - Prokofiev, Piano Concerto No 1 16:29 Prokofiev: Piano Concerto No. 1 - Katalin Falvai 15:49 SERGEI PROKOFIEV - Piano Concerto No. 1 - Cem BABACAN 16:47 Prokofiev Piano Concerto no. 1 - CMC National Finals, 2012 17:34 Prokofiev Piano Concerto No. 1, performed by high school orchestraNorth Dock resident “not guilty “of 1914 murder
One hundred years ago, on the 7th April 1914, a headline grabbing court case ended, with North Dock resident Tom Daly found not guilty of ‘wilful murder’, but jailed for two assaults that occurred on the same evening. In a fascinating two part feature, Hugo McGuinness tells the story of the ‘blackguard’ Tom Daly, a dock worker, trade unionist and Irish Citizen Army volunteer. Part one tells his story up to the close of 1915, and the concluding section will follow next week, on the 16th of April.
The 7th April 2014 sees the centenary of the verdict in a particularly vicious murder case which brought the Great Lockout to a close. The accused was Tom Daly, who lived his entire life in the North Dock and Inner City area. The victim, a 33 year old strike breaker or “Scab” from County Meath, had been brutally beaten to death on the 17th January 1914. The case was so shocking that it was widely reported throughout Ireland and Britain and filled up numerous column inches for months. One hundred years on and the non-compromising directness of the term Scab still hits home. In the black and white world of the 1913 Lockout there was no room for grey areas. James Larkin had caused outrage as editor of The Irish Worker after it declared – “When a man deserts from our ranks in time of war (for a strike is war between capital and labour) he on the same principle forfeits his life to us. If England is justified in shooting those who desert to the enemy, we are also justified in killing a scab”. Yet grey areas existed, and one such example was the victim, Thomas Harten from Carlinstown, who was working for Tedcastle McCormick Coal Factors in the Docklands area of Dublin.
Harten’s background was recently traced by Meath Historian Danny Cusack. He was the eldest of 8 children born to Thomas and Mary Harten who made a subsistence living as herders and small scale tenant farmers. Census evidence suggests that like their city contemporaries, the Harten’s were rarely more than a missed rent-payment away from eviction. Cusack uncovered that Harten and his brother John were members of the Kilbeg branch of the United Irish League and had been part of a large meeting in Carlanstown in February 1912 which called for the break-up of the nearby Emlagh and Spandau estates and the land redistributed to tenant farmers. By 1913 his family were living and working at the Williamstown House Estate of Henry Mortimer Dyas, a noted horse-trainer, who was related by marriage to the McCormick’s of the Dublin coal company. During the great Lockout, the bitter struggle between employers and workers to break the Transport Union, large numbers of non-union or Free Labourers were imported from County Meath to fill the places of striking workers. Dyas conscripted local workmen to fill the ranks of the Dublin coal yards of his relatives. Tradition in the Harten family relates that Thomas’s parents were reluctant for him to go but fearing another eviction he felt he had no choice. It was to prove fatal. ( Letter below details the company raising prices of coal deliveries, and image is free labourers transporting coal under police protection).
By the 16th January 1914 the great strike was on the verge of Collapse. Negotiations were underway in the Docklands which would see 5-600 strikers return to work at the shipping companies of the City of Dublin, the Silloth and Isle of Man, the Duke Company, and Messers Palgrave and Murphy. The carters at Pickford and Wallis would also return with 150 workers from the Port and Docks joining them. The British and Irish Shipping Company remained on strike as did Tedcastles, buoyed up with a plentiful supply of ‘Free Labour’ from County Meath. Tensions came to a head when a full scale riot broke out in Townsend Street on the morning of the 21st January when strikers clashed with up to 80 Scabs going to work at Tedcastles and shots were fired on the street. (Many free labourers were allowed carry guns, and often used them recklessly. Most notoriously, 16 year old Alice Brady was shot and later died, while the vice chairman of the Port and Docks Board was wounded). Seizing on the momentum of the previous months, the Labour Party, backed by the Trade Unions were putting forward candidates for the municipal elections to Dublin Corporation largely drawn from the ITGWU or the Dublin Trades Council. Meanwhile the Parliamentary Inquiry into the “Dublin Riots” which saw a number of people killed by the police was about to resume.
This was the background to the fatal Saturday when Thomas Harten and his friend George Maguire ( of Newrath, County Meath) left their accommodation at number 2 Beresford Place. This was “The Barracks”,provided by the Employer’s Federation for strike breakers(which surprisingly was located directly across from Liberty Hall, headquarters of the striking workers). They walked across the city to the Tivoli Theatre, stopping briefly at Slevin’s, a gunsmith on Essex Quay, where they purchased revolvers and a dozen rounds of ammunition. About 9.00pm as they passed the Halfpenny Bridge they were attacked on Wellington Quay. Maguire was knocked unconscious but Harten managed to escape. His movements after that are unclear but around 10.30pm, while making his way back to “The Barracks”, he was accosted on Eden Quay by a group of men. He was knocked to the ground with a heavy weapon, repeatedly beaten, and one of the assailants delivered a fatal kick to his head,( which according to the doctor at the inquest it was “crushed like an eggshell”). He was left unconscious, with his clothes and the pavement covered in blood. The next time Maguire would see his friend was on a mortuary table in Jervis Street Hospital. They had been in Dublin 6 weeks. Within hours a man named Thomas Daly was arrested and charged with Wilful Murder. Shortly afterwards two others, James Morrissey and John Doyle, were also arrested and charged as accessories.
Over the following months at the Inquest and at his subsequent Court appearances Daly maintained a dignified presence and was firm in maintaining his innocence. He had freely admitted involvement in two other assaults on Scabs that evening. Most damningly, he was in possession of a revolver, which he claimed to have found in Tara Street and was believed to have been the one purchased by Harten earlier that day. It had all the appearances of an open and shut case. The Authorities wanted blood and were certain of the real culprit. Cork’s Southern Star Newspaper claimed it had all the hallmarks of “The Red Hand of Larkinism.” The Employers Federation offered a £100 reward for witnesses, while The Toiler, a pseudo labour Newspaper subsidized by William Martin Murphy, announced it was starting a subscription to raise funds for the Harten Family. They don’t appear to have met much success. The Employer’s Federation saw Larkinism as the cause of all their ills and Thomas Daly was to be their sacrificial lamb as they demanded their pound of flesh. Surprisingly little information was forthcoming about Thomas Daly in the newspapers which might have helped to explain why he was singled out by the authorities.
Thomas Daly was born at No. 47 Spring Garden Street in the North Strand on 15th January 1869. His Father Patrick was from County Meath and as a 25 year old was arrested for stealing cattle. According to family tradition he was sentenced to transportation but for some reason never reached Australia. Records show a Patrick Daly receiving 10 years transportation in 1851 but for some reason was released 4 years later having served his time in Ireland. Having married Elizabeth O’Shea they moved to Dublin where Patrick set up as a pork butcher at Spring Garden Street and it was here that Thomas and all his known siblings were born. Thomas married Rosanna Donnelly on the 8th July 1894 having returned from serving with the British Army in India and spent most of the rest of his working life in the North Docks or North Inner City area in slightly better quality houses than most of his contemporaries. Not surprisingly the 5 children recorded as being born to the Daly’s in the 1911 Census were all still living.
He had joined the Royal Artillery as a Gunner, serving for some years in the Indian subcontinent He later transferred to the Reserve, Dublin City Company, in which he served up to 1911. At the same time he was working for the shipping company of Michael Murphy, earning a good living of between 30-35 shillings a week. His army reserve status would bring in another 6-7 shillings a week, which, in comparison with his contemporaries made him relatively well off. Laurence Healy, a Stevedore at Murphy’s, stated during Daly’s trial that in the 30 years he had known him he was “a steady, sober, hardworking man,” who rarely drank and whose only absence from work was due to call ups to the Artillery Reserve for training.
By 1901 Daly and his family were living at No. 20 Coady’s Cottages, later moving to a two room house at No.2 Toole’s Cottages off Newfoundland Street. Daly was on the 1908 electoral rolls for the area,( possibly a product of a general politicising of the North Dock by the socialists Walter Carpenter and Edwin Halpin at the beginning of the century). In 1911, the year he retired from the Artillery Reserve, he joined the Irish Transport and General Workers Union(I.T.G.W.U.) on 11th January. He subsequently moved to the Dublin Steamship Company where he was employed as a Coal Labourer when the 1913 Strike broke out. That year he also became a member of the recently formed Citizen Army. Daly had probably acted as one of the Union’s Dockland Enforcers during the strike, and possibly worked as part of the electoral team of P.T. Daly, a candidate in the North Docks Ward in the municipal election held in January 1914.
P.T. Daly was powerful organizer with the ITGWU, a leading member of the Dublin Trades Council, and for some years a councillor on Dublin Corporation.
P.T. instructed Smyths, the Transport Union’s solicitors, to take up Thomas Daly’s defence. (This was the legal firm which had acted for the Union representing the Merchants Road families evicted in December 1913).
By the 7th February the Crown had found a key witness in Patrick Doyle, a 21 year old deaf-mute, who picked out Daly from a number of line-ups. On investigation Smyths discovered that not only could Doyle speak, but he had several aliases such as Arthur Thoms, Arthur Baxendale, and Arthur Cunningham. Under the latter name they found he had been dishonourably discharge from the army for being of “bad character.” When confronted with this at the hearing at the Police Courts he broke down and admitted he was a Londoner and had come to Dublin to Scab. He claimed he posed as a deaf-mute to disguise his accent which would have exposed him as a Free Labourer to the strikers. The case then turned to farce, when, following Daly’s Hearing, Doyle( alias Baxendale alias Cunningham) was immediately tried, in the same court, for the theft of a handbag containing 10 shillings and sentenced to 2 months in Mountjoy. Smyths had uncovered a history of at least 4 previous convictions Doyle had received for larceny. It appears Doyle (alias Baxendale alias Cunningham) had been made aware of the £100 reward and facing a jail sentence for theft was persuaded to lie about Thomas Daly. Desperately he even claimed that Harten had died with his face towards Liberty Hall and his feet pointing towards the Liffey as if providing a clue to his assailants. Smyths had also written to the Prison Board for character references on 13 other witnesses the Crown intended to bring against Daly. They request was refused as “there was no precedent.” But the point was made. The Transport Union would use all their resources to defend one of their members.
Tom Daly was finally brought forward for trial by the City Commission at Green Street Court House at the end of March. James K. O’Connor, the Barrister instructed by Smyths, pointed out that despite the great loss of blood by Harten, none was found on Daly’s Clothes. Several witnesses who saw the fatal assault on Eden Quay failed to identify him in Court, giving descriptions which totally contradicted Tom Daly’s appearance. George Maguire also failed to identify any of his assailants in the earlier attack and it came out that the assaults on the two Scabs by Daly occurred about 10 minutes after the fatal blow was delivered to Thomas Harten on Eden Quay. O’Connor pointed out that the instinctive thing to do in such a case would be to dispose of the revolver – not pick it up and put it in your pocket. In his summing up on the 7th April 1914, the Judge, Justice Molony, virtually instructed the jury to find Daly innocent. Tom Daly was found not guilty,but he was immediately brought forward on the other two assaults, found guilty, and sentenced to 2 years hard labour. The case against Doyle and Morrissey was dropped.
The Daily Herald (a London published socialist newspaper) gave a good summary of the case.
“Having failed to establish their case against Thomas Daly, a Dublin worker, for the murder of Harten the Blackleg, the Crown wisely dropped the prosecution against the two other men whom they had arrested on this charge, against whom the evidence was even flimsier than that against Daly. But, in the characteristic fashion of the law, revenge was nevertheless wreaked on Thomas Daly for the police’s inability to hang him. In addition to the murder charge he was charged with assaults on two other blacklegs, and to these minor charges he pleaded guilty. For those two assaults Judge Molony inflicted on him the monstrous sentence of two years hard labour, saying, at the same time, that he feared he was not doing his duty in not sending him to penal servitude!”
The Herald went on to point out that “the scab who shot Alice Brady got no punishment and that the policeman identified by two witnesses as having murdered Nolan have never even been put on trial“. On the 21st April, Arthur Henderson, Chief Whip and future Leader of the Labour Party in Britain, asked in parliament, whether, “in view of Daly’s admission of guilt and the ordeal he had been through for the previous four months a remission of his sentence might not be possible?” Augustine Birrell, the Chief Secretary for Ireland, replied “the exercise of the prerogative of mercy is a matter entirely for the Lord Lieutenant, who I am sure will consider carefully any representations made to him on behalf of the prisoner.”
P.T. Daly instructed Smyths to petition the Lord Lieutenant on the 11th June. The reply came back that “justice must take it’s course.” He then had a resolution passed by the Dublin Trades Council to the effect that
“the Judge sentenced him (Thomas Daly), not on the charge he was guilty of, but on the one he was acquitted of, and that such conduct is likely to bring the administration of the law into contempt, more especially when we consider the sentence in this case with the punishment in other more serious ones.”
Queried on this P.T. Daly explained that a previous case involving the rape of a 7 year old girl by a Free Labourer named Madden alias Maddox had been dropped by the Crown and Maddox freed, according to the Court’s Recorder, on the basis that no real harm had been done to the child. The fact that she had contracted “a loathsome disease” from Madden/Maddox was not taken into account. Daly went on “comparison of the treatment of the Free Labourer and the Trade Unionist justifies the resolution in my mind.”
Momentum was maintained in Labour circles with the Daily Herald reporting on the 8th August “Thomas Daly is still in Mountjoy undergoing the monstrous sentence of two years hard labour for assaulting a non-Unionist. He must be set free at once.” Charles Duncan, Labour MP for Barrow-in-Furnace, and Secretary of the Workers Union founded by Thomas Mann in 1898, helped to maintain the pressure arguing that Thomas Daly had never been in trouble before and was known to be a good father and husband. He pointed out that “in view of the feelings of the time a sentence of two years does not appear to be tempered with mercy.“
Unfortunately the records showing Tom Daly’s release date no longer survive. What is certain is that the campaign must have had an effect as he was out of prison and working on the staff of the Transport Union towards the end of 1915.
Virtually unemployable due to the high profile nature of the murder trial, Daly was found a position as an agricultural worker at Croydon Park, the workers pleasure grounds founded by James Larkin. Although best known for it’s sporting events, concerts, and as the location of the Citizen Army’s training manoeuvres and displays, Croydon Park, during the tenure of Captain James Stavely in the 1880s, had developed an international reputation for the quality of it’s agricultural produce, and this was still an important revenue stream during the ownership of the Transport Union.
Tom immediately threw himself back into the activities of the Citizen Army.
And it is here we end part one of our story of ‘Blackguard ‘ Daly. In the second section, to be published on 16th April, we will cover his eventful career in the Irish Citizen Army ( where he was the subject of its first Court Martial under James Connolly and fought in the City Hall Garrison during the 1916 Rising), his internment in Frongoch (where he led a strike against forced labour and also endured a heart breaking family tragedy) and we will reveal the origin of the ‘Blackguard’ nick-name.
Since the original publication of this feature we have updated some sections. We would particularly like to thank Dario Reggazzi for information on his Great Grand-Uncle and the history of other members of the Daly Family.
For clarifications, corrections, further information or other comments please contact eastwallhistory@gmail.com
Photo credits – The majority of images were sourced by Hugo McGuinness. The Coal company letter courtesy East Wall History Group, Coadys Cottages courtesy the Paddy Curtis Collection, Quays courtesy Dublin Dockworkers Preservation Society.Another spokesperson for Jesus. Another person blaming the Manchester bombing on Ariana Grande instead of the terrorist who did it or the ideology that motivated him.
Even worse, the Institute on the Constitution’s David Whitney can’t decide who’s worse. I mean, sure the terrorist murdered innocent people. But Grande’s singing and dancing is sexual.
A week after blaming evolution for a white student’s murder of a black student, Whitney posed his question to the congregation at Maryland’s Cornerstone Evangelical Free Church.
“This dangerous woman [Grande] is promoting every form of immorality and indeed she is promoting satanism by her music and by her lyrics and by her gyrations,” Whitney said. “So while we can measure accurately the damage that the suicide bomber accomplished — we can count the body bags, we can read the list of those in the hospital recovering from their injuries that the suicide bomber caused — it is far more difficult to measure the damage done by this dangerous woman. Exactly how many souls has she led down the path of destruction?”
It’s not difficult to measure. Here. I’m a former math teacher. I’ll do the work for you.
Zero. The answer is zero.
Grande has led literally no one down a path of destruction. She’s brought happiness to an enormous number of people. She’s raised millions of dollars for victims and their families in the aftermath of the bombing. And even if you take away all the emotion and goodwill of the past two weeks, she’s (at worst) an actress and singer who appeals to a lot of young women.
The suicide bomber killed at least 22 people, injured many more, and scared the shit out of who knows how many.
Only a religious leader could look at the two of them and find any kind of equivalency.
(via Right Wing Watch)Using emailer built by Campaign to Protect Rural England it'll take seconds to lodge views on massive road building plans.
The Campaign to Protect Rural England has created an easy-peasy online email tool for folks to lodge complaints about the Department for Transport's road building plans. A public consultation ends tomorrow and DfT will be looking to steam-roller through its plans to build roads that many forecasters say won't be needed in the future.
"Dear Department for Transport," starts the auto-letter (which can be modified).
"I am writing to you because I am really worried about the draft National Networks National Policy Statement you are consulting on. You are:
"Making official forecasts of traffic increasing by 46% by 2040 unchallengeable, even though traffic has stabilised at 2003 levels and needs to be controlled.
"Return to Roman-style road building with roads that plough straight through Green Belts, nationally treasured landscapes, ancient woodland and wildlife sites."
Instead, the CPRE urges DfT to build "better facilities on the main road network to get new bus and coach services moving and, for shorter distances, to make cycling and walking safer and easier."
Ralph Smyth, senior transport campaigner at the Campaign to Protect Rural England, said:
"Today's your last chance to have your say on the Government's first policy for nationally significant transport infrastructure.
"To speed up development, this policy document will be locked into law, by making it impossible to challenge in major planning inquiries - but this will also influence the whole planning system. Worryingly this includes the prediction of the discredited National Transport Model that cycling's share of travel will stick at 2%, in fact decline slightly beyond 2020
"Although the buzzword 'cycleproofing' is mentioned, the devil is in the detail: cycling is deemed just a quality of life issue rather than an economic need, so facilities are only needed on main roads "'where reasonably practicable."
Smyth was the barrister acting for the London Cycling Campaign at the 2006 Thames Gateway Bridge planning inquiry. He helped defeat a six-lane road that would have unleashed a tide of traffic across East London.
"If the DfT's policy goes through unchanged, it will be far harder to cycle-proof or indeed challenge the Mayor's emerging proposals to provide new river crossings and roads," said Smyth.
"Outside London the picture would be even worse."ISLAMABAD (Staff Report) – Pakistan Army has shot down Indian spy drone near Bhimber, Azad Kashmir, ISPR confirmed on Wednesday. According to Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) statement, the drone had violated Pakistani airspace after which it was targeted by Pakistani
ISLAMABAD (Staff Report) – Pakistan Army has shot down Indian spy drone near Bhimber, Azad Kashmir, ISPR confirmed on Wednesday.
According to Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) statement, the drone had violated Pakistani airspace after which it was targeted by Pakistani forces and brought down for “violation of Pakistan’s territorial integrity”.
The military maintains that the ‘spy drone’ is used for aerial photography.
Indian Border Security Forces (BSF) personnel on Wednesday resorted to unprovoked firing and mortar shelling across the Working Boundary in Sialkot’s Bajwat sector, according to a Punjab Rangers spokesperson.
The Himalayan territory of Kashmir, which is the main contention, between the two countries, is divided between India and Pakistan by the UN-monitored de facto border of LoC. The territory is claimed in full by both the countries.Melania and Barron Trump have arrived in Washington, D.C., to live in the White House, after spending the first months of President Trump’s term in New York City while 11-year-old Barron finished the school year.
Melania Trump posted a photo to Twitter of the view from a White House window on Sunday evening.
“Looking forward to the memories we’ll make in our new home!” she said.
Looking forward to the memories we'll make in our new home! #Movingday pic.twitter.com/R5DtdV1Hnv — Melania Trump (@FLOTUS) June 12, 2017
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President Trump, who spent the weekend at his golf club in New Jersey, deplaned Air Force One with his wife and son on Sunday evening, according to the White House press pool.
Pres and Mrs Trump and son Barron step off Air Force One on arrival at @JBA_NAFW from NJ. pic.twitter.com/ybwB6MWfx2 — Mark Knoller (@markknoller) June 12, 2017
It was reported last week that Melania and Barron would be joining Trump in the White House this week. The two had stayed in New York City to allow Barron to finish school.
Melania Trump’s parents, Amalija and Viktor Knavs, were with the family on Sunday evening and are expected to become more familiar figures in Washington. They were living with Melania and Barron Trump in their Trump Tower penthouse in New York City.This is In Real Terms, a column analyzing the week in economic news. Comments? Criticisms? Ideas for future columns? Email me or drop a note in the comments.
Young people entering the job market have always faced challenges: a lack of skills and experience, limited professional networks, unfamiliarity with workplace culture and expectations. But increasingly, they are also facing another obstacle: legal requirements that can shut off avenues to jobs before they even get the chance to apply. New data reveals just how widespread the problem is, and also why the trend isn’t likely to reverse anytime soon.
At issue are occupational licensing laws — rules, usually at the state or local level, that require workers to get a government-issued license to hold certain jobs. That makes sense for doctors and accountants, but the requirements are increasingly spreading to barbers, cosmetologists and even landscapers. (The New York Department of Labor lists 130 occupations that require licenses.) In many cases the rules seem designed less to protect consumers than to protect politically connected workers and businesses who want to deter potential competition — what economists call “rent-seeking.” As I wrote back in February, politicians and experts from across the political spectrum are increasingly concerned about the damage licensing and other forms of rent-seeking are doing to the economy.
Quantifying the trend, however, has been tricky. A White House report last year found that occupational licensing requirements have quintupled over the past 60 years and now cover more than one in four workers. But there has been only patchy data on the people and industries affected, making it hard to know the scope of the problem or how to address it.
A week ago, however, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released a trove of new data on licenses — who has them, how much they earn and how they compare to other workers. The numbers are based on a new set of questions added to the monthly Current Population Survey in 2015, so there is no historical information available, but the new evidence is broadly consistent with what the White House and other economists have found: Close to a quarter of workers, 22.4 percent, have a government-issued license, and 25.5 percent have either a license or a privately issued certification. Unsurprisingly, licenses were concentrated in the medical field, where mistakes can cost lives, but even in nonmedical occupations, nearly one in five workers had a license in 2015.
Licensing rules are a particular problem for young workers trying to break into the job market, especially those without a college degree. The unemployment rate for adults ages 18 to 35 with neither a license nor a college degree was 9.9 percent in 2015; for those with a license (but still no degree), it was 5.2 percent. Those who do manage to find full-time jobs earn 13 percent less than those with a license. Good jobs that don’t require a license are scarce, particularly for women: Nearly two-thirds of young women without a license or a degree earn less than $540 a week, roughly two-thirds of the median wage for full-time workers. (For women with a license, about half earn at least $540 a week, in part because women dominate many medical occupations.) Licensing rules don’t explain all or even most of that gap — there are likely other differences between people who have licenses and those who don’t — but they probably do play a role. The earnings gap shrinks, but doesn’t disappear, after controlling for education, occupation and other factors.
Young workers aren’t the only ones affected. Among older workers, the earnings disparities between those with licenses and those without aren’t as stark, likely because they have had more time to find their way into a career (and perhaps also because occupational licensing wasn’t as widespread when they entered the workforce). But when older workers lose jobs, licensing requirements can make it hard for them to get back to work, especially if they need to change careers. Workers over 45 consistently face longer spells of unemployment when they lose jobs compared with younger workers; unemployment lasts more than 40 percent longer for those without a license.
One solution, of course, is for workers without licenses to get them. But state licensing programs are often long and expensive, which can deter low-income workers or those who aren’t yet sure what career they want to pursue. And licenses can be barriers in other ways as well, making it hard for people to move to other states, where their license may not be valid, or to pursue entrepreneurial ideas, which may not fit with licensing requirements.
Both Democrats and Republicans have spoken out against excessive licensing in recent years. But the problem is that the winners from licensing laws are clear, as Josh Zumbrun noted this week in The Wall Street Journal. Particularly for workers without a college degree, a license brings higher earnings and a reduced risk of unemployment. The losers, even though there are probably more of them, are harder to identify. Someone who avoids becoming a hairdresser because of the mandated training, for example, may not think of herself as being a victim of licensing, even if she is. As a result, supporters of licensing have a stronger incentive to defend their interests, making it hard to roll back the laws once they’re in place.
Sorry, millennials
Unnecessary licensing rules aren’t the only challenge facing young people. The whole economy seems stacked against them.
That’s the depressing takeaway from a new report from the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank. The report finds that recent high school graduates are still struggling to find jobs despite the dramatic improvement in the overall labor market. More than one in seven recent high school graduates, which the institute defines as those ages 17 to 20, are neither working nor enrolled in college; their unemployment rate is nearly 18 percent. (Both numbers are elevated compared with before the recession.) Those who do find jobs are experiencing sluggish wage growth.
College graduates are doing a bit better, but they face their own challenges. The unemployment rate for college graduates ages 21 to 24 has fallen from nearly 10 percent in the recession to 5.6 percent, roughly where it was when the recession began. But many are underemployed, settling for jobs that are part time or that don’t require a college degree. Only 29.4 percent of recent college graduates with jobs have employer-provided retirement benefits; among recent high school graduates, that figure is just 4.5 percent.
Can you hear them now?
Remember that precipitous decline in strikes and lockouts that I wrote about a few weeks back? Well, about 39,000 Verizon workers walked off the job last week, eight months after their contract expired. The strike is bigger than any since 2011 — the last time Verizon workers went on strike. That strike lasted two weeks; so far, there is no sign this one is nearing its end.
Number of the week
In two months, Britons will go to the polls to decide whether their country should leave the European Union. Bloomberg puts the odds of a “Brexit” (yes, people are really calling it that) at 20 percent. The “remain” faction has an edge in the polls, but only a narrow one, and about 15 percent of voters remain undecided.
Most economists think leaving the EU would be bad for Britain (and probably for the rest of Europe), but they disagree about just how bad; mainstream predictions seem to run roughly from “mild but unnecessary recession” to “apocalyptic hellscape” (only a mild exaggeration). The U.S. is watching nervously; in a letter in the Times of London on Wednesday, eight former U.S. Treasury secretaries urged British voters not to take the “risky bet” of leaving. President Obama is expected to join the chorus during a visit to England on Friday. (Not everyone there is pleased about his meddling.)
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UNDER the candlestick, and Zootopia is no exception. The one piece of merchendise we have forgotten to review, was perhaps the first one we SHOULD have reviewed. The DVD/Blu-Ray itself.”
Whoops.
Check out the full review after the break!
Now to start off with the Disney Store BluRay and DVD combo. Comes with the basic BluRay and DVD, as well as a digital download code. “What makes this combo special?” You may ask yourself. Well if you preordered this combo you could get custom lithographs! Agent was lucky enough to get them and he was gracious enough to review them for us!
“The Zootopia Lithograph set was a pre-order item that came with the Disney Store version of the movie, the lithographs themselves come inside of a high grade paper casing that protects them from sunlight, artificial light or any UV source that could degrade/fade the image. The cover of the case is a wider angle shot version of the covert art from the Blu-ray/DVD case.
The lithographs themselves are a set of four 10″ x 14″ 100lb matte stock printed on acid free, archival paper that is Elemental Chlorine Free (ECF) (So they won’t turn yellow with age.) The characters depicted are Judy Hopps, Nick Wilde, Flash, Yax.
Each image is a frame from the movie itself and captures the dynamic and personality of the character, also known as a “hero” shot.” ~AgentExeider
The lithographs are incredible looking, and any Zootopia collector would be excited to find even one of these.
Now that Agent has given us a great review on the Disney Store combo, I’ll jump in and review the Target edition!
This is the Red Target special edition that I’ll be reviewing, which is only slightly different from the Gold Target special edition. The gold edition comes with the 3D BluRay, regular BluRay, DVD, and a Digital HD code. The red edition comes with everything but the 3D BluRay. The thing that’s great about this BluRay combo is that it comes with two digital videos!
The first is “The Actors Behind The Animals” and is about 7-8mins. Gives a great look behind the characters and voicing them. It was interesting to watch and had some great commentary from the actors!
The second video included is “The Wilde Times You Never Saw” and is 11-12min long. This was easily one of my favorite things about this collection. It goes over concept art, different scenes and characters, and just what the movie was originally supposed to be like. Such a great watch if you’re interested in concept of Zootopia!
Overall… I’d have to give the win to the Disney Store combo with the lithographs. Those are just such a wonderful collectors item for fans and would be great to be framed or showed off! The Target Exclusive was great as well, and the two videos that came with are also great for fans and definitely deserve the watch if you can manage to see them!
This has been another review by Fonz! I’ll see you all for the next one!Porter Weston Robinson (born July 15, 1992) is an American DJ, Grammy nominated record producer, singer and musician from Chapel Hill, North Carolina. He has released multiple number one singles across different electronic genres. His debut full-length studio album, Worlds, was released on August 12, 2014.[6] In 2017, Robinson began releasing music as Virtual Self, with his self-titled EP Virtual Self released on October 25, 2017.[7]
He was named 7th in the Billboard 21 under 21 list, topped InTheMix's 25 under 25 list, and reached 5th place in DJ Times' 2013 ranking for America's Best DJ.[8][9][10] Three of Robinson's records topped Beatport's overall chart before the time he was 21. Robinson has been included on DJ Mag's Top 100 DJ's list for seven consecutive years.[11]
On March 20, 2015, he was named MTVU Artist of the Year.[12] In 2017, he was nominated for two Electronic Music Awards for Single of the Year and Live Act of the Year with Madeon. He was ranked at number 96 on DJ Mag's Top 100 DJs list for 2017.[13]
Biography [ edit ]
Early years and "Say My Name" [ edit ]
Entirely self-taught, Robinson began producing at the age of 12. While posting his early music on online forums he met future collaborator Madeon, who was using the aliases "Daemon" and "Wayne Mont". From 2005 to 2010, under the alias "Ekowraith", he released "hands up" music via YAWA Recordings.[14] Robinson then began producing music that he called "complextro", adding classically inspired melodies and complicated fills to his music.[15]
Starting to release music under his own name in 2010, Robinson released a variety of original singles on Glamara Records and Big Fish Recordings. One of his most notable releases was "Say My Name", which reached number one on Beatport, launching Robinson into the mainstream dance music world.[16] Eighteen at the time, Robinson started achieving international notice, catching the eye of dubstep producer Skrillex.[17]
Robinson's early influences include video gaming music, in particular, Dance Dance Revolution. He is a major fan of anime and Japanese culture, and incorporates these elements into his music.[18][19] He has stated that he originally attempted to emulate the music that he heard in Japanese games, which stemmed to producing, and then to performing as a DJ.[20]
2011–13: Spitfire and "Language" [ edit ]
In 2011, he signed a one-EP deal with OWSLA, then a new label operated by Skrillex, to release the eleven-track Spitfire. As the first release on OWSLA, it topped iTunes Dance chart and Beatport's overall chart, crashing the latter's servers upon release.[21][22]
Robinson released a single, "Language",[23] on April 10, 2012 through Big Beat Records in North America, and Ministry of Sound everywhere else. The song was relatively different in its production than the "complextro" sound that Robinson had become known for, favoring a more melodic sound and a dream-like piano lead. The song rose to the number one overall chart position on Beatport as well as the iTunes Dance chart.[21] The single was premiered initially via a live BBC Radio 1 Essential Mix on January 27. The music video, directed by Jodeb, was released via Ministry of Sound's YouTube channel on August 1, 2012. The song was also included as the menu music for the 2012 video game Forza Horizon.[24] Throughout the rest of 2012, Robinson embarked on his "Language Tour", supported by artists Mat Zo and The M Machine.[25]
He co-wrote Zedd's US top 10 hit "Clarity", as well as singing backing vocals.[26] The track was originally going to be released as a collaboration between the two artists called "Poseidon" alongside a joint tour, but Robinson backed down and withdrew his name because he did not want to release a pop single while he was "trying to do something that wasn't shooting for the radio" with his debut album.[27]
On December 17, 2012, a collaborative single with Mat Zo entitled "Easy"[28] was pre-released exclusively on Beatport by Ministry of Sound, and spent two entire weeks as the number one overall song on the Beatport Top 100 chart.[citation needed] The full official release occurred in spring 2013, and was accompanied by an animated music video.[29]
Robinson has been commissioned for official remixes by artists including Avicii and Lady Gaga.[citation needed]
2014–16: Worlds and "Shelter" [ edit ]
Robinson performing in 2013 on his "Language" tour
During Robinson's "Language Tour", he continually began to grow tired of the current dance music scene, centered around formulaic songs with timed builds and beat drops, designed to excite people at festivals and clubs.[30] Robinson stated, “The more I forced myself to work within those DJ-friendly limits, the more I resented the genre.”[31] He then spent the next year or so working on a new album and live show, of which he stated, "...when I do change the style of my show into the live thing I'm going to do later this year, I want the shift in focus to be clear."[30]
Porter's debut studio album Worlds was released through Astralwerks and Virgin EMI on August 12, 2014. The album focused more on melodies to invoke a sense of nostalgia, juxtaposing the percussive bass driven tracks he had released previously. Robinson collaborated with multiple vocalists and musical groups including Urban Cone, Lemaitre, Breanne Düren, and Amy Millan. He made his official vocal debut on the single "Sad Machine". The Vocaloid software voice, Avanna, was also used as a vocalist for this single.[32] Robinson then embarked on the Worlds tour, a new live show that involved him singing, playing synthesizers, and triggering samples. The tour headlined popular music festivals, including Ultra Music Festival, EDC, and Coachella.[33][34][35]
A remix album of Worlds titled Worlds Remixed was released on October 2, 2015. It included remixes by electronic artists Odesza, San Holo, Mat Zo, Electric Mantis, Galimatias, Last Island, Chrome Sparks, Deon Custom, Rob Mayth, Point Point, Sleepy Tom, and Slumberjack.[36]
On January 31, 2016, Robinson announced on his Twitter account that he was producing new material after being "stuck" for a year and a half. On August 11, he released "Shelter", a collaboration with fellow musician and friend Hugo Leclercq, better known by his stage name Madeon.[37] An animated music video was released for "Shelter" on October 18, animated by A-1 Pictures and jointly produced by Robinson, A-1 Pictures, and Crunchyroll.[38] Robinson and Leclercq then embarked on a nearly year-long joint international tour dubbed the "Shelter Live Tour", where the two performed live shows onstage together, with supporting acts from Danger, Robotaki, and San Holo.[39]
2017–present: Virtual Self [ edit ]
Robinson performing as Virtual Self in Brooklyn, New York on December 8, 2017
On October 25, 2017, Robinson released a new single titled "EON BREAK" under the alias Virtual Self, announced via his Twitter page.[40] A music video was also released on Robinson's YouTube channel, containing abstract 3-Dimensional art and cryptic messages seemingly focusing on the words "angel", "virtual", "void", and "utopia".[41]
Virtual Self-released a second single on November 8, 2017, titled "Ghost Voices".[42][43] A music video for "Ghost Voices" was released on February 28, 2018 via Robinson's YouTube channel. Virtual Self-released a self-titled EP on November 29, 2017.[7]
Virtual Self held a debut live performance on December 8, 2017 in Brooklyn, New York City.[44]
Personal life [ edit ]
Robinson is the second of four boys in his family.[45] His older brother, Nick, is a former video producer at video game website Polygon.[46] His younger brothers are named Robert and Mark. Mark has his own "mixed media clothing project"[47] that he started in June 2018, under the name "PROJECTRLM (real life materials)."[48] Mark also reviews Oreos on a YouTube channel alongside his father, Nick, called "Oreo Graveyard".[49]
Robinson has stated that he did not release or produce any new music in 2015 due to suffering from depression.[50]
Robinson was born in Atlanta, Georgia, and currently resides in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. He was accepted into UNC, where both of his parents are alumni, but did not himself attend due to his newly launched music career.[27]
Robinson has stated that he is very close friends with fellow DJs and record producers Madeon and Dillon Francis.[51]
Discography [ edit ]
Studio albumsPalantir Sued Over Alleged Hiring Discrimination Labor Department says data-mining firm has shown bias against Asian job applicants since at least 2010 By TIM HIGGINS Updated Sept. 27, 2016 1:09 a.m. ET Palantir Technologies has discriminated systematically against Asian job applicants since at least January 2010, the U.S. Department of Labor said in a lawsuit filed Monday. The Palo Alto, Calif., data-mining firm is one of the world’s most valuable private companies, best known for helping the U.S. track down Osama bin Laden. It has been been party to more than $340 million in federal contracts since January 2010, according to the complaint, and counts the Federal Bureau of Investigation and U.S. Army among its clients. “Federal contractors have an obligation to ensure that their hiring practices and policies are free of all forms of discrimination,” Patricia Shiu, director of the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Program, said in a statement.
She represented workers in both individual and class action employment discrimination and harassment cases involving sex, race, sexual orientation, national origin, religion, immigration status, disability, and domestic violence. … She is the recipient of many awards, including the Joe Morozumi Lifetime Achievement Award, the Abby J. Leibman Pursuit of Justice Award, and the Pacific Asian American Women Bay Area’s “Woman Warrior Award.”
A curious story in the WSJ: From Patricia Shiu’s bio page on the Dept. of Labor site:So, no bias there!
The WSJ goes on:
… The accusation that Palantir discriminated against Asians is an oddity in Silicon Valley, where big companies including Google parent Alphabet Inc. and Facebook Inc. have been criticized for hiring too many white and Asian engineers, and too few blacks and Hispanics. … The suit cited several instances of bias. For a software engineer position, the government said, the company hired 14 non-Asians and 11 Asians among more than 1,160 qualified applicants of whom 85% were Asian. “The likelihood that this result occurred according to chance is approximately one in 3.4 million,” the government said in the filing.
Palantir Technologies, Inc. is a private American software and services company, specializing in big data analysis. Founded in 2004, Palantir’s original clients were federal agencies of the United States Intelligence Community (USIC). … The company is known for two software projects in particular: Palantir Gotham is used by counter-terrorism analysts at offices in the USIC and United States Department of Defense, fraud investigators at the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, and cyber analysts at Information Warfare Monitor (responsible for the GhostNet and the Shadow Network investigations). … As of December 2014 the company continued to have diverse private funders, such as Kenneth Langone and Stanley Druckenmiller, In-Q-Tel of the CIA, Tiger Global Management, and Founders Fund. As of December 2014, Peter Thiel was Palantir’s largest shareholder. In January 2015, the company was valued at US$15 billion after an undisclosed round of funding with US$50 million in November 2014. … Early investments were $2 million from the US Central Intelligence Agency venture arm In-Q-Tel, and $30 million from Thiel and his firm, Founders Fund. … Palantir developed its technology by computer scientists and analysts from intelligence agencies over three years, through pilots facilitated by In-Q-Tel. The software concept grew out of technology developed at PayPal to detect fraudulent activity, much of it conducted by Russian organized crime syndicates. Palantir partner Information Warfare Monitor used Palantir software to uncover both the Ghostnet and the Shadow Network. The Ghostnet was a China-based cyber espionage network targeting 1,295 computers in 103 countries, including the Dalai Lama’s office, a NATO computer and embassies. The Shadow Network was also a China-based espionage operation that hacked into the Indian security and defense apparatus. Cyber spies stole documents related to Indian security, embassies abroad, and NATO troop activity in Afghanistan.
In case you are wondering, here’s Wikipedia on Palantir So, maybe, the reason Palantir gets 85% of its job applications for software engineer from Asians but only hires 44% Asian has something to do with, I don’t know, Chinese espionage?
[Comment at Unz.com]A version of this article was first published on May 22 2015
Does the Cannes Film Festival have a serious boos problem, and is it time to stage an intervention? The question blew up with fresh fury this year when Personal Shopper, the new film from Olivier Assayas and starring Kristen Stewart, was met by a chorus of hoots and groans at its first press screening.
Sitting in the audience, I knew that the film would be booed around five minutes into it – not because it’s bad, but because after a few years on the circuit, you get a sense for the kind of provocations that tend to rub a festival audience up the wrong way. Often, they’re the very same things that end up winning the film a dedicated fan-base in the long term. In the case of Assayas’s film, one is its un-ironic commitment to the fact that Stewart’s character – a celebrity’s personal assistant with tragedy in her recent past – is actually, seriously, in communion with the dead.
“It’s extremely difficult to find a portal into the spirit world,” she announces in an early scene, as flatly as if she was talking about a turn-off on the M1 – and you could hear sharp intakes of breath around the auditorium, as people wondered if they were the butt of some kind of deadpan joke on Assayas’s part. Sure enough, a little under two hours later, they expressed their disapproval.A conservative rally billed as an opportunity to "stand up to Occupy Wall Street extremists" fell flat on Thursday when it was co-opted by members of Occupy Wall Street.
Supporters of Americans for Prosperity, a Tea Party-esque group funded by the billionaire Koch brothers, gathered at the Rockefeller Center in midtown Manhattan to demonstrate against both Occupy Wall Street and President Obama.
But almost half of the sparse crowd were Occupy Wall Street protesters, smartly dressed and bearing signs parodying Americans for Prosperity's ultra-conservative message.
"My sign says: 'I'm dreaming of a white president, just like the ones we used to have,'" said Stan Williams, a labour organiser and member of the Occupy movement.
"There were some people, with my sign especially, who said why are you bringing race into it," said Williams, who is black. "But there were about five or six people who said: 'That's a great sign.'"
Warren Bancroft, co-founder of the satirical group Americans for Inequality, whose Facebook page describes the organisation as a "group of concerned citizens who cherish America's history of vast inequalities", was drawing approving nods from the Americans for Prosperity crowd as he loudly criticised the Occupy movement, arguing that "inequality plays a positive role".
"We're committed to reversing the narrative of inequality in this country," Bancroft said. "For the last year it's been dominated by the problems of inequality and the perils of inequality, but the truth is if you look at economic history, inequalities signal incentives to everyone in a dynamic market economy."
The dozen or so Americans for Prosperity supporters were almost matched in number by attendees pretending to be from Americans for Prosperity. Among other Occupy signs in the crowd were "Let them eat cake," and "I hate libraries", while a woman dressed in business attire had a piece of cardboard bearing the message "Every man for himself" – the quote attributed to Jesus Christ.
"There's a tradition of this," said a woman called Frances, an Occupy demonstrator who did not want to give her last name.
"There was a group called Billionaires for Bush that would dress up and they would come to demonstrations, and they would do a little skit about how they were billionaires and how they were very happy with the Bush tax cuts and the wars for oil.
"There's a tradition of street theatre and this was a little bit of street theatre."
Not all the parodists were necessarily affiliated with Occupy, however, with the Americans for Prosperity rally seemingly acting as a dog whistle for satire.
"I'm sick of the Occupy Wall Street protests … I'm sorry that I was born to a certain family and that I make more money than you. Maybe you should go and get a job," said a man who gave his name as John Wilker, who was clad in business attire and insisted he worked in the financial district.
"These are true patriots here. They're fighting the good fight to still make sure Americans such as myself are still given the opportunities that we've had for decades and decades and decades."
Wilker said he was not a part of the Occupy movement, but he and his companion Robert Stetson appeared to be engaging in the'street theatre' Frances had mentioned.
"I think it's fine that the 1% earns far more than the 99%, that's how it should be. There should be a group of people that has worked hard, that has been able to set themselves apart. It's America," Stetson said. He and Wilker, like the Occupy infiltrators, were repeatedly questioned by the green T-shirt wearing Americans for Prosperity, rather derailing the rally and distracting from speakers.
The event had been organised as part of the group's "Failing Agenda" bus tour across the US. Americans for Prosperity has three coaches crossing the country, drawing attention to what it sees as Obama's failings on the economy, and Steve Lonegan, the organisation's New Jersey state director had described its stop outside the Rockefeller Center in New York as having an anti-Occupy theme.
But after Lonegan kicked off the rally just after 10.30am, summarising Obama's "failing agenda" and describing the need to "return ourselves to free market capitalism", bickering swiftly broke out in the crowd as Americans for Prosperity supporters sensed they were being infiltrated.
A red-haired Americans for Prosperity supporter was among the more vocal. "I built my own business, OK? Nobody gave it to me. I built it. What about you, who paid for your shoes? Who paid for your shoes?," she inquired as she tailed an Occupier bearing a "Let them eat cake" sign through the crowd.
"I was letting her know that my family, my mother – a single mother – had to support us," the red-haired woman told the Guardian. "That my mother took care of us and she was very poor. That when I was a little girl, we had to eat oatmeal, and our desert was a piece of toast with a little sugar on it. I let her know that my family had nothing and we boot-strapped our way up on our own."Almost two centuries before the women’s lib movement and a full century before the suffragettes, not all women were quiet subordinates to men. In this 1996 essay, historian Jim Powell provides us with an illuminating account of the brilliant Mary Wollstonecraft, an 18th-century author and philosopher who never minced her words in defense of equal rights for women. She lived only 38 years but left behind a principled legacy any lover of liberty can embrace.
Wollstonecraft’s case for equal rights was not a collectivist one; it was, as Powell explains, a deeply individualist one. Rights, she felt, do not come from governments. They belong to each and every person by virtue of their birth and their nature. They do not belong to groups and should never pit any group of individuals against another group. And the recognition of rights never absolves anybody of the responsibility for their own individual lives.
One gets the clear impression from her writings that were Wollstonecraft alive today, she might have some cogent advice along these lines for activists of all kinds: politics may be the route to change bad laws and enforce genuine rights, but once that’s accomplished, politicians have no more responsibility to peaceful individuals in society than to leave them alone. — Lawrence W. Reed
"We hear her voice and trace her influence even now among the living." — Virginia Woolf
In Western Europe during the late 18th century, single women had little protection under the law, and married women lost their legal identity. Women couldn’t retain a lawyer, sign a contract, inherit property, vote, or have rights over their children.
As Oxford law professor William Blackstone noted in his influential Commentaries on the Laws of England (1758): “The husband and wife are one person in law; that is, the very being or legal existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage or at least is incorporated and consolidated into that of the husband: under whose wing, protection and cover, she performs every thing.”
Then along came passionate, bold Mary Wollstonecraft, who caused a sensation by writing A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792). She declared that both women and men were human beings endowed with inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. She called for women to become educated. She insisted women should be free to enter business, pursue professional careers, and vote if they wished. “I speak of the improvement and emancipation of the whole sex,” she declared. “Let woman share the rights, and she will emulate the virtues of man; for she must grow more perfect when emancipated.”
Wollstonecraft inspired people because she spoke from the heart. Although she was reasonably well-read, she drew more from her own tumultuous experience. “There is certainly an original defect in my mind,” she confessed, “for the cruelest experience will not eradicate the foolish tendency I have to cherish, and expect to meet with, romantic tenderness.”
She dared do what no other woman had done, namely, pursue a career as a full-time professional writer on serious subjects without an aristocratic sponsor. “I am then going to be the first of a new genus,” she reflected. It was a harsh struggle, because women were traditionally cherished for their domestic service, not their minds. Wollstonecraft developed her skills on meager earnings. She dressed plainly. She seldom ate meat. When she had wine, it was in a teacup, because she couldn’t afford a wine glass.
Contemporaries noted Wollstonecraft’s provocative presence — thin, medium height, brown hair, haunting brown eyes, and a soft voice. “Mary was, without being a dazzling beauty … of a charming grace,” recalled a German admirer. “Her face, so full of expression, presented a style of beauty beyond that of merely regular features. There was enchantment in her glance, her voice, and her movements.”
Mary Wollstonecraft was born April 27, 1759, in London. She was the second child and eldest daughter of Elizabeth Dixon, who hailed from Ballyshannon, Ireland. Mary’s father, Edward John Wollstonecraft, was a handkerchief weaver. He decided to become a gentleman farmer after he got an inheritance from his father, a master weaver and residential real estate developer, but farming was a bust. The family moved seven times in 10 years as their finances deteriorated. Edward drank heavily, and Mary often had to protect her mother from his violent outbursts. She had rocky relations with her siblings.
Mary’s formal schooling was limited, but one of her friends in Hoxton, outside London, had a respectable library, and Mary spent considerable time exploring it. Through these friends, she met Fanny Blood, two years older and skilled at sewing, drawing, watercolors, and the piano. She inspired Mary to take initiative cultivating her mind.
Spurred by family financial problems, Mary resolved to somehow make her own way. She pursued the usual opportunities open to smart but poor young women. At 19, she got a job as live-in helper for a wealthy widow who proved to be a difficult taskmaster.
Young Adulthood
Three years later, in 1781, Mary tried and failed to establish a school at Islington, North London. Then Mary, Fanny, and Mary’s sisters, Eliza and Everina, started a school nearby at Newington Green. After initial success, that, too, failed. She then worked as a governess for an Irish family and saw firsthand the idleness of landed aristocrats. These discouraging experiences were compounded by the death of Fanny Blood from tuberculosis. After Mary’s mother died in 1782, she — not her oldest brother — assumed primary responsibility for taking care of her volatile father.
Meanwhile, through her Newington school experience, Wollstonecraft met many local Dissenters whose religious beliefs put them outside the tax-supported Anglican Church. Among these Dissenters was minister and moral philosopher Richard Price, who was in touch with Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Marquis de Condorcet, and other radical thinkers of the day. Wollstonecraft also met scientist Joseph Priestley, schoolteacher John Hewlett, and Sarah Burgh, widow of radical author James Burgh. Although Wollstonecraft retained her faith in the Anglican Church, she stood out as a maverick and became good friends with these people.
Dissenters promoted reform of Britain’s cozy political system. The House of Lords consisted of aristocrats who inherited their positions. The House of Commons was chosen by the very few males who were enfranchised—just 15,000, about one-half percent of adult males —determined the outcome of an election. The Test and Corporation Acts disenfranchised religious Dissenters. Moreover, no town had gained the right to representation since 1678, which meant that dynamos of the Industrial Revolution like Birmingham and Manchester were excluded.
The Influence of Joseph Johnson
Hewlett encouraged Wollstonecraft to write a pamphlet on education and submit it to Joseph Johnson, the radical publisher and bookseller with a shop at St. Paul’s Churchyard. He was known as a visionary entrepreneur who backed a number of unknowns including the poet-printmaker William Blake. Johnson published works by Joseph Priestley and poets William Cowper and William Wordsworth, too. He distributed materials for Unitarians.
Hewlett’s suggestion turned out to be a lifeline because, as Wollstonecraft biographer Claire Tomalin explained, “Mary was homeless again, without a job or a reference; she had nothing to live on, and she was in debt to several people. She had no marriage prospects. She was 28, with a face that looked as though it had settled permanently into lines of severity and depression around the fierce eyes … her most remarkable trait was still that she had refused to learn the techniques whereby women in her situation usually attempted to make life tolerable for themselves: flattery, docility, resignation to the will of man, or God, or their social superiors, or all three.”
Despite all the talk about equal rights, the French Revolution wasn’t intended to help women much.
Johnson told Wollstonecraft that she had talent and could succeed if she worked hard. He published her pamphlet in 1786 as Thoughts on the Education of Daughters; with Reflections on Female Conduct, in the More Important Duties of Life. Sales were negligible, but the work launched Wollstonecraft’s literary career. She sent her author’s fee to the impoverished Blood family and redoubled her efforts. “I must exert my understanding to procure an independence and render myself useful,” she wrote. “To make the task easier, I ought to store my mind with knowledge — The seed time is passing away.”
By 1788, Johnson offered her steady work. She translated books from French and German into English. She served as an assistant editor and writer for his new journal, The Analytical Review. She contributed to it until her death, perhaps as many as 200 articles on fiction, education, sermons, travelogues, and children’s books.
Johnson was a good man. He helped Wollstonecraft find lodgings. He advanced her money when needed. He dealt with her creditors. He helped her cope with her father’s chaotic situation. He calmed her bouts of depression. “You are my only friend,” she confided, “the only person I am intimate with — I never had a father, or a brother — you have been both to me.”
Wollstonecraft met more radicals who visited Johnson, including William Blake, Swiss painter Henry Fuseli, and Johnson’s publishing partner, Thomas Christie. On one occasion, she met philosopher William Godwin and Thomas Paine, the Englishman who helped inspire the American Revolution by writing Common Sense. Wollstonecraft dominated the conversation. “I heard her very frequently,” Godwin recalled, “when I wished to hear Paine.”
The French Revolution
The outbreak of the French Revolution in July 1789 triggered explosive controversy. In November, Richard Price gave a talk before the Society for Commemorating the Glorious Revolution of 1688, defending the right of French people to rebel and suggesting that English people should be able to choose their rulers — an obvious challenge to the hereditary monarchy. This alarmed Edmund Burke, a member of Parliament previously known for having defended the American Revolution. Burke wrote Reflections on the Revolution in France (November 1790), a rhetorically brilliant attack on natural rights and a defense of monarchy and aristocracy.
Burke’s ideas as well as his swipes at Price made Wollstonecraft indignant. Drawing on the ideas of John Locke and Price, she rushed into print with A Vindication of the Rights of Men, among the earliest of some 30 replies to Burke. Although this polemic was repetitious and disorganized, and Wollstonecraft overdid her attacks on Burke as vain, unprincipled, and insensitive — she had an impact. She faulted Burke for being blind to poverty: “Misery, to reach your heart, I perceived, must have its cap and bells.” She denounced injustices of the British constitution which evolved during the “dark days of ignorance, when the minds of men were shackled by the grossest prejudices and most immoral superstition.” She singled out the aristocratic practice of passing family wealth to the eldest son: “the only security of property that nature authorizes and reason sanctions is, the right a man has to enjoy the acquisitions which his talents and industry have acquired; and to bequeath them to whom he chooses.”
She lashed out at arbitrary government power:
Security of property! Behold, in a few words, the definition of English liberty.… But softly — it is only the property of the rich that is secure; the man who lives by the sweat of his brow has no asylum from oppression; the strong man may enter — when was the castle of the poor sacred? — and the base informer steal him from the family that depend on his industry for subsistence.… I cannot avoid expressing my surprise that when you recommended our form of government as a model, you did not caution the French against the arbitrary custom of pressing men for the sea service.
Wollstonecraft’s work, and everyone else’s for that matter, was later dwarfed by Thomas Paine’s far more powerful reply to Burke — The Rights of Man — but she established herself as an author to reckon with.
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
She had generally supposed that when revolutionaries spoke of “man,” they were using shorthand for all humanity. Then on September 10, 1791, Talleyrand, former Bishop of Autun, advocated government schools that would end at eighth grade for girls but continue on for boys. This made clear to Wollstonecraft that despite all the talk about equal rights, the French Revolution wasn’t intended to help women much. She began planning her most famous work, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. She wrote for more than three months and was finished January 3, 1792. Johnson published it in three volumes.
She despised the government class. “Taxes on the very necessaries of life,” she wrote, “enable an endless tribe of idle princes and princesses to pass with stupid pomp before a gaping crowd, who almost worship the very parade which costs them so dear.”
She specifically cited laws that “make an absurd unit of a man and his wife; and then, by the easy transition of only considering him as responsible, she is reduced to a mere cipher … how can a being be generous who has nothing of its own? or virtuous who is not free?”
Wollstonecraft issued an early call for women’s suffrage: “I really think that women ought to have representatives, instead of being arbitrarily governed without having any direct share allowed them in the deliberations of government.”
Wollstonecraft attacked those like collectivist Jean-Jacques Rousseau who wanted to keep women down. He had written, “The education of the women should always be relative to the men. To please, to be useful to us, to make us love and esteem them, to educate us when young, and take care of us when grown up, to advise, to console us, to render our lives easy and agreeable; these are the duties of women at all times, and what they should be taught in their infancy.”
Wollstonecraft attacked those like collectivist Jean-Jacques Rousseau who wanted to keep women down.
Wollstonecraft believed education could be the salvation of women: “the exercise of their understanding is necessary, there is no other foundation for independence of character; I mean explicitly to say that they must bow only to the authority of reason, instead of being the modest slaves of opinion.” She insisted women should be taught serious subjects like reading, writing, arithmetic, botany, natural history, and moral philosophy. She recommended vigorous physical exercise to help stimulate the mind.
To be sure, she had a naive faith that the same governments that restricted women could inexplicably be trusted to run schools uplifting women. Twentieth-century government schools have been catastrophes for women as well as men, graduating large numbers at high cost without the most fundamental skills.
Wollstonecraft called for eliminating obstacles to the advancement of women. “Liberty is the mother of virtue,” she asserted, “and if women be, by their very constitution, slaves, and not allowed to breathe the sharp invigorating air of freedom, they must ever languish like exotics, and be reckoned beautiful flaws of nature.”
She envisioned a future when women could pursue virtually any career opportunities: “Though I consider that women in the common walks of life are called to fulfill the duties of wives and mothers, by religion and reason, I cannot help lamenting that women of a superior cast have not a road open by |
27, 2014. REUTERS/Mohammad Ismail
The Taliban often takes responsibility for suicide bombings - it did so for one against the British embassy that killed six people days later. Barakzai, 42, said Afghanistan’s spy agency had warned her before about threats to her life from the insurgent group. But an investigation into the attack on the outspoken women’s rights activist has led nowhere.
Barakzai, a tireless campaigner for women’s rights, has no shortage of potential enemies, including powerful warlords, as Afghanistan’s regional chieftains are known. “Our Parliament is a collection of lords,” Barakzai once famously said. “Warlords, drug lords, crime lords.” Barakzai was only a few hundred meters from the Parliament building, her destination, when the suicide bomber rammed into her armored car.
A strong supporter of new President Ashraf Ghani, Barakzai had been widely talked about as a candidate to join his government, perhaps as education minister or the next women’s affairs minister. Ghani has promised he will appoint four women in his cabinet.
Barakzai, who rose to prominence when she ran underground schools for girls when the Taliban ruled the country, says both the previous Afghan government and its Western benefactors have failed to defend the hard-won rights of women.
“For me, what they do to support women’s rights is just lip service, nothing more than that,” says Barakzai, interviewed in hospital where she is recovering from burns to the left side of her face and her left hand from the attack.
QUOTAS FOR WOMEN
The U.S.-led coalition invaded Afghanistan in 2001 to oust the Taliban and stayed on, in part, to build a western-style democracy, including legal safeguards for women. A quota was mandated for women in public offices, such as parliament and provincial councils. Earlier this year, however, conservative lawmakers rolled back the quota reserved for women in provincial councils to 20 per cent from 25 per cent.
Last Sunday marked the formal end to the international combat mission in Afghanistan. And while huge progress has been made getting millions of girls in school and putting women in positions of formal authority, it has had “frustratingly little impact on these power dynamics,” the U.N.-backed Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit said in a recent report.
“Today, women’s rights are... one of the feared losses shared by Afghans and the world as international troops prepare to withdraw completely.”
World Bank data shows Afghanistan still lags far behind even its impoverished neighbors in South Asia. Only 16 percent of Afghan females above the age of 15 were active in the labor force compared with 57 percent in Bangladesh and 27 percent in India. The fertility rate in Afghanistan is 7.2 births per woman versus 3.1 for all of South Asia. Only 14 percent of births in Afghanistan are attended by a skilled health worker compared with 36 percent in South Asia. The literacy rate for 15-24 year-old women was 32 percent compared with 63 percent in neighboring Pakistan.
UNIVERSITY FOR GIRLS
Barakzai, a parliamentarian the past decade, has campaigned against the practice of Afghan men marrying multiple wives - her husband, who runs an oil company, took a second wife without consulting her. She stresses the need for long-term investment in education to compete seriously for jobs instead of aid programs for “workshops or seminars”.
“We need a university for girls,” she says, explaining many families won’t send girls to mixed institutions. Barakzai was scornful about aid programs that teach women about rights or try to give them job skills.
“If you see their projects, they are always the same. Empowering women by a seminar or workshop. Or embroidery, tailoring,” she laughs. “I am tired of these things.
Women’s activists have been lukewarm about a new $216 million United States Agency for International Development (USAID) program to support women’s advancement. The five-year program aims to help thousands of women “gain business and management skills, supporting women’s rights groups and increasing the number of women in decision-making positions,” according to a U.S. embassy statement.
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Noor Safi Gululai, one of the few women in Afghanistan’s High Peace Council, which is in charge of the so-far fruitless effort to convince the Taliban to join peace talks, was critical of such capacity-building efforts.
“I am afraid this money will also go in the pockets of a few people,” Gululai told Reuters. “Rights will never be taught at conferences. I hope the President will talk to USAID and have them use the money to establish good schools and universities.”
The U.S. Embassy in Kabul declined to comment.LOS ANGELES -- One of the worst tragedies played out at Dodger Stadium in recent years was recalled in a courtroom just miles away as two men pleaded guilty Thursday to a 2011 assault that left San Francisco Giants fan Bryan Stow brain damaged and disabled.
The two were immediately sentenced by an angry judge who called them cowards and the sort of people sports fans fear when they go to games.
Marvin Norwood, far left, and Louie Sanchez, right, pleaded guilty Thursday to a 2011 assault that left Giants fan Bryan Stow brain damaged and disabled. AP Photo/Los Angeles Times/Irfan Khan
"You are the biggest nightmare for people who attend public events," Superior Court Judge George Lomeli said as he faced Louie Sanchez and Marvin Norwood across a courtroom crowded with media and members of Stow's family, who wept and denounced the two men.
He noted that Sanchez was smirking during his remarks.
"This is not funny," he snapped at Sanchez, who said he knew that.
Sanchez, 31, acknowledging he kicked and punched Stow, pleaded guilty to one count of mayhem that disabled and disfigured the victim. He was sentenced to eight years in prison with credit for 1,086 days.
The complaint specified that he cut and disabled Stow's tongue, put out an eye and slit his nose, ear and lip in addition to other injuries that left him brain damaged.
Norwood pleaded guilty to one count of assault likely to produce great bodily injury and was sentenced to four years. His credit for time already in custody appeared to account for at least the majority of that term. Deputy District Attorney Michele Hanisee said Norwood could be released immediately.
But federal authorities said it would not be so fast. They have charged both men with weapons possession charges that could send them to prison for an additional 10 years.
The men were sentenced after Stow's family addressed the court. His sisters wept.
David Stow, the victim's father, placed a Giants cap on a podium.
"The years you spend in prison is what you cretins deserve," he said as Sanchez smirked at him.
Stow, a 45-year-old paramedic from Santa Cruz who attended the 2011 opener in Los Angeles between the Dodgers and Giants, was beaten nearly to death in a parking lot afterward. His family says he is permanently disabled and needs constant physical therapy.
Bonnie Stow described her brother's anguished life.
"We shower him, we dress him, we fix his meals," she said. "We make sure he gets his 13 medications throughout the day. He takes two different anti-seizure medications to prevent the seizures he endured for months after you brutally and cowardly attacked him."
Lomeli told the men: "You not only ruined the life of Mr. Stow [but] his children, his family, his friends."
He said the two seemed to care only about when they will be getting out of jail.
"One day you will be released," he said, "and Mr. Stow will forever be trapped in the condition you left him in."
The judge said he often takes his son to football games and "my biggest fear is that we might run into people like you, who have no civility."
He concluded, "It's only a game at the end of the day, and you lost perspective."
The attack prompted public outrage and led to increased security at Dodgers games. A civil suit by Stow is pending against the organization and former owner Frank McCourt.
"We are pleased that the culpable parties have finally accepted responsibility for their actions and have been sentenced for their crimes," the Dodgers said in a statement.
Outside court, Hanisee said prosecutors had obtained sentences close to the maximum possible if the men had been convicted at trial. She said the evidence did not justify a charge of attempted murder, although it was considered.
In response to one of the family member's comments, she said, "They did get off easy. Bryan Stow is serving a life sentence in a wheelchair and diapers. He is never going to get better."
If there is any positive outcome, Hanisee said, it's that attention has been drawn to the problem of fan violence at sports events.
Sanchez and Norwood were arrested after a lengthy manhunt that briefly involved the arrest of an innocent man. The two acknowledged their involvement during a series of secretly recorded jailhouse conversations.
Norwood was recorded telling his mother by phone that he was involved and saying, "I will certainly go down for it."
The words the two men spoke in a jail lockup, unaware they were being recorded, were played at a preliminary hearing as they were ordered to stand trial on charges of mayhem and assault and battery.
Sanchez acknowledged he attacked a Giants fan, and Norwood said he had no regrets about backing him up.
Witnesses testified about the parking lot confrontation, saying Stow was jumped from behind and his head crashed to the pavement. While he was on the ground, Sanchez kicked him in the head three times, they said.
Last spring, Stow returned home after two years in hospitals and rehabilitation centers.It happens every election cycle: Americans threaten to move if the wrong person gets elected. We asked those who headed north if the grass really was greener
'An alternative exists': the US citizens who vowed to flee to Canada – and did
In November 2004, David Drucker and his wife Pam were at home listening to NPR when they heard the news that would change their lives: George W Bush had been re-elected as president of the United States.
Canada considers changing national anthem to include country's women Read more
In the lead-up to election day, the couple had made a pact: if John Kerry won, they would build their dream house in Vermont; if he lost, they would move to Canada. A year later, they were on their way to Vancouver to start their new lives.
“It’s been a little over a decade now. We have clear eyes about what we did. We have no intention of going back,” Drucker said.
The Druckers were not alone. On election day in 2004, a record-setting 179,000 people visited Canada’s official immigration website, the majority of them Americans. And as anxieties about the outcome of 2016 begin to grow, some Americans are again musing about fleeing to their northern neighbor.
In September, the digital analytics firm Luminoso found about 4% of 4.5 million Donald Trump-related tweets contained threats to leave the country if the billionaire became president. Of those, 25,000 identified Canada as their intended destination. Since then, comedian and Obama “anger translator” Keegan-Michael Key has joined the chorus. Even former USdefense secretary Robert Gates joked about emigrating if Trump took office.
Talking about relocating to Canada clearly is pretty trendy – actually relocating there, not so much. According to the Canadian government, the number of new US immigrants arriving in the country has remained relatively stable – about 9,000 annually – from 2005 to 2014. It might not be the northern utopia of their dreams, but those who have made the move say they have never regretted it.
“If Americans want to live in a country where there is an investment in public education, where people aren’t afraid of going bankrupt because they get sick, and where democracy is taken seriously, they should move, because an alternative exists,” said Tom Kertes, 43, who moved from Seattle to Canada with his now husband Ron Braun in 2007.
Kertes and Braun had been thinking of Canada since the invasion of Iraq and the US government began using “enhanced interrogation techniques” on detainees. But they actually started browsing the Canadian immigration website the night they heard Bush propose a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage during his State of the Union address in 2005. They applied for Canadian permanent residency in 2006 and and now live in British Columbia.
Jim DeLaHunt left an engineering management position with Adobe in California for uncertain prospects in Canada after Bush’s re-election. Leaving behind his country’s penchant for authoritarianism, war and inequality, he says, was the right call.
DeLaHunt, now a tech consultant, misses the scale and ambition of the technology industry in the United States, but says he wouldn’t trade life in Vancouver to go back to it. He and his wife integrated easily into Canadian society, he said, learning how to be “less arrogant and a bit more gentle”, and even picking up local etiquette and speech patterns.
“Canadians say ‘sorry’ a lot more than people in the US do. They thank the bus driver as they get off the bus. In the US, if someone says ‘thank you’ a typical response might be ‘sure’. That seems awfully brusque in Canada. A better response is, ‘No worries.’ There’s little things like that, and if you get those things right you blend in on a day-to-day level,” he said.
Writer Lee Rowan, 63, and her wife, on the other hand, have found Canada to be more similar to the United States than they would like. In 2007 they moved from Ohio, which three years earlier had banned same-sex marriage, to Ontario, one of the world’s first jurisdictions to legalize it. But in the Waterloo region, where they settled, their neighbors turned out to be more conservative, and less tolerant, than they had hoped.
“I’d say there’s some Canadian homophobia. If we had kids or had been churchgoers I doubt it would have been an issue,” Rowan said.
Watching Trump’s rise, in particular, has been disconcerting to Rowan. Still, she’s keeping an eye on the political climate in the US. If the conditions are right, she says, she would consider moving back.
For Laura Kaminker, however, that’s completely out of the question. In the 20 years before she and her partner Allan Wood finally moved to Canada from New York City in 2005, she had “lost hope” in the country she saw plagued by “civil liberties crackdowns” and “endless wars”. Although she still has her American citizenship, she doesn’t vote any more in US elections, and whenever she comes back to Canada after visiting family or friends in the States, she breathes a sigh of relief.
“Every time I say, ‘God, I’m so glad to be out of that crazy country,’” she said.By David Stripling
How cooperatively-owned businesses are creating impact
Last week at SOCAP, TriplePundit had the chance to sit down and discuss cooperative business models with SOCAP keynote speaker Gar Alperovitz. Alperovitz is a celebrated historian, political economist, activist, writer, and currently the Lionel R. Bauman Professor of Political Economy at the University of Maryland. He is a former Fellow of Kings College, Cambridge University; Harvard’s Institute of Politics; the Institute for Policy Studies; and a Guest Scholar at the Brookings Institution.
TriplePundit: This morning you had the pleasure of being one of the opening keynotes, speaking about cooperative businesses and some of their successes seen in the urban United States, creating jobs and businesses through these innovative ownership models. To start, could you share with us some of the parallels between cooperatively owned businesses, and what impact investing is trying to achieve with the advance of the impact space?
Gar Alperovitz: Well, cooperatives have traditionally been one way to do community building, and to build ownership, and it has a long history. It converges with the whole social vision of SOCAP. People have not quite understood how advanced it is in some parts of the country. Most people think of the small cooperatively owned grocery store, but co-ops are large scale. 130 or 140 million Americans are members of co-ops, mostly through co-op credit unions. There are huge numbers of them, although they are concentrated in the agricultural sector, they are advancing to new sectors. Around the world there are one billion people who are members of co-ops. This year is the UN’s year of the co-op. So they are all over the world and you can find very sophisticated experiences of social investing in some of the more developed cooperative models. So there can be a convergence between the two. I was pleased to see that SOCAP is interested in one form of what I call Democratized Ownership. There are many forms, such as worker-owned companies, land trusts, municipal ownership, neighborhood ownership, social capital, B-corps. There is a whole range things that change and democratize ownership away from the mainstream corporate ownership.
3p: One of the core missions of SOCAP is to discuss how investors can bring liquidity to entrepreneurs who have a vision to change the world. I am wondering how it is that the co-op model brings access to entrepreneurs to do the same?
GA: So far most co-ops can have silent partner investors. This can happen legally. They don’t get any voting stock, but they can invest as a passive investor, which has to be structured properly, or debt financing. Either way you go, there are two opportunities. Now all of this is like most social investing. These are not going to be huge investments, but they are viable businesses with viable social investing opportunities. The sector itself has to advance further. The most advanced example are the Evergreen Co-ops in Cleveland, which are the sophisticated group of worker owned co-ops, linked together by a non-profit, with a revolving fund; to build more and more co-ops. They are linked together in ways that build community. It is broader than just worker ownership. Also, they are using the purchasing power through partnerships with hospitals and universities, called anchor institutions, that buy about three billion dollars worth of purchases a year, quite apart from construction and salaries, and they leverage that as well.
That model is the most sophisticated we have seen, and it is now being developed in Pittsburg, Atlanta, Washington DC, Amarillo, Texas, and there are explorations underway Milwaukee, Chicago, and Jacksonville, Florida. And there could be more because it uses the concept of worker ownership to build community; I think we are going to see this take off around the country.
3p: In private equity models there are often reservations around infusing capital into businesses without the trade off of investor equity; are you seeing this cause any shyness on the part of investors to get involved with co-ops. Is investing taking extra coaxing?
GA: I think what you are seeing is the appeal of novelty, as these co-ops were getting straight bank financing at the worst part of the recession, when no one was.
3p: Not government financing backed by the government or reserve funds?
GA: No, straight bank financing. These are viable businesses. Otherwise they would not do it. But think about it this way: If you have a contract or a letter of intent with a hospital, that is bankable. These have to be viable businesses, these are not charities, and they are not subsidized.
3p: In the early 2000s, there was a big push to create employee equity programs to incentivize employee satisfaction. The model you are describing is much more about access, employee ownership, and grassroots, its not just companies sharing their ownership.
GA: Yes, this is building bottom up for worker ownership. There could be some takeovers, as one of the biggest opportunities that I am aware of for democratizing ownership, is the employee stock ownership plan, or ESOPS. The basic tax advantages for an owner to sell to his employees when he retires are huge. These are all proven viable businesses, so they can have their ownership transferred, and the baby boom is retiring. Most ESOPS are run by a trust, so ownership is democratized, but not the control. In most of these cases they are rewriting the rules.
When that model begins to explode, that is going to be a really big deal, because the tax advantages are so big. The problem is that some of the unions have had problems with ESOPS historically, but now they are starting to get involved in ownership. The steelworkers are pushing it, and the electrical unions in Chicago, in an effort with a window-making co-op. So I think you are going to see a number of the unions look at this model slowly and develop further, and the steelworkers have taken the lead on co-ops. I think there will be a push to ESOPS because of the tax advantages once people realize they can change and democratize the control systems, but the light bulb has not gone off yet.
3p: Would you mind comparing customer owned co-ops to worker owned co-ops.
GA: Well, the customer owner co-ops are every common. It is a form that is traditional. There is nothing fancy about it, it is a very successful model. REI, which is a very successful sports and outdoors store, is a great example. The really interesting thing is when you transfer to the worker ownership side; you get community building, anchoring jobs and ownership. I am for both, but the customer-owned co-op does not have this other dimension.
3p: Are you seeing differences in management models for these worker-owned businesses?
GA: There is a great range of management structure within worker-owned business in general, including ESOPS and co-ops. Some are very top down in the ESOP world, and some are standard, and some are very exciting. So the more you invest in participatory training, the bigger the payoff in productivity and gains. Big studies have been done on the ESOP world. If you combine ownership with training and participatory management, open book management, participation, etc., if you invest in these practices, businesses come out ahead on almost everything: profits, long-term survival, pensions, productivity. As you might expect, as people have an ownership stake and adequate training, not surprisingly, they perform. That has been studied, although I have not seen any studies like this on co-ops yet.
3p: It seems like one of the big things here is around ownership and incentivization of ownership. You seem to be describing this shared ownership of co-ops becoming an engine of economic growth.
GA: Yes, if you can just generate income to purchase things through a regular business model. Because workers have to buy things, and right now co-ops are emerging in areas where people do not have any money, they end up getting jobs. Over about six years, they may have ownership in the co-op of $65K. That is phenomenal to think they can have this sort of capital, when otherwise they would have no income. And you get small businesses with customers that were not there before, and you build an environment for people in universities and hospitals, and people are not afraid to go outside their front door. This all begins to build a new tax base. So this is a growth pattern, but it is oriented to building community, and that is different than businesses that may come in and leave. This is stabilizing for the community, and stabilizing for climate change, and also stabilizing for democracy.
3p: Thank you so much for your time!
GA: Yes, thank you as well.
image credit: Jayson Carpenter. All rights reserved.These Korean tofu bowls are simple to put together and feature pan-seared tofu in a savoury, spicy gochugaru sauce, quick pickled carrots, garlicky bok choy and fresh radishes all on a bed of rice. A filling and delicious whole vegan meal in a bowl!
I’ve been more and more obsessed with the whole Buddha bowl craze. But who wouldn’t be? They’re so easy to put together since you don’t need to waste a lot of time thinking up side dishes to serve alongside your main. Just a couple of simply prepared veggies in a bowl along with your “main event” and you’ve got a complete meal!
The “main event” in this Buddha bowl is the Korean-style tofu. Dubu Jorim, or spicy braised tofu, is often served as a side dish but when you’re vegan or vegetarian, it makes a great main! The tofu is extremely easy to prepare, simply pan fry it until it’s golden on both sides then pour over a soy-garlic-gochugaru sauce to season it.
Gochugaru is the Korean red pepper flakes that are also used to make kimchi. If you love kimchi as much as I do (obsessed) then you’ll already have a big bag of it in your pantry for your homemade vegan kimchi! If you don’t make your own vegan kimchi – what are you waiting for???? It’s so easy and such a flavour-packed condiment to add to pretty much anything (and especially vegan bibimbap ).
However, if you don’t have gochugaru, you can leave it out and still have tasty Korean tofu bowls or you could substitute red pepper flakes. Red pepper flakes are spicier than gochugaru so start with about ¼ teaspoon and work your way up from there depending on how spicy you like it.
For the rest of these Korean tofu bowls you’ll need a thinly sliced carrot quick pickled in a mix of vinegar, salt and sugar. I do that first before anything else to let it pickle as long as possible. Then move on to the bok choy. Halve or quarter it and sear it till soft in a touch of oil with garlic. Slice a radish and a green onion for garnish. Finally, finish up with the tofu and pile it all into a bowl over a bed of rice. Done!
Serves 2 bowls Korean Tofu Bowls 10 minPrep Time 20 minCook Time 30 minTotal Time Save Recipe Save Recipe Print Recipe For the pickled carrot 1 carrot, thinly sliced
½ cup (120 ml) white, apple cider or rice vinegar
2 teaspoons sugar
1 teaspoon salt
For the bok choy 1 teaspoon neutral oil
¼ teaspoon sesame oil
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 medium-large bok choy, quartered
For the Korean tofu 1 clove of garlic, minced
2 small green onions, thinly sliced
1 ½ tablespoons soy sauce
1 ½ tablespoons water
½ tablespoon sesame oil
½ teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon Korean red pepper flakes / gochugaru (adjust to taste)
½ teaspoon sesame seeds
1 tablespoon neutral oil
250 grams (9 oz) firm tofu, pat dry and sliced into 6 slices
For the bowls Cooked rice for 2 bowls
2 radishes, thinly sliced
1 – 2 green onions, thinly sliced
A sprinkling of sesame seeds (optional) Instructions Combine the vinegar, salt and sugar in a bowl and mix until dissolved. Add the sliced carrot and set aside to pickle. For the bok choy, heat a pan over medium heat and add the oils and garlic. Gently fry for a few minutes until the garlic is fragrant but not browning then add the bok choy. Cover the pan and allow to fry for a few minutes. Flip them over to their other side, cover again, and continue frying until the stems are tender. Remove to a plate. Meanwhile, combine all the sauce ingredients for the tofu except for the neutral oil and the tofu. Heat a large pan over medium heat and add the neutral oil and the tofu. Fry for a couple of minutes on each side until golden brown. Be careful when flipping as firm tofu can break apart easily. Once golden brown, reduce the heat to medium and pour over the sauce. Lift the tofu slices a bit so that the sauce gets underneath. Fry for a couple more minutes on each side then remove from the heat. Pile rice into two bowls and top with the bok choy, pickled carrot, tofu, radish and green onion. Sprinkle over some sesame seeds if desired. Serve. 7.8.1.2 334 https://www.cilantroandcitronella.com/korean-tofu-bowls/
This post contains affiliate links which help offset the cost of running this blog with no additional cost to you.FT. LAUDERDALE - Five months after a wrong-way wreck on the Sawgrass Expressway which claimed two lives, the driver who allegedly caused the crash, Kayla Mendoza, made her first appearance before a judge, according to CBS Miami.
Mendoza, 21, was taken into custody Monday by the Florida Highway Patrol and charged with two counts of vehicular homicide, as well as manslaughter and driving without a license for the early morning crash that claimed the lives of Marisa Catronio and Kaitlyn Ferrante on Nov. 17, 2013.
Mendoza appeared in a wheelchair before Circuit Judge John "Jay" Hurley. Her attorney told the judge Mendoza may have been the victim of involuntary intoxication. However, Hurley sited the suspect's Twitter post before the crash which stated she was "2 drunk 2 care."
According to her boyfriend, Javier Reyes, the tweet was aimed at him. In a search warrant, investigators said witnesses told them Mendoza, who did not have a driver's license, was drinking at the Tijuana Taxi Co. in Coral Springs prior to the crash.
Hurley told the family members of the women who died he could not hold Mendoza without bond because of the charges, and then set bond at $600,000. CBS Miami reported that if she makes bond, Mendoza would be placed under house arrest.
The Florida Highway Patrol said Mendoza was driving the wrong-way on the highway when she slammed into Catronio's car. Catronio, 21, was killed and Ferrante, who was driving the car, was seriously injured and later died.
"She changed the lives of our family forever," said Gary Catronio, Marisa's father. "You took my baby girl. You took my wife's best friend. You made bad decisions that night. The right decision was to have a friend drive you home."
Investigators said Mendoza had a blood alcohol level nearly twice the legal limit after the accident, as well as marijuana in her blood. At least ten drivers called 911 in the early morning hours of that day to report seeing a wrong-way driver traveling recklessly at speeds of up to 100 miles per hour.
Christine Ferrante, Kaitlyn's mother, said she hopes Mendoza never gets another chance to enjoy her freedom.
"I don't want her to ever feel the sunshine ever," Ferrante said. "I want her to stay locked away forever."
"We need to see her in that courtroom -- not wearing what we're wearing, wearing that jumpsuit and knowing that she destroyed a life and now she destroyed her own," said Kaitlyn's sister, Ashely Ferrante. "She made her bed and she has to lie in this now."
The Catronio and Ferrante families are suing Tijuana Taxi alleging that "Throughout the evening of November 16, 2013 and the early morning hours of November 17, 2013, Tijuana Taxi Co., willfully sold or furnished alcoholic beverages to Mendoza, a minor not of the lawful drinking age."Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) [Facebook]
Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), who has been openly skeptical regarding global climate change, will use one of the House’s seven remaining workdays this year to chair a hearing regarding the possible existence of life outside of Earth.
Smith, chair of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, will lead “Astrobiology: Search for Biosignatures in our Solar System and Beyond?” Wednesday morning.
The hearing’s charter states that, “With the discovery of potential Earth-like planets outside of our Solar System, the hearing will also investigate what methods are being used to determine if any of these planets may harbor life. The hearing will explore existing and planned astrobiology research strategies and roadmaps.”
Though the subject may sound closer to science-fiction than science, the committee — which contains several Republicans who have at times railed against scientific fact — invited certified experts in the field. Scheduled to testify at the hearing are Dr. Steven Dick, astrobiology chair for the John W. Kruge Center at the Library of Congress; Dr. Sara Seager, a physics and planetary science professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and Dr. Mary Voytek, a senior member of NASA’s planetary science division.
Think Progress noted that Smith — who has received $500,000 in campaign donations from the oil and gas industries — is a longtime critic of what he called “the idea of human-made global warming,” arguing on the House floor as far back as 2009 that the press was “heavily slanted in favor of global warming alarmists.”
In November 2013, Smith issued a subpoena against the Environmental Protection Agency, (EPA) accusing it of using “secret science” as part of its new set of air quality regulations.
Other Republican members of the committee have called global warming “a total fraud” and questioned EPA head Gina McCarthy during a meeting as to whether she had enrolled in a federal government healthcare exchange.
[Image via Rep. Lamar Smith official Facebook page]Copyright by KHON - All rights reserved
Village Park residents are being asked to pay up to cover for their neighbors who aren't paying their homeowners association fees.
A resident asked us to look into it using the Report It feature on our website.
The homeowners association sent a letter to residents saying everyone will have to pay an extra $80 by next month because too many homeowners have not paid their dues.
So how is this allowed to happen and is it legal to make the others pay?
By all accounts, it doesn't seem fair, but experts say there really isn't a better option.
The Village Park homeowners association tells us that because some residents have not paid their annual fees, there isn't enough money to cover operational costs, so all residents will have to pay what's known as a special assessment, or a one-time fee of $80.
View the full announcement to residents here.
"It's not fair. We're paying it on time, but why do we have to cover for somebody else?" said resident Virgil Espiritu.
"How hard would it be to get that extra $80?" KHON2 asked.
"For me, if I were to tell you how I struggle, it's very hard. I struggle a lot," said resident Grace Cabiles, who is 80 years old and lives on a fixed income.
We reached out to the management company, Cadmus Properties, which agreed to a phone interview.
"I think the hardest thing for the residents to understand is why they have to pay more because the other residents aren't paying their share," KHON2 said.
"I understand their concern and their frustration, but as a whole association, we have to do what is right for the whole association," said Laurie Ann Hodges, Cadmus Properties management executive.
There are about 1,800 homes that belong to the association, and they are each charged $130 a year, which pays for security, landscaping, insurance, and other operational costs.
The company says about 200 homeowners have not paid their dues, which comes out to $26,000. The company is still trying to collect, which also means lawyer's fees.
"The process is slow. We filed liens, but the last thing the association wants to do is take someone's home from them. That's not our intention at all," said Hodges.
"So in other words, we're paying the lawyer's fees then. Oh my gosh, I don't like it," said Cabiles.
KHON2 spoke with real estate attorney Peter Horovitz, who says it is unusual for an association to charge a fee because other residents are not paying their share, but it's perfectly legal.
"When you're part of the association, you agreed to play by certain rules and to support it in a certain manner and this is part of it," he said.
The association adds that certain services have already stopped, such as security and landscaping. The $80 fee will help restore those services.A homeowner held a burglary suspect at gunpoint after he found him on his property in south Rankin County, authorities said.The 62-year-old homeowner said he saw headlights shining behind his workshop Wednesday evening and found Alexander Landry, 49, inside one of his vehicles.The homeowner held Landry at gunpoint and tied him up until deputies arrived, officials with the Rankin County Sheriff's Office said.When deputies arrived, they said they found Landry had not only broken into the homeowner's workshop, but he had also gotten into several vehicles and stole tools.Investigators said a trail of stolen tools dropped in the woods led authorities to another burglary Thursday afternoon before his court appearance.Landry, of Flowood, was charged with seven counts of vehicle burglary and two counts of commercial burglary. He also has warrants out of Gulfport, authorities said.This is not Landry first run in with the law. In addition to countless misdemeanor arrests in Hinds County, Landry has served time in prison twice. One of his prison stays was for felony DUI and the other was for felony possession of controlled substance, authorities said.Due to his criminal history, Landry will be eligible to be tried as a habitual offender.
A homeowner held a burglary suspect at gunpoint after he found him on his property in south Rankin County, authorities said.
The 62-year-old homeowner said he saw headlights shining behind his workshop Wednesday evening and found Alexander Landry, 49, inside one of his vehicles.
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The homeowner held Landry at gunpoint and tied him up until deputies arrived, officials with the Rankin County Sheriff's Office said.
When deputies arrived, they said they found Landry had not only broken into the homeowner's workshop, but he had also gotten into several vehicles and stole tools.
Investigators said a trail of stolen tools dropped in the woods led authorities to another burglary Thursday afternoon before his court appearance.
Landry, of Flowood, was charged with seven counts of vehicle burglary and two counts of commercial burglary. He also has warrants out of Gulfport, authorities said.
This is not Landry first run in with the law. In addition to countless misdemeanor arrests in Hinds County, Landry has served time in prison twice. One of his prison stays was for felony DUI and the other was for felony possession of controlled substance, authorities said.
Due to his criminal history, Landry will be eligible to be tried as a habitual offender.
AlertMeHere on the TED Blog, TED Curator Chris Anderson answers the top 10 of last week’s questions in a Reddit-powered, TED community-driven Q&A.
jasontang asks: Have you had any speakers that you later regret having to some extent?
Er, yes indeed. There was the famous TV personality |
How is it then that the Western Media will report the firing of a defiant, homemade rocket with an insignificant payload, if any, that harms no one, but won’t report persistent Israeli attacks and the murder of unarmed fishermen on the seas off Gaza? The former is the act of a desperate people under a complete siege by Israel. That siege itself is an act of war. The assault on fishermen constitute regular, deliberate and unprovoked attack on civilians from Gaza.
Israel’s routine provocations in Gaza extend far beyond the fishing zone and attacking fishermen. Israeli provocations include:
* shelling by tanks, artillery and naval batteries,
* military border incursions with tanks and heavy equipment,
* bulldozing of fields inside Gaza’s border,
* spraying pesticides on Palestinian crops,
* flooding Palestinian crops,
* shooting unarmed farmers from border walls because they may enter a 300 m perimeter within Gaza,
* restricting Gaza’s main export of produce,
* restricting the import of necessary building supplies and other goods,
* leaving 65,000 people still displaced from the 2014 massacre, and
* using live ammunition against unarmed protestors.
All of this is of course in addition to the complete siege entering its second decade and periodic massacres such as those in 2008-9, 2012 and 2014.
So while the West remains silent, are we really surprised at the rockets of defiance? President Obama famously said the Israeli talking point in 2014, “no country would tolerate rockets being launched into their cities.” He made similar statements prior to that too. This begs the question though, which countries would tolerate these all too frequent Israeli provocations that President Obama failed to acknowledge.
Last worth noting is that since the attacks upon Mr. Bakr and his fellow fishermen targeted civilians, isn’t that a textbook example of terrorism?
Top Photo | Palestinian police officers sit in a small boat as they pass near an Israeli naval vessel while searching for the body of a Palestinian killed after the Israeli Navy sunk his fishing boat in the waters near Rafah, off the coast of the southern Gaza Strip, Dec. 3, 2005.
Ian Berman is an entrepreneur and former corporate banker at leading global banks in New York City. He now focuses on renewable energy, financial advisory services and writing about representative government, equitable public policies and ending American militarism and Israel’s continuing colonization of Palestine. He is the Co-Founder of Palestine 365, the Ongoing Oppression and its predecessor, Palestine 365, on Facebook.US president Barack Obama has castigated American companies for “gaming the system” by relocating their headquarters to countries such as Ireland where corporate tax rates are lower to avoid taxes in the US.
In his administration’s most high-profile attack on a practice known as “inversions” that more and more US companies have recently used to reduce their taxes, Mr Obama said in a speech in California that US corporations were exploiting an “unpatriotic tax loophole” by moving their head offices overseas in takeovers of smaller foreign companies.
The president, in an interview broadcast later on the business news TV network CNBC, named Ireland as a location that US companies are using to take advantage of “technically legal” tax arrangements.
“What we are trying to do is to say that if you simply acquire a small company in Ireland or some other country to take advantage of the low tax rate [and] you start saying, ‘we are now magically an Irish company’, despite the fact that you might have only 100 employees there and you have got 10,000 employees in the United States, you are just gaming the system,” he said. “You are an American company.”
In his speech at a Los Angeles college, he said that these companies were technically renouncing their US citizenship, even though most of their operations were in the US.
“I don’t care if it’s legal – it’s wrong,” he told an audience. “You don’t get to choose the tax rate you pay. These companies shouldn’t either.”
In an extraordinarily strong rebuke of US multinationals, he said some have called these firms “corporate deserters”.
“You shouldn’t get to call yourself an American company only when you want a handout from American taxpayers,” he said.
Ireland is one of the more popular countries for US companies seeking foreign acquisitions in recent years because of the Irish corporation tax rate of 12.5 per cent, which is about a third of the US rate of 35 per cent, one of the highest in the developed world.
Republicans and Democrats are divided over how to stop the practiceas the rate of takeovers has recently accelerated and may extend from the healthcare sector to US high-street retailers.
The White House has supported Democratic efforts in Congress to pass a law curbing inversions but Republicans oppose this, preferring changes as part of a broader reform of the US tax system that would lower the corporation tax rate to make it more competitive.The guide also dispels some myths. Not surprisingly, there's no mention of using PlayStation systems (or any other game console) for chats, as was briefly rumored following the Paris attacks. And while the US has frequently claimed that WhatsApp is a security risk, ISIS actively avoids it due to flawed encryption practices.
Do these tools sound familiar? They should -- they're the same tools used by human rights advocates, whistleblowers and others trying to avoid oppressive governments and overreaching surveillance. That, in turn, illustrates the troubles with arguing both for and against encrypted services. The technology lets ISIS hatch plots in secret, but it's also the key to protecting pro-democracy protests and other vital forms of free speech. And since there's no such thing as an encryption backdoor that's only available to the 'right' people (anyone can use those vulnerabilities), cracking down on these tools could hurt privacy and security across the board.
As it stands, there's a big difference between delivering advice and following it. The Paris attackers didn't actually use encrypted chat (they leaned on SMS for at least part of their assault), and they made classic mistakes like tossing a working phone in the trash. This isn't to say that there aren't smarter, encryption-savvy terrorists, but the rush to blame security tools can sometimes ignore the practical reality of how these organizations operate.
Update: You know how we said there were similarities between the strategies in this manual and those used by human rights advocates? Well, that's because it was written for those advocates. In a statement, Kuwaiti security firm Cyberkov says that it wrote the manual for "journalists and activists" trying to evade oppressors. The outfit accuses West Point of not only botching its translation job, but giving governments one more excuse to weaken encryption and reduce your privacy. We apologize for contributing to those excuses.
[Image credit: AP Photo/Biswaranjan Rout]Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences students take part in a combat scenario tending to “wounded” soldiers at Fort Indiantown Gap in Pennsylvania. (Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post)
Running away from the sound of gunfire and IED blasts toward a shelter door, 2nd Lt. Rowan Sheldon of the U.S. Army suddenly stopped dead and gasped out an expletive: It wasn’t an escape, it was a solid wall.
Behind him, all the medics and others in his platoon were carrying badly wounded soldiers, looking to him to lead them to a safe spot where they could triage, put on tourniquets, get patients on litters and move them away from the battlefield for treatment.
There are tough final exams. There are grueling final exams. And then there is the test at the nation’s medical school for the military, in which students must navigate a simulated overseas deployment culminating in a staged mass-casualty incident with deafening explosions, screaming, smoke, gunfire and fake blood everywhere.
In the intense stress of that moment, sweating fourth-years have to pull up the lessons learned in class to bring order to chaos. Enough order, at least, to get people somewhere safe enough to start healing.
“It’s the most important week of medical school,” said Arthur Kellermann, dean of the F. Edward Hébert School of Medicine at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. It’s the week when students camped at a National Guard base take on every challenge instructors can think to throw at them. Suicide bombers. Unraveling diplomatic relations. An influx of refugees. A sexual assault. And hundreds of wounded soldiers.
Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences medical students tend to “wounded” soldiers as part of a training exercise at Fort Indiantown Gap in Pennsylvania. (Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post)
“We had a great plan going in,” Sheldon said. “But they say no plan passes first contact with the enemy, right? We quickly realized there was no way this plan was going to work.”
Learning medicine, combat
The country’s only medical school for the military began in an unlikely spot: on the third floor of a corner lot in Bethesda, above a drugstore and a bank.
That was in 1972, not long after President Richard M. Nixon called for an end to the draft. Now the school sits on the grounds of Naval Support Activity Bethesda, next to the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, across from the National Institutes of Health.
The school serves 1,200 students, including 700 medical students among nursing candidates and those studying public health and other disciplines. Medical students pay no tuition in exchange for a commitment to serve across the armed forces; some are already active-duty members of the military while others have no military experience. They receive a commission when they enroll.
They learn the same medicine all doctors do, said John Prescott, the chief academic officer at the Association of American Medical Colleges. But the school is also “preparing them to work in hostile environments, to work and think with an international perspective, to think with a public-health understanding,” he said.
That means they learn to not only deliver a baby, but also to fire a gun and defend themselves in hand-to-hand combat. After they graduate in May, the fourth-year medical students will go on to residency programs.
First, though, they have to get through this test, the defining moment of their medical education.
Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences medical students take part in a simulated combat scenario tending to acting wounded soldiers during Operation Bushmaster field training exercise on October 24, 2014 in Fort Indiantown Gap, Pa. (Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post)
Deployment in ‘Pandakar’
A radio was crackling with orders inside a shipping container where men and women in combat fatigues were packing medical supplies, which were running short.
As part of their fourth-year clinical rotations, they had planned this simulated overseas deployment to “Pandakar,” with a crash course on diplomatic relations, cultural issues and the advances of a rebel group fighting the U.S.-allied regime.
During a series of cold, rainy days on base at Fort Indiantown Gap in central Pennsylvania, they had dealt with challenges both simulated (a boiler explosion, a suicide bomber, an ambush, sniper attacks, a helicopter evacuation, a cholera outbreak) and real (physical and mental exhaustion, stress, uncertainty.)
A few miles away, the sound of rapid-fire gunshots, explosions and helicopters echoed through the woods, which were filling with thick smoke. Sheldon’s platoon had prepared for facing a mass-casualty incident, but when it got to the scene, there were so many wounded soldiers and so much chaos that many of the students looked lost. Some tried to drag bleeding men to safety, or they looped arms around their necks to carry them.
Sheldon found the entrance to a shelter and improvised a triage area. There were patients screaming in agony, officers bellowing orders, a second wave of attacks that produced another flood of incoming patients, at least one man slumped lifeless on the ground and two “Pandakaris” wandering incongruously through it all.
Fourth-year student Shira Paul knew the chain of command, but once on the ground, she couldn’t see or hear any leadership. She began helping people begging for aid nearby.
“He’s got a gun!” a woman shouted suddenly, and someone else wrested away a pistol and restrained a man.
“I need help, now!” a medic shouted, bending over another patient. “He’s bleeding from his head!”
There were 33 wounded and 24 there to help get them to safety. Meghan Quinn, a first-year student with fake blood coming out of her ears, kept staggering to her feet, dazed, and tottering around into the midst of the whole mess. Other patients clutched at the sleeves and pant legs of medics. Someone yelled for a tourniquet, and a man ran over unlooping his belt, then tightened it around a patient’s upper thigh.
“Let’s go! Let’s go! Let’s go!” an officer roared. “They need to be out of here in six minutes!”
They began loading people into a light tactical vehicle and a field ambulance, with a couple of soldiers ducking behind the wheels and firing at the insurgents nearby. “Let’s GO!” the officer shouted, frantic and hoarse, as students heaved litters aboard and then scrambled up behind them as the trucks’ heavy tires cut through the mud, rumbling away.
Afterward, back at the makeshift forward operating base, they sat on the grass to hear from instructors about how they had done. Everyone was exhausted, even students such as Anthony Romero, a large-framed 40-year-old with years of military service. Paul, a slight 25-year-old from South Florida who came to Uniformed Services University straight from Vanderbilt University, was so tired and sore that she warned the others: “I’m not sure I’m safe to lift a litter anymore.”
Afterward, she realized clearly what she had done wrong. “I needed to find my leader, find out what I needed to be doing.” The hardest thing all week, she said, was learning to be flexible.
Playing the role of surgeon in the mass casualty, Sheldon, 28, blew up their first plan for triaging patients inside the square shelter, and then a second one.
“Our triage was laid out with the sickest people who need care immediately. To do that, you have to keep walking by people who are still suffering. Every time you do that, you think, ‘I can’t do this,’ and get on one knee, say, ‘I’ll be back to you as soon as I can. Put pressure on it,’ ” to stop the bleeding. “But if you do that every single time, you don’t get the job done. You’re trying to get people out, save as many lives as possible. You have to suppress that human side of you a little bit by understanding the overall goal of what you’re doing.”
It wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t perfect. But by the end, he was yelling: “You got this one? You got this one? I got this one, this one.”
“And,” he said, “we got everyone out.”Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Footage captures the moment a motorist stops to rescue a wild animal amid California wildfires
Vets treating a wild rabbit dramatically rescued from California wildfires say they expect it to make a full recovery.
The moment a motorist stopped to catch the terrified animal was captured on video and the footage shared around the world.
The rabbit was taken to the California Wildlife Center, in Malibu, where it was treated for burns to its paws, ears and chin. Its fur had also been singed.
The centre's Jennifer Brent said it seemed to be doing very well after being given pain medication, antibiotics for the burns on its ears and treatment to help rehydrate.
"She's definitely improving, and we're hoping for the best," said Ms Brent
"She's had a good appetite throughout though, and she's been given kale, lettuce and carrot tops so she's had plenty to chose from."
Image copyright California Wildlife Center Image caption The rabbit had burns on its paws, ears and chin
The centre received lots of calls from people asking to adopt the rabbit but always intended to release it back into the wild.
The rabbit was found on Highway 101 in La Conchita but because of the fire damage cannot return there.
"As rabbits are not particularly territorial, she can be put back in a different area where there is plenty for her to eat," said Ms Brent.
"She can also go back on her own, as adult rabbits don't need to live in family groups.
"If she was still a baby, she'd need lots more care."
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The rabbit was one of only two animals taken to the centre as a result of the fire.
Ms Brent said most of the ground-living animals such as rabbits and squirrels would not have been able to escape whereas birds would have been able to get away.
About 94,000 residents have been displaced by the California fires, which have been burning for more than a week.
The Thomas Fire in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties has consumed 234,000 acres (950 sq km) in just over a week, destroying 900 properties, including 690 homes.
It has become the fifth largest wildfire in recorded state history.
By Annie Flury, UGC and Social News teamTAMPA — Tampa Electric Co. is making a substantial commitment to solar energy: the utility on Thursday pledged to build 600 megawatts of solar energy capability — enough to power 100,000 homes — by 2021.
The move piggybacks on a newfound push for solar by all major Florida utilities. Duke Energy Florida announced in August a plan to build 700 megawatts of solar power over the next four years, while Florida Power & Light is in the process of adding 2,100 megawatts by 2023.
"We have long believed in the promise of renewable energy," Gordon Gillette, CEO of Tampa Electric, said in a release. "We believe now is the time to add large utility-scale solar generation."
The utility — whose parent company TECO Energy is owned by Canadian-based Emera Inc. — expects to invest about $850 million in the project. While this will eventually save customers money in fuel costs, it will initially show up as about $1 extra on their monthly bills. But ratepayers won't see the change until the project is nearly complete.
As part of its deal with customers and consumer groups, Tampa Electric also pledged not to raise its base rates for four years. The Public Service Commission will vote on that by the end of the year.
The recent push brings Florida a little closer to living up to its "Sunshine State" nickname. Last year, the Solar Energy Industries Association, a nonprofit headquartered in Washington, D.C., designated Florida as the state with the third-most potential for solar energy. But at 700 megawatts installed, its capability for solar wasn't nearly so high, ranking No. 13.
The ongoing solar projects, and the fact that the state's solar marketplace has doubled within this past year, is poised to change that.
The latest promise for extra capacity means that solar will account for 12 percent of Tampa Electric's generation capacity. It currently has only 27 megawatts of solar capacity.
When it reaches it goal, Tampa Electric says it will have the highest percentage of solar for a Florida utility. For comparison, Duke anticipates solar becoming 8 percent of its generation capacity within four years.
Duke Energy strikes deal to lower customer bills, boost solar
Solar advocates welcomed the news.
"We strongly feel that solar power is good for customers by diversifying the energy portfolio and for the environment by providing low-cost, zero-emissions energy for Florida's families and businesses," said Stephen A. Smith, executive director of nonprofit Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, in a release.
One issue the utilities will need to address is storing the energy the solar arrays generate. Currently, storing solar energy is more difficult than other forms of energy. Duke, when it announced its solar plan, also invested in 50 megawatts of battery storage and research into solar storage.
Part of the impetus for Tampa Electric's new commitment, the company said, is the reduced cost of installing solar energy capabilities, as well as current federal tax credits.
The parties involved in the agreement with the utility include Florida's Office of Public Counsel, the Florida Retail Federation, the Florida Industrial Power User's Group, a consortium of hospitals and the federal government —– representing MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa.
Contact Malena Carollo at [email protected] or (727) 892-2249. Follow @malenacarollo on Twitter.Get the biggest Everton FC stories by email Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email
Romelu Lukaku has signed with super-agent Mino Raiola - the man responsible for guiding the careers of Mario Balotelli and Zlatan Ibrahimovic.
The Everton striker was formerly under the guidance of fellow Belgian Christophe Hentoray, who is the agent of team-mates Kevin Mirallas and David Henen, along with Chelsea star Thibaut Courtois and former Toffees transfer target Vadis Odjidja-Ofoe.
But he has recently been lured into the clutches of Monaco-based Carmine "Mino" Raiola, who was born in Italy but began his career in Holland where he rose to prominence as a deal broker.
Raiola has made his name on deals with three clubs in particular; Ajax, AC Milan and Paris Saint-Germain, and has dealt with the transfers of, among others, Maxwell, Mido, Robinho, Mark van Bommel and Urby Emanuelson before moving onto stellar names such as Ibrahimovic.
In his book the celebrated Swedish striker describes Raiola as his 'agent, friend and adviser' and later describes him as a 'genius'.
Following Lukaku's switch, earlier this month Raiola named a number of players including the Toffees 21-year-old forward as must-have signings for Juventus.
Speaking to Tuttosport, the Italian revealed the stars that the Serie A champions need to buy if they want to be the best team in European football.
He said: 'In order to win the Champions League, Juve should keep Pogba, then sign Kishna from Ajax, Lukaku from Everton and Jonathas from Elche."After listening to 22 minutes of church bells, the noise can get to you. However, on this rain-soaked evening in Pforzheim, about 40 minutes' drive from the south-western German city of Stuttgart, there was no place for worrying or whining about clamor.
Thousands of people gathered here on the Platz des 23. Februar (February 23 Square) to remember the day their city was obliterated in 1945. A day for the people of Pforzheim that - judging by the looks on their faces as they laid down candles in the shape of a dove in the middle of the square - can't really be described.
Melissa, 11, joined the vigil, standing in front of a peace mural she painted with her third-grade class
"For God, my people and my city," said Ulla, a woman in her 70s, when asked why she came here to lay down a candle. "I was too little to remember, but I know from my family and from what came afterwards how deep this day hurt us," she told DW.
"We're here to remember," said Larissa, who came with six of her friends. "That's it. You don't have to say anything else," she added as the bells continued to ring, with uncanny seriousness for a 17-year-old.
22 minutes of hellfire
Between 7:50 and 8:12 p.m. local time on February 23, 1945, RAF aircraft dropped 1575 tons of high explosive and incendiary bombs on Pforzheim, setting off a firestorm that is widely seen as one of the most devastating in military history.
According to official statistics, 17,600 people died, and tens of thousands of others were injured. The market square and old town area were destroyed and completely depopulated. In the entire city, over 80 percent of the architecture that existed in 1945 was defaced, making Pforzheim, proportionally speaking, the worst instance of destruction at the end of WWII in Europe.
The Allied bombardments of Dresden and Hamburg have been well documented and remain in the public consciousness today, both in Germany and abroad. But Pforzheim doesn't.
All it took was 22 minutes to exact the complete annihilation of the town center
Why Pforzheim?
In the Bomber’s Baedeker, the British Foreign Office's guide to the economic importance of German towns and cities, Pforzheim ranked 57 out of 101 assessed places.
The city of 80,000 [120,000 today] did not possess any major munitions factories or heavy industry at all, although a tube-rolling plant owned by Metallindustrie Richter was in operation in Pforzheim at the time of the bombing. However, there were a host of technical manufacturing plants and factories that produced, among other things, periscope optics and radio and radar components for German submarines.
The city was also a major road and rail communications center within the Baden area.
Does this justify its almost complete annihilation?
"Why Pforzheim? Is that what you're asking?" a man named Anthony asked. "Do you think anyone here cares about that? That's a question for the politicians and strategists of the time. A question for historians and journalists. A question for people who ask the wrong questions," he said.
"The rubble from the bombing is still here. It was moved outside the city after the war and buried underneath the ground. Go look for yourself. There's a mound out there called the Wallberg. And it's not the mound the neo-Nazis are on!" Anthony added.
Up on the hill
Anthony was referring to a counter demonstration of far-right extremists. During the evening's ceremony, around 100 neo-Nazis and right-wing activists had gathered on what's known as the Wartberg, another mound outside the city, to remember the victims of the Allied bombing on their own - in the company of 1,000 police officers.
At exactly 7:50 p.m., a huge torch was lit on the Wartberg for 22 minutes in remembrance of the dead, a demonstration the greater public here finds repulsive, however.
"We cannot fathom what they want. They are just frustrated people up there who say Hitler was right," said Marta, with her daughter and son standing next to her. "We can only pray and hope that they will stop thinking like this, that's all," she said, adding that such thinking was the ultimate reason Pforzheim was burned to the ground.
The Wallberg mound on the outskirts of town is a perpetual reminder of the destruction
Wiped from the map?
A year after the end of WWII, author Alfred Döblin, one of Germany's most important modernists, wrote of Pforzheim:
Utterly vanished from the surface of the earth, razed completely to the ground, smashed to bits and pieces. No soul left here. Pforzheim - you have been wiped from the world's atlas.
"We are here tonight to bear witness to Pforzheim's resurrection, to the irrefutable fact that Pforzheim is still here," Manfred, whose parents were kilometers away in the neighboring village of Öschelbronn when the raid took place, told DW.
The reason Manfred came out to Monday's vigil, however, was about more than mere remembrance.
"Hate is where all this began," he said, visibly moved. "And it caused our city's destruction 70 years ago. You think I'm just going to let neo-Nazis march around here? We are not going to let hate destroy us ever again."London mayor Boris Johnson's father Stanley has hit out at Eddie Mair's interview with his son on BBC1's Andrew Marr Show, labelling it a "disgusting" piece of journalism.
However, his son has conceded that Mair had done a "splendid job".
Johnson Jr's encounter with Mair on the Sunday morning show was labelled a "bicycle crash" – after the mayor's penchant for two-wheeled transport – and ended with Mair, presenter of Radio 4's PM programme, telling him: "You're a nasty piece of work, aren't you?"
Johnson Sr told London talk radio station LBC on Monday: "I thought Eddie Mair's interview was one of the most disgusting pieces of journalism I've listened to for a very long time. The BBC sank about as low as it could."
Johnson Sr told presenter Nick Ferrari: "His grilling people about their personal lives, accusing them of guilt by association, openly abusing them in a legitimate interview. Frankly, I don't know where we are coming to.
"I have no idea who Eddie Mair is or what he does. But frankly, there is such a thing as respecting the office, even if you don't respect the man and that did not come through."
Johnson Sr, a former Tory MEP, described Mair's interview as a "travesty" and suggested he would not have "openly abused" Labour leader Ed Miliband in the same way.
He said: "As for saying he thought Boris was a nasty piece of work, well, honestly. I don't know where Eddie Mair's politics come from but I suspect he would not have treated the leader of the Labour party in that way."
He said he felt "great anger" watching the interview on Sunday morning.
On the issue of Johnson Jr's misquote when he was a journalist at the Times, Johnson Sr said: "I know about that quote. This was Boris 25 years, 30 years ago, ringing up actually his godfather, a historian, and he got it wrong. He got what his godfather said wrong. Later on various things happened as a result of that, good heavens …
"If that's the worst you can dig up, something 30 years ago, most journalists I know make up quotes all the time and I don't think they go down the drain for it."
Asked why his son had looked uncomfortable during the interview, Johnson said: "He was told he was coming on to talk about issues which really matter to London. There are quite a lot of them he could have talked about … instead he dug up totally irrelevant things which have been dealt with ages and ages ago."
Johnson Sr said he believed the BBC had overstepped the mark, and added: "One of the issues Eddie Mair totally failed to address was the Leveson thing. The more I think about it, the more I think what a travesty that interview was, not of Boris but of good broadcasting standards."
But speaking in London on Monday, Johnson Jr said: "Eddie Mair did a splendid job. There is no doubt that is what the BBC is for – holding us to account.
"I fully concede it wasn't my most blistering performance, but that was basically because I was set to talk about the Olympics and housing in London and he wanted to talk about other things, some of them – my private life and so on – of quite some antiquity, the details of which I wasn't brilliant on.
"He was perfectly within his rights to have a bash at me – in fact it would have been shocking if he hadn't. If a BBC presenter can't attack a nasty Tory politician what's the world coming to?"
Asked whether Mair should get Jeremy Paxman's lead anchor role on Newsnight, Johnson Jr added: "I should think he'll get an Oscar, it was an Oscar-winning performance. I think he'll get a Pulitzer."
Ferrari, speaking after Johnson Sr's appearance on his show this morning, said: "He was, as you would expect, a father defending his son.
"We did a phone call and it started off with people defending the BBC and saying he was fair game. But by the end more people said they supported Boris.
"All of the interview was seen as absolutely legitimate until the line about "nasty piece of work". It was felt by listeners that wasn't the role of the BBC reporter or interviewer to say that."
The BBC said it had received 384 complaints about the interview, which was watched by about 1.7 million viewers.
A spokesman for BBC News said: "We believe this was a fair interview which took in issues facing London and the wider political landscape as well as looking towards tonight's TV portrait programme [Boris Johnson: The Irresistible Rise by film-maker Michael Cockerell, which will air on BBC2 on Monday at 9pm].
"As the documentary is biographical exploring controversial episodes in the mayor's life was considered appropriate. Eddie's line of questioning attempted to elicit responses to direct questions that were not being answered."
During the course of the 15-minute interview, Johnson Jr admitted he had "sandpapered" quotes as a Times journalist, failed to deny he had lied to then Tory leader Michael Howard about an affair and conceded that he had humoured an old friend when he asked for a phone number in the knowledge that the friend intended to beat up the owner of it.
The video of the interview was one of the BBC's most-requested on-demand programmes on Sunday.
Mair is one of a number of guest hosts of the Sunday morning politics slot while presenter Andrew Marr recovers from a stroke.
BBC insiders said there was broad support for Mair's interview from within the corporation.
"It was sort of his style, he will just say those sort of things. Eddie Mair is very different to someone like Andrew Marr," said one BBC News journalist.
"Other people might have begun that line ["You're a nasty piece of work, aren't you?"] by saying "Some people might think …" But that's not his style, it's not the way he operates. He was physically very close to him, leaning right in and almost touching him."
Corporation insiders said Mair was justified in going into Johnson's background, and the historic accusations about him, because of the BBC2 documentary about his life, in which he had taken part, which airs tonight.
There were even questions within the BBC, given the scale of the response today, why it did not make more of the interview yesterday in its news bulletins.
"Most people [in BBC News] think it was a good interview and he did well. They were impressed that he managed to get through the bluster that normally sweeps interviewers away," said a source.
"That particular ["nasty piece of work"] line does look a bit odd if you pull it out in isolation but in context, if you watch the whole thing, it does seem justifiable."
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• To get the latest media news to your desktop or mobile, follow MediaGuardian on Twitter and FacebookEurope and the West - what was once called Christendom - are supposed to be the bad guys in the Middle East. It is we who bomb, corrupt and invade the Muslims of the Middle East. It is we who support the vicious dictators of the Middle East (unless they are disobedient to our wishes). It is we who suck out the fossil treasures of the Middle East, its oil and its natural gas. We are, are we not, the infidels? And true, Syria's refugees, in their millions, have settled into the squalor of camps on the edges of Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan. But the hundreds of thousands of poor and huddled masses who wish to flee further from their tormentors are not sailing in leaking boats to where you might expect them to go - to the "ummah", to Islam's beating heart, to the land where the Prophet lived and where he received the word of God. No, the destitute of the Middle East are not heading for Saudi Arabia, the wealthy kingdoms of the Gulf, to pray for help from the builders of great mosques and the Keepers of Holy Places.
It's not because they think we're a soft touch. It's not because they want to scrounge on our generosity. I suspect it's because they know enough about Europe and our history and about us - not our tin-pot politicians - to know that we are good people, that we are kind people. I think they know that, deep beneath our carapace of cynicism and materialism and our lack of religious faith, the idea of humanism is alive in Europe and that we can be decent, good, thoughtful, honest people.It was an honor to meet and host Governor Romney in my home today, especially since I knew his late father former Michigan Governor George Romney, whom I considered a friend. I have followed Mitt Romney's career in business, the Olympic Games, as governor of Massachusetts and, of course, as a candidate for president of the United States.
What impresses me even more than Governor Romney's successful career are his values and strong moral convictions. I appreciate his faithful commitment to his impressive family, particularly his wife Ann of 43 years and his five married sons.
It was a privilege to pray with Governor Romney--for his family and our country. I will turn 94 the day after the upcoming election, and I believe America is at a crossroads. I hope millions of Americans will join me in praying for our nation and to vote for candidates who will support the biblical definition of marriage, protect the sanctity of life and defend our religious freedoms.The tobacco mosaic virus is a destructive beast infecting over a hundred different species of plants, including tomatoes. But it may have a weird eco benefit: Incorporated into lithium batteries, it can increase storage capacity ten times.
Scientists in the U.S. had already worked out how to coat the tiny rod-like cells of the virus with conductive materials. But the recent breakthrough has seen the nanorods incorporated into battery technology, with astonishingly beneficial results. The tobacco mosaic virus is a perfect candidate because it’s the right size and shape to aid construction of battery electrodes, and it’s self-replicating and self-assembling and can bind to metal.
The idea is that TMV nanorods are bound to the electrodes in a lithium cell–without the need for any bonding agent–and automagically increase the surface area of the electrode. This is a critical matter in battery design, since it affects how much electrical energy the battery can hold, and TMV’s benefits mean a similar cell can hold up to ten times more charge than a more conventional one.
This has all sorts of implications for mobile technology. Imagine every lithium battery in every mobile device you own lasting up to ten times longer. That would mean Apple’s new MacBook Airs could hang on in standby mode for 10 months, and Amazon’s Kindles may only require charging once every year. Smartphones could have useful call times extending up to a week, and as well as changing how we think about our tech this could have an eco upshot–you’d probably not |
MSNBC’s “Countdown” last night, Keith Olbermann called out prominent members of Congress who are working to kill health-care reform, accusing them of prostituting themselves to the health industry lobbies.
“We know what you are, sir, we’re arguing about the price.”
— Olbermann addressing Sen. Thune (R-N.D.), who has been paid $1.2 million by medical lobbies to kill health care reform
In particular, he accused Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., of lying in his follow-up to the president’s weekly address last week when Thune said the Democrats’ reform proposals would produce ” … government run health care that would disrupt our current system and force millions of Americans who currently enjoy their employer-based coverage into a new health care plan run by government bureaucrats.” (The Republicans’ meme that government bureaucrats are worse than, say, Blue Cross or United bureaucrats never ceases to rankle.)
Sen. Thune — whose family benefits from a very nice health care plan run by government bureaucrats — has received $1.2 million in donations from medical lobbies, according to Olbermann.
Olbermann also called out Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite (R-Fla.), who said on the House floor that in their reform proposals, Democrats were saying to America’s seniors: “Drop dead.” Rep. Brown-Waite has received $369,255 from the lobbies.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky has received $3.1 million; Rep. Joe Barton, R-Ok., has taken $2.6 million; and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. has been paid $1.6 million to kill health care reform.
And then there’s Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., the chairman of the Finance Committee who has done as much as anyone to kill the government option. He has taken in $2.6 million from various medical industry groups, according to Olbermann.
Others members of Congress cited by Olbermann as turning tricks for the medical lobbies include Rep. Bart Gordon, R-Tenn., ($1.17 million); Rep. John Tanner, D-Tenn., ($215,000); Rep. Mike Ross, D-Ark.; Sen. Kay Hagan, D-N.C.; Rep. Earl Pomeroy, D-N.D.; Sen. Thomas Carper, D-Del.; and Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark.
Transcript:
Finally tonight, as promised, a Special Comment on Health Care Reform in this country, and in particular, the “public insurance option.” In March of 1911, after a wave of minor factory fires in New York City, the City’s Fire Commissioner issued emergency rules about fire prevention, protection, escape, sprinklers. The City’s Manufacturers Association in turn called an emergency meeting to attack the Fire Commissioner and his “interference with commerce.”
The new rules were delayed. Just days later, a fire broke out at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. The door to the fire escape was bolted shut to keep the employees from leaving prematurely. One hundred and fifty of those employees died, many by jumping from the seventh floor windows to avoid the flames. Firefighters setting up their ladders literally had to dodge the falling, often burning, women.
This was the spirit of the American corporation then. It is the spirit of the American corporation now. It is what the corporation will do, when it is left alone, for a week. You know the drill. We all know the drill.
You get something done, at a doctor’s, at a dentist’s, at an emergency room and the bills are in your hands before the pain medication wears off. And if you’re one of the lucky ones, and you have insurance, you submit the endless paperwork and no matter whether it’s insurance through your company, or your union, or your non-profit, or on your own dime, you then get your turn … at the roulette wheel.
How much of it is the insurance company going to pay this time? How much of it is the insurance company — about which you have next to no choice, and against which you have virtually no appeal — how much is this giant corporation going to give you back? What small percentage of what they told you they were going to pay you, will they actually pay you?
You know the answer. And, you know the answer if you don’t have insurance. But do you know why that’s the answer?
Because the insurance industry owns the Republican Party. Not exclusively. Pharma owns part of it, too. Hospitals and HMO’s, another part. Nursing homes — they have a share. You name a Republican, any Republican, and he is literally brought to you by… campaign donations from the Health Sector.
Sen. John Thune of South Dakota? You gave the Republican rebuttal to the President’s weekly address day before yesterday. You said the Democrats’ plan was for … ” … government run health care that would disrupt our current system, and force millions of Americans who currently enjoy their employer-based coverage into a new health care plan run by government bureaucrats.”
That’s a bald-faced lie, Senator. And you’re a bald-faced liar, whose bald face is covered by … your own health care plan run by government bureaucrats. Nobody would be forced into anything; and the Public Insurance Option is no more a disruption than letting the government sell you water, and not just Poland Spring and Sparkletts.
But, as corrupt hypocrites go, Senator, at least you’re well paid. What was that one statement worth to you in contributions from the Health Sector, Sen. Thune? Five thousand dollars? Ten? We know what you are, sir, we’re arguing about the price.
What about your other quote? “We can accomplish health care reform while keeping patients and their doctors in charge, not bureaucrats and politicians.”
Wow, Senator — this illustrates how desperate you and the other Republicans are, right? Because Sen. Thune, if you really think “bureaucrats and politicians” need to get out of the way of “patients and their doctors,” then you support a woman patient’s right to get an abortion, and you supported Michael Schiavo’s right to take his wife off life support, and you oppose “bureaucrats and politicians” getting in the way, and we’ll just mark you down on the pro-choice list.
That’s a rare misstep for you Sen. Thune. No $12,000 payoff for that statement! I am not being hyperbolic, am I, Senator? On the money? Sen. Thune has thus far received from the Health Sector, campaign contributions — and all these numbers tonight are from “The Center For Responsive Politics” — campaign contributions amounting to $1,206,176. So much for Sen. Thune.
How about Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite? Good evening Ma’am. You are the Florida representative who claimed on the Floor that Democrats had ” … released a health care bill which essentially said to America’s seniors: Drop dead.”
Now those are strong, terrorizing, words — that’s exactly what your Insurance and Medical Overlords wanted to hear. But are you truly worth every dollar of the $369,255 of them you have received over the years from the Health Sector? I’d reed the rest of the operative part of your speech myself, but your rendition actually cannot be matched:
BROWN-WAITE: Listen up, America, seniors have special needs. This bill ignored the, ignores the needs of Florida’s health care system. We should be fixing what is broke. Not disseminate… disseminating…. decimating… the care of our senior population. — July 21, 2009
You can always tell, can’t you, Congresswoman, when the hostage is reading her own ransom note, and when she is reading one written for her? So much for Rep. Brown-Waite.
There are so many other Republicans, bought and sold-like that unfortunate Congresswoman there-by the Health Sector.
Minority Leader McConnell of the Senate?
You’re worth $3.1 million to the Health Sector? A million and a half just for last year’s election? And I’m supposed to think you aren’t a sellout, a liar, a paid spokesman, a shill, a carnival barker? So much for Sen. McConnell.
Congressman Joe Barton of Oklahoma; $2.6 million, Congressman? That’s ten times what Senator Robert Byrd has accepted from the Health Sector. Congressman! What a guy! So much for Congressman Barton.
Senator McCain, $1.6 million?
To serve the Hospitals, and serve the Drug Companies, and serve the nursing homes? And not to serve the retirement communities of Arizona? Or the cancer survivors? Or the veterans? So much for Senator McCain.
I could go on all night and never exaggerate in the slightest.
PBS pointed out that the health and insurance industries are spending more than a $1.4 million dollars a day, just to destroy the “public option” — the truly non-profit, wieldy, round-up and not round-down, government, from helping you pay your medical bills with about a billionth of the recklessness with which it is still paying Halliburton and its spin-offs to kill your kids.
And much of this money is going to, and through, Republicans.
But that’s the real point tonight. Not all of it is going through Republicans. Because the evil truth is, the Insurance industry, along with Hospitals, HMO’s, Pharma, nursing homes — it owns Democrats, too.
Not the whole party.
Candidate Barack Obama got more than 18 million from the Health Sector just last year. And you can bet somebody in the Health Trust, somebody responsible for buying influence, got fired over what Obama’s done.
No, the Democrats are not wholly owned. Hundreds of Democrats have taken campaign money from the Health Sector without handing over their souls as receipts. But conveniently, the ones who are owned have made themselves easy to spot in a crowd.
They’ve called themselves “Blue Dogs,” and they are out there, hand-in-hand with the Republicans, who they are happy to condemn day and night on everything else, throatily singing “Kumbaya” with the men and women who were bought and sold to defend this con game of an American health care system against the slightest encroachment.
Congressman Mike Ross of Arkansas, leader of the Blue Dogs in the House. You’re the guy demanding a guarantee that reform will not add to the deficit. I’m guessing you forgot to demand that about, say, Iraq.
You’re a Democrat, you say, Congressman? You saw what Sandy Barham said?
Sandy Barham is 62 years old. She’s got a bad heart. She’s hoping her valves will hold together for three more years until Medicaid kicks in, because she can’t afford insurance.
Not just for herself, mind you. For her employees. She needs the public option. So do those six people who work at that restaurant of hers, Congressman Ross.
And why should you give a crap? Because Sandy Barham’s restaurant is the Broadway Railroad Cafe, and it is at 123 West First Street North in Prescott, Arkansas.
Prescott, Arkansas, Congressman Ross. Your home town. You are Sandy Barham’s congressman. Hers, Sir. Not Blue Cross’s and Blue Shield’s, even if they do insure 75 percent of the state and they own you.
The top donor so far to Congressman Ross’s bid for re-election next year? The Blue Dog PAC, ten thousand bucks. Second? Something called Invacare, 7,300. Oh, they make wheelchairs and rollers and slings. They’re big in slings.
Tied for third? The American Dental Association, another grand, 5,000, as a matter of fact.
Your top donors by industry, Congressman Ross? Health professionals:
29,250. Then Pharma and health products: 12,250. And so far in your career, Congressman Ross, your total haul from the health sector is 921,000. That’s 90th in the combined list of donations for the House and the Senate, sir, 90th out of 537.
You should be proud, Congressman!
Except for the fact, that before you started living off the public dime, you owned a pharmacy. And your grandmother was a nurse. And it turns out you’re not Sandy Barham’s congressman, after all. You’re Blue Cross’s. So much for Congressman Ross.
Congressman Bart Gordon of Tennessee. Congressman? Undecided on the public option? At 1,173,000 in donations from the health sector, I’m surprised. You should have already said no and loudly. The only thing you should be undecided about is whether or not you’re really a Democrat. So much for Congressman Gordon.
Senator Max Baucus of Montana. Good evening, Senator.
So you’re supposed to be negotiating all this out with the Republicans and the hesitant Democrats, to gain bi-partisanship with a wholly-owned subsidiary of the health sector? Bipartisanship that will get you, what? A total of no votes?
And your price has been, let’s see, 414,000 dollars in donations from Hospitals; 667,000 in donations from the insurance companies, just over a million from Big Pharma, 1,300,000 from other health professional, and 237,000 from nursing homes.
When you think of getting 237,000 dollars in campaign contributions from nursing homes, Senator Baucus, do you ever think about whether they subtract that amount of money evenly from all the patients suffering and dying in the lousy ones, or just from a few of the lousy ones?
So much for Senator Baucus.
Sadly, this list could go on almost all night, too.
I could ask Blue Dog Congressman Democrat John Tanner of Tennessee if, since he’s gotten 215 Grand from hospitals over the years-if I and the appropriate number of my friends were willing to make it 216 Grand, if we could buy his vote, or would there still have to be an auction?
We could bring up Senator Hagan, and Congressman Pomeroy, who at 628,000 appears to represent the insurance industry and not North Dakota. I could bring up Senator Carper and Senator Blanche Lincoln.
Senator Lincoln, by the way, considering how you’re obstructing health care reform, how do you feel every time you actually see Senator Kennedy?
I could bring up all the other Democrats doing their masters’ bidding in the House or the Senate, all the others who will get an extra thousand from somebody if they just postpone the vote another year, another month, another week, because right now, without the competition of a government-funded insurance company, in one hour, the health care industries can make so much money that they would kill you for that extra hour of profit.
I could call them all out by name. But I think you get the point. We don’t need to call the Democrats holding this up Blue Dogs. That one word “Dogs” is perfectly sufficient.
But let me speak to them collectively, anyway. I warn you all. You were not elected to create a Democratic majority. You were elected to restore this country.
You were not elected to serve the corporations and the trusts who the government has enabled for these last eight years.
You were elected to serve the people. And if you fail to pass or support this legislation, the full wrath of the progressive and the moderate movements in this country will come down on your heads.
Explain yourselves not to me, but to them. They elected you. And in the blink of an eye, they will replace you.
If you will behave as if you are Republicans-as if you are the prostitutes of our system-you will be judged as such. And you will lose not merely our respect. You will lose your jobs!
Every poll, every analysis, every vote, every region of this country supports health care reform, and the essential great leveling agent of a government-funded alternative to the unchecked duopoly of profiteering private insurance corporations.
Cross us all at your peril. Because, Congressman Ross, you are not the Representative from Blue Cross.
And Mr. Baucus, you are not the Senator from Schering-Plough Global Health Care, even if they have already given you 76 Grand towards your re-election.
And Ms. Lincoln, you are not the Senator from DaVita Dialysis.
Because, ladies and gentlemen, President Lincoln did not promise that this nation shall have a new death of freedom, and that government of the corporation, by the corporation, for the corporation, shall not perish from this Earth.Most of America’s media think President Obama's 2009 bailout of General Motors and Chrysler was a huge success.
Former Massachusetts Democratic Congressman Barney Frank threw cold water on this meme on NBC’s Meet the Press Sunday correctly informing viewers that the auto bailout lost money for the federal government. By contrast, we made money from George W. Bush's 2008 bank bailout (video follows with transcript and commentary):
BARNEY FRANK, FORMER CONGRESSMAN (D-MASSACHUSETTS): First of all, many of the banks didn't want this money. It’s not that we did it for them. But secondly, the federal government made money on the advances to the banks. What cost us money was the automobile industry bailout. But we made money on the banks. HENRY PAULSON, FORMER BUSH TREASURY SECRETARY: We got all the money back plus $32 billion.
Indeed. Meanwhile, the government’s investment in General Motors stock is still underwater.
Yet to liberal media members, Obama’s auto bailout along with his stimulus package are responsible for the economic recovery.
That might be convenient for the ego of the current White House resident, but honest economists in the future will likely credit Bush’s Troubled Asset Relief Program in October 2008 as being what saved us and the world from a far worse financial industry collapse paving the way for an expansion albeit a weak one.
What economically ignorant media members ignore is that the 2008 financial crisis was not economic. It was a banking and insurance company collapse.
Once the banks and insurance companies were shored up by TARP, the economy was positioned to recover with or without the auto bailout and the stimulus.
With that in mind, it sure was nice to see a Democrat admit that the government lost on the auto bailout but profited from TARP.Beyond the fact that it’s Disney, a brand with innumerable assets to be leveraged and a studio production arm ready to pump out exclusive content, Disney’s forthcoming streaming service may be able to carve out a niche for itself because choosing a subscription service is not a zero-sum game. A number of recent studies have already indicated that today’s consumers are willing to pay for multiple services in this market. But that’s especially true for millennials, according to new research out today from Morning Consult.
According to the latest survey the firm conducted, 36 percent of U.S. users aged 18 to 29 years old said they would likely subscribe to the new Disney streaming service when it arrives in 2019. That’s more than the 23 percent for the market as a whole.
The reason? Younger users are already hooked on streaming, and willing to use — and pay for — multiple apps, the report says. In fact, 48 percent of that age group is currently subscribing to multiple services, while only 28 percent subscribe to just one.
Today, Netflix and Amazon are the top two services that attract this key demographic. Two-thirds of millennials (67 percent) pay for Netflix, while Amazon Prime comes in second place with 28 percent subscribing.
Among the market as a whole, Netflix (52 percent) and Amazon (26 percent) are also number one and two, while newcomer YouTube TV has now jumped into the third position (15 percent).
For millennials, in particular, YouTube TV and Hulu are tied for third, both at 23 percent.
Millennials’ claim they’d pay for Disney’s service fits with a larger trend that sees this group willing to adopt more than one service for media consumption.
In fact, a study released yesterday by Nielsen found that nearly 60 percent of millennials were using two or more apps for streaming music. (In Nielsen’s case, millennials were defined as those aged 18 to 34.) By comparison, only 39 percent of older users — meaning those 35 and up — were using more than one streaming music service.
As Nielsen explained it, younger users aren’t reducing their media consumption across one medium, so it can thrive in another. Instead, they increase their consumption thanks to all the options on hand.
While Nielsen’s latest was focused on music streaming among millennials, the trend to adopt more than one streaming service isn’t limited to the younger generation.
A study released last fall from research firm GfK, reported by Reuters, found that 16 percent of U.S. video viewers had signed up for more than one streaming service — a figure that was up from 10 percent just three years prior. Meanwhile, a separate report (PDF) released in April from 451 Research found a similar trend, stating that 19 percent of North American video subscribers pay for three or more services — up four points, year-over-year.
It seems that when consumers ditch traditional TV in favor of streaming, they’re interested in creating their own bundles of video services, not just choosing one in a winner-takes-all approach. 451 Research’s report had also found that Netflix and Amazon Video were the top two services, with consumers then building out their own mix with others like Hulu, HBO Now and even marketplaces like iTunes rounding things out.
In addition to an increased willingness to pay for Disney’s service, the new Morning Consult study found that the new service would be seen as additive to users’ existing bundles. Of those millennials who said they would subscribe, more than half — 58 percent — said it would be in addition to other streaming options. Only 34 percent said it would replace another service.
But that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s smooth sailing for Disney as it enters the market.
Even this media-hungry demographic is starting to feel overwhelmed by the proliferation of streaming services out there. Indeed, 57 percent said they felt there were “too many” streaming services, and 73 percent expressed a desire for a service that had all the shows they wanted to see.
However, 55 percent said they would subscribe to a service to watch a particular show — an indication that Netflix is on the right track with its strategy to invest $7 billion in content in 2018 in order to make it a must-have subscription.
Disney will similarly need to find a way to attract this key, younger crowd, as opposed to just the parents of small children, who want to use Disney movies as their digital babysitter at times.
Another huge challenge facing Disney is getting the pricing right for its streaming service.
The company hasn’t yet settled on what the service should cost. It’s doesn’t know the full mix of content, either. Disney said it will include Disney and Pixar films, like Frozen 2 and Toy Story 4, plus original movies, TV shows, short-form content and other Disney exclusives. But it’s not even sure if it will integrate Marvel and Star Wars into this service, or save them for their own.
And cost is a big concern for millennials, the new study found. Forty-two percent think they’re already paying too much for streaming, even though most (54 percent) only pay for one or two services; 26 percent don’t pay at all.
Still, those millennials who do pay are willing to pay a little more than older folks. Most U.S. consumers spend $10 or less on streaming services a month, while 21 percent of millennials spend from $11 to $20 a month, 11 percent spend $21 to $30 a month and 17 percent spend more than that on streaming.
Morning Consult’s survey was conducted from August 10 through 14, among a representative sample of 2,201 U.S. adults. However, like any survey, the numbers don’t necessarily indicate what will happen, as what people say they’ll do versus what they actually do is often very different.Bree Olson, a former porn actress who has since retired, is finally speaking out about her life as someone who used to be a sex worker and is now back in the mainstream world, Daily Dot reports.
Speaking with Real Women Real Stories, Olson shared part of her story of getting into the porn industry at 19 while she was a student at Purdue University studying pre-med biology and working full-time as a telemarketer. When she flew out to Los Angeles "just to try it," she says initially she was "very shocked at the money to be made" and decided to drop out of school and make as much money as she could in the industry.
Olson, who says she maintained her Indiana home and "never lived in L.A. the entire time I even did porn" finally retired at 25 and only then did she realize how much she was being judged by the mainstream world.
In the video, she says that when she goes out in public, she feels like "I'm wearing'slut' across my forehead" and says there are "days or weeks" where she won't leave her house because she doesn't "feel like facing the world" and has had a hard time getting hired for any jobs outside of porn now, which makes her wish in retrospect that she'd stayed in the industry a few more years because now she feels she has few other options.
At the end of the interview, Olson makes a point to tell young girls, "Don't do porn. Because … I understand it. You want to embrace your sexuality … but you're just gonna have a life of crap in front of you." While she adds that there's nothing wrong with doing porn, she says that "how people treat you for the rest of your life, it's not worth it."
You can watch the whole video above.
Follow Lane on Twitter and Instagram.MIAMI, February 5 – The NBA announced tonight that HEAT All-Star Chris Bosh will participate in the 2015 Degree Shooting Stars competition as part of State Farm All-Star Saturday Night on February 14 at Barclays Center in Brooklyn. The all-inclusive skills showcase will be televised live on TNT, reaching fans in 215 countries and territories in more than 47 languages.
Bosh will once again be paired with NBA Legend Dominique Wilkins and WNBA player Swin Cash as they look to become the first three-peat Shooting Stars champions after winning the event the previous two years, once during the 2012 competition in Houston and then again during the 2013 event in New Orleans. Bosh, a 10-time NBA All-Star, has appeared in 41 games (all starts) with the HEAT this season averaging 21.1 points, 7.3 rebounds, 2.0 assists and 35.3 minutes. He leads the team in points (867) and rebounds (299) this season and scored the 16,000th point of his career on January 25 at Chicago and grabbed his 7,000th career rebound on November 22 at Orlando. He connected on at least one three-point field goal in a career-high 10 consecutive games from November 16 through December 5 and has already totaled six 30-point games this season after doing so two times all of last year.
The Degree Shooting Stars contest features one current NBA player, an NBA legend and one current WNBA player on each team. There are four numbered shooting locations of increasing difficulty, with each team attempting to make all shots in numeric order in the fastest time. All four teams will compete in the first round, and the two teams with the fastest times advance to the championship round. The team that finishes all four shots in the least amount of time in the championship round will be declared the winner.
Team Bosh will compete against Team Curry featuring NBA player Stephen Curry, NBA Legend Dell Curry and WNBA player Sue Bird, Team Davis consisting of NBA player Anthony Davis, NBA Legend Scottie Pippen and WNBA player Elena Delle Donne and Team Westbrook involving NBA player Russell Westbrook, NBA Legend Anfernee ‘Penny’ Hardaway and WNBA player Tamika Catchings.(AhlulBayt News Agency) - The national television of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has aired a video, in which a self-styled Islamic family doctor is seen teaching men in the country how to ‘properly’ beat their wives.
The national television of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has aired a video, in which a self-styled Islamic family doctor is seen teaching men in the country how to ‘properly’ beat their wives.
The video is believed to have been aired in the country in early February, 2016. The Kingdom’s government is said to have approved the video, and that is why it was given airtime on national television.
After airing the video in Saudi Arabia, the Saudi government released the controversial video in the United States via the Washington DC-based Middle East Media Research Institute, in April 2016. Women activists group describe the video as nothing less than infuriating.
The content of the video features the doctor who is said to specialize in therapy; Khaled Al-Saqaby teaching men how to ‘properly’ beat their wives if their [wives] disobey them.
According to Al-Saqaby, husbands should not immediately attack their wives, but should discipline them ‘properly’ first. He then makes it clear that in marriage, there is nothing like equality, and that men should take charged and rule the home.
In an event where women disobey their husbands, Al-Saqaby teaches in the video that the men should follow the steps below in making sure that the women are corrected.
“The first step is to remind her of your rights and of her duties according to Allah. Then comes the second step – forsaking her in bed.
The third step, beating, has to correspond with the necessary Islamic conditions” before taking action. The beating should not be performed with a rod, nor should it be a headband, or a sharp object.
Instead, husbands should use a ‘tooth-cleaning twig or with a handkerchief’ to beat their wife. The wife will feel that she was wrong in the way she treated her husband,” says Al-Saqaby.
Ending his controversial teaching, Al-Saqaby says his teaching of how to beat wives is not exhaustive, and that sometimes, men can beat their wives without following his steps when the women go to the extreme by disobeying their husbands.
He also blamed the women for provoking their husbands, expressing shock that some women are ‘stubborn’ to the point that only beatings can bring them to order.
“In addition, sometimes a woman makes a mistake that may lead her husband to beat her. I’m sad to say there are some women who say ‘Go ahead, if you are a real man, beat me’ She provokes them,” he adds in the video.
Critics of the video say, although some of the teachings Al-Saqaby espoused in the video concerning how husbands should treat their wives are found in the Holy Quran, they were used in a context.
They accuse Al-Saqaby and the Saudi government of being selective with the verses of the Holy Book in order to satisfy their own interest.
The author Matt Agorist of the Free Thought Project has chronicled some verses from the Quran and Hadith to highlight how a religious text can be used to incite peace or violence; that Islam prohibits or promotes men beating their wives.
The Hadith is the record of the sayings and conduct of the Islamic Prophet, Muhammad during his lifetime. The record was recorded by his disciples and those known to be close to him.
According to Mr Agorist, Al-Saqaby teaching on the subject should not be taken serious because it is full of his own interpretations, in order to serve the interest of the ruling class of the country.
Some women groups have also called for the United States government to condemn the video, as it denigrates womanhood. But neither the State Department, which is responsible for international relations for the country, nor any government official from the White House, has commented on the controversial video.
This is not the first time the United States has turned a blind eye on happenings in Saudi Arabia. Early this year, Saudi Arabia embarked on an exercise of beheading people who speak against the dictatorial policies of the country’s ruling class. 47 people, including a prominent Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr Bakir al-Nimr, were beheaded on January 1st, 2016, for embarking on anti-government activities.
This sparked huge tension in the Islamic World. The United States never commented, or issued a statement, on the beheadings.
/149Cream cheese Country of origin England Pasteurized Yes Texture Soft Aging time none Related media on Wikimedia Commons
Cream cheese is a soft, usually mild-tasting fresh cheese made from milk and cream.[1][2] Stabilizers such as carob bean gum and carrageenan are typically added in industrial production.[3]
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration defines cream cheese as containing at least 33% milk fat with a moisture content of not more than 55%, and a pH range of 4.4 to 4.9.[4] Similarly, under Canadian Food and Drug Regulations cream cheese must contain at least 30% milk fat and a maximum of 55% moisture.[5] In other countries, it is defined differently and may need a considerably higher fat content.[6]
Cream cheese is not naturally matured and is meant to be consumed fresh, so it differs from other soft cheeses such as Brie and Neufchâtel. It is more comparable in taste, texture, and production methods to Boursin and Mascarpone.
Origin [ edit ]
Europe [ edit ]
Early prototypes of cream cheese are mentioned in England as early as 1583[1][2] and in France as early as 1651.[7][8] Recipes are recorded soon after 1754, particularly from Lincolnshire and the southwest of England.[9]
United States [ edit ]
Recipes for cream cheese can be found in U.S. cookbooks and newspapers beginning in the mid-18th century. By the 1820s, dairy farms in the vicinity of Philadelphia and New York City had gained a reputation for producing the best examples of this cheese. Cream cheese was produced on family farms throughout the country, so quantities made and distributed were typically small.
Around 1873 William A. Lawrence, a dairyman in Chester, New York, was the first to mass-produce cream cheese. In 1872 he purchased a Neufchâtel factory. By adding cream to the process, he developed a richer cheese that he called “cream cheese”.[10] In 1877 Lawrence created the first brand of cream cheese: its logo was a silhouette of a cow followed by the words "Neufchatel & Cream Cheese".
In 1879, to build a larger factory, Lawrence entered into an arrangement with Samuel S. Durland, another Chester merchant.[11] In 1880, Alvah Reynolds, a New York cheese distributor, began to sell the cheese of Lawrence & Durland and called it "Philadelphia Cream Cheese".[12] By the end of 1880, faced with increasing demand for his Philadelphia-brand cheese, Reynolds turned to Charles Green, a second Chester dairyman, who by 1880 had been manufacturing cream cheese as well. Some of Green’s cheese was also sold under the Philadelphia label.
In 1892 Reynolds bought the Empire Cheese Co. of South Edmeston, New York, to produce cheese under his "Philadelphia" label. When the Empire factory burned down in 1900, he asked the newly formed Phenix Cheese Company to produce his cheese, instead. In 1903 Reynolds sold rights to the "Philadelphia" brand name to Phenix Cheese Company, which was under the direction of Jason F. Whitney, Sr. (It merged with Kraft in 1928).[13] By the early 1880s Star cream cheese had emerged as Lawrence & Durland's brand, and Green made World and Globe brands of the cheese. At the turn of the 20th century, New York dairymen were producing cream cheese sold under a number of other brands, as well: Triple Cream (C. Percival), Eagle (F.X. Baumert), Empire (Phenix Cheese Co.), Mohican (International Cheese Co.), Monroe Cheese Co. (Gross & Hoffman), and Nabob (F.H. Legget).[14]
Cream cheese became popular in the Jewish cuisine of New York City, where it is commonly known as a "schmear". It is used on bagels, and is the basis of bagel and cream cheese, a common open-faced sandwich. Lox, capers, and other ingredients are often added to this dish. The basic bagel and cream cheese has become a ubiquitous breakfast and brunch food throughout the United States.
Manufacture [ edit ]
A block of Philadelphia cream cheese
Cream cheese is easy to make at home,[15] and many methods and recipes are used. Consistent, reliable, commercial manufacture is more difficult.[16] Normally, protein molecules in milk have a negative surface charge, which keeps milk in a liquid state; the molecules act as surfactants, forming micelles around the particles of fat and keeping them in emulsion. Lactic acid bacteria are added to pasteurized and homogenized milk. During the fermentation around 22 °C (72 °F),[17] the pH of the milk decreases (it becomes more acidic). Amino acids at the surface of the proteins begin losing charge and become neutral, turning the fat micelles from hydrophilic to hydrophobic state and causing the liquid to coagulate. If the bacteria are left in the milk too long, the pH lowers further, the micelles attain a positive charge, and the mixture returns to liquid form. The key, then, is to kill the bacteria by heating the mixture to 52–63 °C (126–145 °F)[citation needed] at the moment the cheese is at the isoelectric point, meaning the state at which half the ionizable surface amino acids of the proteins are positively charged and half are negative.
Inaccurate timing of the heating can produce inferior or unsalable cheese due to variations in flavor and texture. Cream cheese has a higher fat content than other cheeses, and fat repels water, which tends to separate from the cheese; this can be avoided in commercial production by adding stabilizers such as guar or carob gums to prolong its shelf life.[16]
In Canada, the regulations for cream cheese stipulate that it is made by coagulating cream with the help of bacteria, forming a curd which is then formed into a mass after removing the whey.[18] Some of its ingredients include cream (to adjust milk fat content), salt, nitrogen (to improve spreadability) and several gelling, thickening, stabilizing and emulsifying ingredients such as xanthan gum or gelatin, to a maximum of 0.5 percent.[19] Regulations on preservatives used are that either sorbic acid, or propionic acid may be used independently or combined, but only to a maximum of 3,000 parts per million when used together.[20] The only acceptable enzymes that can be used in manufacturing of cream cheese to be sold in Canada are chymosin A and B, pepsin and rennet.[21]
In Spain and Mexico, cream cheese is sometimes called |
Force generally makes a high volume of attacks they are, for the most part, for rather small numbers (I define this as under 21k). In fact it’s almost inevitable you will have to swing for a not-hit number just to make waves. While it certainly doesn’t feel good having to intentionally whiff an attack keep in mind it’s usually in service to more power later. A poke every now and then may just be what closes the gap between you and your opponent.
Manage your pokes wisely: Branching off from the tip above, while poking is likely inevitable you should still manage how often you do it. It may certainly be tempting to, for example, throw a bunch of pokes at your opponent to make a large Wailing Thavas. However, this may not always be wise. If your opponent has a large number of cards in hand dropping off your rear guard pressure in favor of going all in on Vanguard could very well be a mistake that causes you to lose. Take time to assess the situation going in and weigh the pros and cons of making a poke heavy turn.
Be mindful of Overextension/Greedy Play: Before you decide to drop all your Tidals at G2 to rush your opponent take some time to consider a possible counterattack. If you’re playing a match against an equally rear-guard dependent deck, jumping the gun and trying to rush first could put you behind if they choose to attack your rears. You could end up losing all your momentum if you couldn’t recover. While the clan does have some draw power, overall it is rather susceptible to weak hands. Assess the recovery strength of both your own hand, and your opponent’s deck overall, before you decide to rush. Use tactics like putting your important cards in the back and keeping them relevant using Commander Thavas. Holding onto your rush until the proper time can be what makes or breaks your game.
That’s all I have for my Aqua Force primer. As always I hope you enjoyed. Comments and criticism is always welcome. Feel free to comment if you agree/disagree or have other tips you want to share.
AdvertisementsNEW YORK (Money Magazine) -- Already behind on your mortgage payments? No help there.
Able to make payments even after the rate on your adjustable mortgage moves higher? You can manage on your own.
In a speech Monday, U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson began to address efforts to stave off a foreclosure epidemic by lenders, those who service loans, and investors who hold mortgage debt.
Despite much speculation that Paulson is close to helping coordinate a rescue plan that would broadly freeze levels on adjustable mortgages before they reset to higher rates, Paulson gave few details on how such a plan would work.
He did however say who the plan would help, and it would probably leave out a large number of homeowners stretched by their mortgage payments.
Paulson divided subprime borrowers into four groups. The plan would be most geared toward those who can afford the mortgage now but won't be able to after the adjustment.
The other three groups are largely left out: Borrowers who can afford an adjustment; those who are already behind on their payments; and those who can refinance into a fixed-rate loan
According to the Mortgage Bankers Association, 5.12% of outstanding loans were in default in the second quarter, a rate about 17% higher than a year ago.
The plan would also seemingly exclude borrowers who hold option-ARMs that aren't subprime. These are loans that start with extremely low "teaser" rates before rising dramatically a few years into the loan.
It has also been reported that homes that were bought as investments - as opposed to for the purpose of living in - would be excluded.
More than 50% of the increase in delinquent mortgages are actually investor-related, said Wachovia senior economist Mark Vitner. "It's hard to conceive how many people are actually going to meet this criteria. There's nothing at all in there that addresses investors," said Vitner, who added he doesn't support an investor bailout.
The group that will be helped represents just a narrow slice of the subprime borrowers in trouble, said Michael Shea, housing director of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN). "It helps. Don't get me wrong.... But it's disappointing that we are nearly a year into the crisis and the Treasury Secretary is dealing with the easiest part of the problem."
"It won't help the majority," said Lisa Rice, vice president of the National Fair Housing Alliance, a national organization dedicated to ending housing discrimination. "It's only going to help that one bucket, and it's hard to say how large that bucket will be without knowing the details of how the Treasury Department will assess affordability."
What tools would be available to the other groups? Paulson said that the Administration would recommend that state and local organizations extend their programs to help stretched owners refinance into fixed-rate mortgages. He also pointed to proposed modifications to the Federal Housing Administration that would make FHA loans, which can be more affordable, easier to get.
The limited scope of the plan has caused some consumer advocates to ask if it goes far enough.
Convention in the lending industry is that a family can afford to spend 28 percent of its gross income on housing. But an index put together by the National Association of Home Builders and Wells Fargo suggests that most homeowners spend more than that.
According to the NAHB-Wells Fargo Housing Opportunity Index, only 42 percent of homes sold in the third quarter were affordable to households earning the nation's median income.
What's considered affordable can also be lender specific, Rice said. Joann Jorgensen bought her five-bedroom home in Alexandria, Va. in 2004 with two adjustable-rate mortgages. When she recently tried to get her lenders to lower their payments, the lenders calculated of how much Jorgensen had left after paying for housing and utilities.
The lenders calculation was more than $1,000 per month higher than what Jorgensen figured she would have.
"I don't know how they could have come back with that number," said Jorgensen.
If the government relies on mortgage counseling programs and state- or city-backed bailouts to address the rest of threatened homeowners, the foreclosure problem might get worse, said John Taylor, president of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition.
"You can't counsel a loan down. This isn't happening because those people don't know how to pay their bills. They need a loan modification," he said.LITTLE VALLEY, N.Y. -- First reported by the Olean Times Herald, Cattaraugus County, has for the first time, successfully prosecuted someone for selling heroin that led to an overdose death.
In Olean, Chelsea Lyons will spend 1-3 years in jail for the sale of fentanyl laced heroin that resulted in someone's fatal overdose.
The sentence is a combination of several felonies, but most importantly: criminally negligent homicide.
“And then she pleaded guilty, she also waved her right to appeal, so hopefully this is one for the books,” said District Attorney Lori Rieman.
Rieman says it was Olean Police who first suggested charging dealers with homicide about a year ago.
She hopes this first successful prosecution sends a message to dealers.
“It rides it home that it's a lot more serious, and depending on what they knew, it could even go higher up the homicide scale if the facts were right,” she said.
This next step in fighting the opioid crisis is a small prayer answered for a grieving mother.
Earlier this week, Chris Adamczyk opened up to Channel 2 about what it's like losing a son to drugs.
"I would love to see the drug dealers now being charged with these opiate overdoses. Will that happen? I don't know,” Adamczyk said.
Now, the case against Lyons shows it is starting to happen.
In Erie County, District Attorney John Flynn has been very blunt about wanting to do the same. He was strong on the issue just weeks ago after seven people died from a deadly batch of heroin in 24 hours.
"If I can prove it, I will charge a drug dealer with murder,” said Flynn in a press conference.
Then Wednesday, the Orleans County legislature said in committee hearings that they're going to try and charge dealers with homicide, as well.
It's not easy though. Prosecutors would need to show a strong case that a dealer knowingly sold someone deadly heroin that caused someone to die.
In Cattaraugus County, Chelsea Lyons' text messages were key to the case.
"We were lucky here, there were a lot of digital footprints, I guess I could say,” Rieman said.
This harsher way of prosecuting dealers is spreading, too. This week, the Gates Police Department in Monroe County has, for the first time, charged and alleged heroin dealer with criminally negligent homicide.
That accused seller is not convicted yet like in the Cattaraugus County case, but it does show that law enforcement and prosecutors are going after dealers for more than just dealing.Heat notes as we approach Wednesday's season opener:
### Danny Granger’s knee issues the past two seasons, Luol Deng’s pedestrian play in Cleveland, and their diminished offensive efficiency leave a strong impression that the Heat’s two most pedigreed imports, especially Granger, aren’t what they used to be, that they’re on a downward arc.
But remember this: It was just 20 months ago that Deng was playing in a second consecutive All-Star Game. And it was just 2 ½ years ago that Granger was scoring 19 a game.
And neither would qualify as old: Deng is 29, Granger 31. Both spoke privately in recent days of how driven they are to regain their edge, though Granger knows his bench role will keep his scoring numbers modest.
“A lot of people have written me off with my injuries,” Granger said. “I’m highly motivated.”
With Deng, the falloff has been far more subtle --- reflected not in his scoring average (which has ranged from 15.3 to 17.6 the past five years) but in his shooting percentage, which has plunged from 47.1 in his first seven seasons to 42.4 his past three, including 41.7 during a nondescript 40-game stint for Cleveland last season. His 5.7 rebounding average in 2013-14 was his lowest since his rookie season.
“Distractions do happen but I’m talking about major things,” he said of last season’s trade from Chicago, where he spent his first nine-plus seasons. “That was the first time I had been traded and I was looking for a place to live in the middle of the season. It was a new situation that I really had a hard time with. That was the first time I had been traded. It was a new situation I really had a hard time with."
He blamed his “shooting dip” --- his 30.2 percent shooting on threes ranked among the worst for small forwards last season --- on “me playing terrible.” But he’s determined to fix it. Heat coaches have helped him with balance and footwork.
“I’ve really thought about it and I’m focused on bringing my shooting percentage up, especially the threes,” said Deng, a career 32.9 percent shooter on threes. “I’ve got to be more patient with it. When I was shooting those threes well, I was very patient with it.
“That’s what I’ve got to get back to. This year my shooting percentage should come back up because of the way we move the ball and spread the floor and the spacing. It’s getting back into being in one place and being comfortable with the situation.”
A skilled defender, Deng said he’s at his best offensively “when I’m not predictable. I want to be a guy where I slash, I cut, I get three or four baskets that way, I get a tip-in, I get two threes, I get a midrange shot, I get a basket off the post. That’s what I want to focus on, where I can help the team in so many different ways. Just walk off the floor knowing I did something today.”
Granger said he feels the healthiest he has been since knee problems limited him to 46 games the past two years.
Though he has started 425 of 556 NBA games, he’s at peace coming off the bench and said winning the NBA’s sixth man award “is definitely a goal. It’s a possibility with my role and the way I score.”
After averaging 24.1, 20.5 and 18.7 points over a three-year stretch in Indiana, he played only five games in 2012-13 and 41 with the Pacers and Clippers last season, averaging 8.2 points and shooting just 37.8 percent.
He vows to become a more efficient player here, basing his faith not only on his improved knees but also the reasons Deng cited regarding the Heat’s system.
“That’s one of the reasons I came to Miami; their team shoots 50 percent,” Granger said, aware that since-departed LeBron James was a major reason for that. “They have a lot of layups, a lot of open threes, things some other teams just don’t get, which is why they shot such a high percentage. I definitely think I will be able to do that here. I’m definitely going to be over 40 percent, probably 45, 46.”
One Heat official said of Granger: “He really is huge for us. He’s not 35. He’s 31. He has his footing again.”
Granger concedes: “I’ve probably lost a little athleticism. But I never was the fastest or jumped the highest. I always played a different type of game. I don’t think I’ve lost much.
“The only thing really stopping me the last few years was my knees. I’m definitely in my prime, definitely have a lot of good years left.”
Both Deng and Granger have the canvas to prove that here. Much rides on it financially, with both holding 2015-16 player options: Deng’s for $10.1 million, Granger’s for $2.1 million.
### A scout who has watched the Heat this preseason: “Norris Cole is a backup player, but he’s more of a natural point guard than Mario Chalmers. It might be a modest stroke of genius on Erik [Spoelstra’s] part to play Chalmers as your backup two and maximize what he does best, which is score. He’s much better than Shannon Brown as Wade’s backup.
"Shabazz Napier eventually will be the best of the three as a point guard. As a team, their talent is very comparable to Atlanta, Toronto and Brooklyn, behind Cleveland, Chicago and Washington.”
Dwyane Wade said he is imploring Chalmers to play point guard with the same type of attacking mentality he uses at shooting guard.
### Pat Riley picks his spots now when he speaks to players, but Shawne Williams said Riley firmly delivered this message to the team: “Refuse to be denied.” Riley, Williams said, also implored them “to have an edge.”
### The Heat was last in the league in rebounding last season and that again remains a concern, with Miami outrebounded by 35 in preseason.
Josh McRoberts will help when he's fully healthy, but he ranked just 37th among power forwards in rebounding last season, at 4.8 per game.
But the Heat didn’t want another year of Greg Oden, nor did it want the baggage of Andray Blatche (who signed in China) or Andrew Bynum, who is again out with knee problems.
### Jeff Van Gundy and Chris Bosh agree on this: Bosh must get to the line more.
“Put the ball on the floor and go to the freaking basket!” Rick Barry implored Bosh on WQAM last week.
Last season, Bosh took fewer free throws per game than any center/power forward that averaged as many points.
Because he has played progressively less in the post --- which he vows will change --- his free throw attempts plunged from 590 his last season in Toronto, to 471 his first season in Miami to 272 last season.
“One of the things I’m looking forward to is getting to the free throw line a lot more and shooting 90 percent,” said Bosh, a career 80 percent free-throw shooter.
### In 12 Nevada casinos, the Heat is 35 to 1 to win the title, the 10th shortest odds but behind the Knicks (30 to 1) and Wizards (30 to 1), among others.
### When the Heat meets the Wizards in its season opener Wednesday, Washington will be without injured guard Bradley Beal and suspended power rotation players Nene and DeJuan Blair.
GOLDEN, D'ONOFRIO SNIPPETS
### UM coach Al Golden said today that he's gotten involved recently in play-calling on offense and defense.
"On the fourth and two from the two, that's my call and it didn't go so well the other night," he said.
"Georgia Tech fourth and one from the 30, again that was me. There's a lot of those, and timeouts, constantly going back and forth trying to communicate, share what we see, plot a course for each series. People think it's about the game, it's really about each series, how they're playing, certain groupings, formations and [then the coach decides] how you are going to approach the next series."
### Golden, on emerging linebacker Jermaine Grace: "His preparation has been better, his maturity and poise has been better, his confidence. Being more vocal in the meeting rooms to show he knows what he's doing and is confident and can bring that to the game. All those things are starting to happen. He's going to play a pivotal role because... we do need his ability to change direction and break on the ball and his speed in games."
### Defensive coordinator Mark D'Onofrio said one reason UM has improved defensively is "we've had fewer mental errors each week since the beginning of the season while playing more guys. That's a good sign that guys are learning the defense and we're bringing guys along. We've improved our depth and knowledge and our execution of the scheme. That's the biggest thing."
### D'Onofrio calls North Carolina, which visits Sun Life Stadium on Saturday, "the best team we've played, no doubt, on offense."
### D'Onofrio, on walk-on safety Nantambu Fentress, who had nine tackes against Virginia Tech: "I love the guy. He's been unbelievable. He's been fun to coach. I've always challenged him: 'You can be more than a special teams guy, you can be a starter here, don't sell yourself short. You're tough, you're smart, you're competitive. Don't ever take a back seat to anybody.' I just knew at some point that he'd be a hard guy to keep out of the lineup."
### Susan Miller Degnan and Manny Navarro have a blog on the UM page about UM's latest injury, to left tackle Ereck Flowers. Please see their story about that.... Twitter: @flasportsbuzzFrench Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said Thursday that Russia was sincere in wanting to cooperate in the fight against the Islamic State group in Syria.
"There is an opening, so to speak, with the Russians. We think they are sincere and we must bring together all our forces," Fabius told France Inter radio.
Relations between France and Russia have deteriorated since last year's Ukraine crisis.
But both countries have suffered major terror attacks at the hands of IS in recent weeks -- the coordinated gun and bomb attacks last Friday in Paris, and the bombing of a Russian passenger jet over Egypt last month.
President Francois Hollande called this week for the "bringing together of all those who can realistically fight against this terrorist army in a large and unique coalition", while his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin ordered his navy in the Mediterranean to establish contact with its French counterparts and work together "as allies".
Later on Thursday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced that Moscow is ready to work with the Western coalition fighting the IS if its members respect Syria's sovereignty
"We...are ready for practical cooperation with those countries which are part of the coalition and are ready to develop with them such forms of coordination that of course would respect Syria's sovereignty and the prerogatives of the Syrian leadership," Lavrov said in an interview with state-run Radio of Russia.
"I am convinced that such forms can be found if we take a pragmatic approach."
Russia first launched air strikes on Syria in September at the request of its long-standing ally President Bashar Assad, while a U.S.-led coalition of countries opposed to the Syrian strongman is conducting a separate air campaign against IS.
In the aftermath of the Paris attacks on Friday, French President Francois Hollande called this week for a broad anti-IS coalition, echoing an earlier call made by Putin made at the U.N. General Assembly in September.
Hollande said he would next week discuss his proposal with U.S. President Barack Obama and Putin, who has ordered his navy in the Mediterranean to establish contact with its French counterparts and work together "as allies".
Putin has been seeking to capitalize on shifting dynamics in the West following the Paris carnage and the bombing of a Russian passenger plane over Sinai in October, arguing that Russia and the West should unite against a common enemy.
Lavrov said he first detected a change in the Western position after Putin called for a broad coalition to fight the IS jihadists in Syria.
On Wednesday Russia submitted a revised draft U.N. resolution on fighting the IS group that France said could be partially included in its own Security Council proposal.
"Right now sensible politicians are putting secondary things aside and understand that it's necessary to focus attention on the priority: to prevent efforts by ISIL to conquer positions on the huge territory on Earth," Lavrov said, using another acronym for IS.
Lavrov reiterated Russia's traditional stance that Assad protected the interests of "a significant part of Syrian society" therefore it would not be possible to reach a settlement "without his participation."
"Our Western partners realized the lack of prospects for the approach that many of them had taken," Russia's top diplomat said, referring to the insistence in the West that Assad should immediately step down.
He also praised signs of rapprochement between Russia and the West following months of tensions over Ukraine. "Our Western partners have put some formats on ice," he said, referring to venues such as the NATO-Russia Council.
"But this process is already returning to normal, the work of these mechanisms is resuming."
Also on Thursday, Russia's chief of general staff held talks with his French counterpart on combating the IS in Syria, in the first such contact since the start of the Ukraine conflict last year.
Valery Gerasimov and Pierre de Villiers "discussed on the phone the coordination of military troops' actions against IS terrorists in Syria," the Russian defense ministry said in a statement, adding that the conversation lasted an hour.
The two military chiefs "exchanged their evaluations of the current situation in the country" following calls to unite efforts against IS group by presidents Putin and Hollande.
"The terrorist acts in Paris and on board of the Russian passenger plane are links of one chain," Gerasimov was shown by state television as saying on the phone to his French colleague.
"Our grief and our wrath must help join efforts of Russia and France in the fight against international terrorism."
Putin on Tuesday ordered his navy in the eastern Mediterranean to cooperate with a group of French ships set to arrive in the area Friday and "treat them as allies," which would be the first such joint operation since World War II.
De Villiers and Jean-Yves Le Drian, the defense minister of NATO member France, had no contact with Russian counterparts since Moscow annexed the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine in March 2014, according to a French source familiar with the situation.
Moscow and Paris announced close cooperation against the Islamic State group following the bombing of a Russian airliner over Egypt and the attacks in the French capital, which killed 224 and 129 people respectively.Part of the leaked contents of Crash Override Network included both Skype chat logs and Trello cards. According to former member of Crash Override Network, Ian Miles Cheong, they didn’t use Trello for long because they preferred Stack, but it was a project cooked up by one of the co-founders of Crash Override Network, Alex Lifschitz.
One part of the Trello leaks centered around profiles for various individuals involved in the #GamerGate scandal. The Crash Override Network group kept the cards as a way to document the harassment various individuals received. However, when it came to Anita Sarkeesian, the card was blank.
[Update: For reference, Feminist Frequency is a financial backer and paid sponsor for Crash Override Network, as evidenced on the site.]
The surprisingly barren entry was created on December 21st, 2014 well after dozens of outlets all reported and claimed that Sarkeesian had been the victim of harassment at the tweets, posts, and mean comments of #GamerGate. It doesn’t include the harasser that #Gamergate outed and caught, Mateus Prado Sousa, but that didn’t stop the media from placing the blame on #GamerGate.
On October 17th, 2014 the Rolling Stone claimed…
“Sarkeesian has been treated like Public Enemy Number One by a reactionary community of hardcore gamers who’ve gathered under the “#GamerGate” hashtag. Under the guise of pushing for journalistic reform and anti-censorship in gaming, GamerGate has targeted prominent women critics and designers like Sarkeesian, Zoë Quinn, Brianna Wu and Leigh Alexander with a relentless campaign of threats and harassment.”
So either The Rolling Stone has evidence of harassment that CON failed to cite, or CON couldn’t cite the harassment from #GamerGate because there was none?
On October 17th, 2014, Taylor Wofford at Newsweek wrote…
“The seriousness of the threats leveled against Sarkeesian, and her steadfast reaction to them in recent weeks, have made her an unofficial spokeswoman for those trying to improve the representation of women in gaming.”
They mentioned that a speaking engagement at a Utah university was canceled due to threats, but none of the articles seem to be able to cite any evidence that it had anything whatsoever to do with #GamerGate.
Rich McCormick from The Verge wrote on October 30th, 2014…
“Ostensibly a “consumer revolt” focused on ethics in video game journalism, Gamergate has been criticized for focusing much of its attention on harassing and threatening prominent women in the gaming industry, with Sarkeesian herself the focus of much of the vitriol.”
Again, The Verge has no citations on the claims of harassment. They provide no evidence and they link to no substantial sources.
Eliana Dockterman from Time wrote on October 16th, 2014…
“Around the same time Quinn came under attack, #GamerGate participants began harassing Anita Sarkeesian, a prominent feminist critic who speaks about women’s roles in video game plots and game development. Sarkeesian hosts a show called “Feminist Frequency” on YouTube.”
Dockterman claims #GamerGate participants began to harass Anita Sarkeesian, but no one has been able to link to this harassment. Others like the New York Times and the Huffington Post also make these claims but neither of the two seem to be able to point out where in the vast sea of the internet that these attacks actually occurred?
I asked former member of Crash Override Network, Ian Miles Cheong, if there were any recorded documents or instances of #GamerGate harassing Anita Sarkeesian, he responded by saying…
“That’s a good question. We did not find any evidence of harassment against her.”
He did later state that his team at Gameranx were doxed, however, due to a rogue imageboard group on the chans known as Baphomet, saying…
“There were real instances of harassment by Baphomet, who weren’t #gamergate supporters and were responsible for doxing both sides as well as game journalists. My team got doxed.”
Crash Override Network did have a lengthy list of what they considered to be harassment aimed toward Zoe Quinn. Quinn’s card from the Trello leaks is shown below.
As you can see, the list contains a number of links and citations to what Crash Override Network considered to be harassment against the co-fonder of the organization, Zoe Quinn. They had no links or citations for Anita Sarkeesian. The full dump can be viewed here, where they had extensive dossiers on Twitter users Chobitcoin, Mike Cernovich, and RogueStarGames to name a few.
This fits in line with Newsweek’s own statistical reading of #GamerGate via Brandwatch, which showed that out of 2 million tweets measured between September 1st, 2014 and October 23rd, 2014, the negative tweets directed at Sarkeesian only made up approximately 4% of all the tweets she received during that time from #GamerGate; an estimated 2% of all those tweets were positive and 94% of the tweets were neutral.
According to WAM!, their peer reviewed readings of the #GamerGate hashtag came out with similar results, with only 0.65% of the people on the #GamerGate autoblocker list having been reported for harassment, according to Techraptor.
Essentially, all the statistical data and even the anti-abuse efforts by Crash Override Network have revealed that #GamerGate did not maintain a harassment campaign against Anita Sarkeesian. I attempted to reach out to Sarkeesian for comment but I’m blocked on Twitter.
(Main image courtesy of Paolo Munoz)Sony Xperia won’t tickle everyone’s fancy but there are a lot of loyal customers. It is said that the most loyal customers of any phone brand are that of Sony but the falling sales depict otherwise. We have been Sony fans as well, with their great camera tech, sound tech, and innovation. We couldn’t help but fall in love with the Xperia line of phones. Xperia MWC 2017 is going to be something big as Sony is planning on launching 5 phones.
Sony is planning on flexing its muscles at MWC and it is planning on giving some serious competition to its competitors. The flagship Sony Xperia phone will be powered by a Snapdragon 835 processor and 4GB or 6GB of LPDDR4 RAM. We are betting on 4GB RAM as of late Sony has not been focusing on high number in the RAM department rather than giving appropriate amount of RAM. The screen is said to be 4K (3840×2160 pixls) which means it would be as crisp as your dreams. There is an all new image sensor and Sony is definitely getting it right with its latest and greatest IMX 400 camera module. The screen size is rumored to be 5.5 inch. That is our preferred sweet spot after our extensive research on phones.
The second Sony Xperia phone is a phone with QHD resolution (2560×1440) and the screen size remains the same at 5.5 inches. The second phone is said to be powered by Snapdragon 835 as well or Snapdragon 653. The RAM would be 4GB LPDDR4. The camera module will be the same IMX 400.
Then there is the 5.2 incher Full HD resolution phone. This will have a 4GB RAM, 64GB internal memory and the phone will be powered by MediaTek Helio P20. The phone will have a 23MP camera and a 16MP front facing snapper.
These are the rumors up till now. We would say it is now cheaper to buy a Sony Xperia XZ at a great discount right here. Until the phones launch there will be some time before they become available.
We have always like Sony for its innovation and technology. They pay special attention to camera, audio experience and screen tech but they fail to market it properly. Sony was the first mainstream Android smartphone to have waterproofing before many of us were blown away by Apple iPhone 7’s waterproof features. Sony has proved time and again it is way ahead of its competition by giving innovation. They also gave front firing stereo speakers on their phones, now iPhone 7 has it and suddenly its cool.
We recommend you try Sony phones if you are an enthusiast, you will definitely have a very unique and pleasant experience.The Conservative-dominated Senate wrapped up one of its most difficult sittings in recent memory by flexing its legislative muscle, breaking ranks with the government to block a union-disclosure bill from becoming law.
In a rare departure from strict party discipline, 16 Conservative senators voted against the government's wishes and a further six Tories abstained, passing amendments that essentially gut the bill's key provisions.
Bill C-377 from Conservative MP Russ Hiebert aimed to force unions to disclose all payments made to outside groups or individuals worth $5,000 or more. The bill also sought to force unions to disclose the names and salaries of all employees who are paid more than $100,000.
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The Senate voted to send the amended bill back to the House of Commons, which had already recessed for summer. That means the bill will not be dealt with again until the fall.
Though it was a private member's bill, the government indicated its strong support throughout the process. After the vote, the Prime Minister's Office said it continues to support the principles of the bill and suggested it could be sent back.
"As per Parliamentary convention, we expect that the Senate will respect the will of the House of Commons should the bill be returned to the Senate," said Andrew MacDougall, the Prime Minister's spokesperson, in a statement.
There appears to be many motivations behind Wednesday's Senate vote. Clearly some saw an opportunity to highlight the Red Chamber's role of sober second thought at a time when the institution's very existence is being widely questioned in light of controversy over expenses.
Another motivation was a not-so-subtle push back from Conservative Senators over the handling of another Conservative private member's bill, C-461, the CBC and Public Service Disclosure and Transparency Act.
That bill's sponsor, Edmonton-St. Albert MP Brent Rathgeber quit the Conservative caucus this month after the Conservative majority amended his bill in committee to raise the threshold for disclosing public-servant salaries under the bill from $188,000 to the highest possible payment for deputy ministers, which works out to $444,661.
Conservative Senator Hugh Segal drew from that incident in proposing his successful Senate amendment to the union-disclosure bill. The Segal amendment raised the threshold for disclosing union salaries in the bill from $100,000 to $444,661.
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The amendment also raises the reporting threshold for payments to $150,000 from $5,000 and exempts union locals and unions with fewer than 50,000 members.
Mr. Hiebert, the bill's sponsor, called the vote "disappointing" and said he plans on talking with the senators who approved the amendment to see whether he can change their minds.
Supporters of the bill argue that because union dues are tax deductible, unions should have to disclose their spending to the public. Unions argue they already disclose spending to their own members and that additional reporting would amount to expensive and needless red tape.
Canadian Labour Congress president Ken Georgetti said he would have preferred the see the bill defeated outright. He said he hopes Conservative MPs will take the summer to reconsider their support for the bill.
The federal Privacy Commissioner has expressed concern about the bill, questioning whether there is a public policy justification for making such information public. She also took note of concerns from police representatives, who noted that officers who are involved with unions could be put at risk by having their personal information posted on a government website.
The Senate's Opposition Leader, Liberal James Cowan, said the vote was a good day for the Senate.
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"We're here to provide sober second thought … and that's what we did," he said, before taking a shot at the NDP, which has no senators. "If the NDP had had its way and there was no Senate, Bill C-377 would have been the law of the land months ago."
The NDP praised the Senate's actions, but stood by its position that the institution should be scrapped.
Conservative Senator Marjory LeBreton, the Government Leader in the Senate, acknowledged there was lively debate in the Conservative caucus over the bill. She described Mr. Segal's amendment as "mischievous."
"I think it was a little shot across the bow, acknowledging some of the things that have been in the public," she said.
Mr. Segal rejects the suggestion, though he said "what's good for the goose is good for the gander," when it comes to disclosure.
He said senators simply couldn't ignore the many concerns about the bill, including from provinces warning the bill was unconstitutional.
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"This was a constructive exercise in doing what the upper chamber is constitutionally required to do," he said.
An earlier version of this story stated the Conservative majority amended Brent Rathgeber's bill to raise the threshold for disclosing public-servant salaries under his bill from $150,000 to $444,661. This online version has been corrected.The government is facing calls for an urgent review of student financing after official figures showed that the number of state school pupils going on to higher education had dropped the year tuition fees soared to £9,000.
A report by the Department for Education showed that the percentage of state-educated pupils going on to universities and colleges in 2013/14 fell to 62%, from 66% in the previous year.
When university can seem as distant as Mars | Barbara Ellen Read more
Among those calling for a root and branch review to widen access were the shadow education secretary, Angela Rayner, the National Union of Students and a body representing teachers and lecturers.
They say the cost of university, which often also includes high rent, has become prohibitively expensive for children from low to middle income households. Student maintenance grants for students on low incomes were axed this week and replaced by loans.
Rayner said the government was “slamming the doors” on students who have the talent but not the income to further their education.
The figures represents a widening of the gap between state and independent schools, which sent 85% of their pupils to higher education in the years before and after the fees hike.
The study, Widening Participation in Higher Education, does not indicate whether the fees are a definitive barrier to attending higher education, but notes that the 2013-14 university entrants were the “first cohort where all students were affected by the change in tuition fees in 2012-13”.
The Education minister, Jo Johnson, said more work needed to be done to create “a society that works for everyone”, adding that that “everyone in our country should be allowed to rise as far as their talents will take them, whoever they are and wherever they’re from”.
But Rayner said the reason for the fall was obvious. “It doesn’t take a genius to work out that by tripling tuition fees to £9,000 a year, the Tories have put a huge barrier to higher education in the path of students from low and middle-income families,” she said. “It’s all very well for Jo Johnson to say more needs to be done – but |
-Assad and opposition groups has complicated efforts against the terror group.
The new research underlines how ISIS has inspired attacks abroad and expanded the lethality, frequency, and geographical scope of assaults since its emergence. The group began as a small terror network lead by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a militant Islamist from Jordan, and claimed its first kill in the death of American diplomat Laurence Foley in October 2002.
"Since then, the group … has undergone a complex evolution, including name changes, leadership changes, and shifts in allegiance to other Salafi-jihadist organizations, most notably al-Qaida," the researchers wrote. "In addition, the reach of ISIL’s violence surpasses its own membership, to include attacks carried out by other groups and individuals who have pledged allegiance to ISIL regardless of whether or not formal ties exist."
ISIS and its allies ramped up attacks between 2013 and 2015, after leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi announced that the group would expand to Syria. Attacks increased twofold in 2014 over the previous year, with militants averaging 106 attacks per month. The same year, Obama referred to ISIS and other al Qaeda-linked groups in the Middle East as a "jayvee team" in an interview with the New Yorker. Months later, ISIS executed American journalist James Foley in a video recording dispersed over the internet.
The rate of ISIS-related attacks last year was consistent with data from 2014, the terror group and its affiliates carrying out roughly 102 attacks each month, according to researchers.
Between 2013 and 2015, attacks were largely concentrated in Iraq and Syria but also branched out to other nations including Turkey, Libya, Israel, and France. While the majority of attacks were perpetrated by the group’s core militants in Iraq and Syria, ISIS also inspired attacks in western nations including the United States. The terror group inspired 26 assaults in 2014 and 2015 that killed at least 50 people, including the perpetrators, eight of which occurred in the United States.
The first such attack in the United States took place in April 2014, when a Seattle man shot someone dead in retaliation for the U.S. military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. Ali Muhammad Brown, who killed three other people, was later found to have been on the federal terror watch list and to have pledged to follow ISIS in a journal entry.
The newly released study does not include attacks that occurred this year, meaning it does not cover the June gun attack in Orlando perpetrated by an ISIS sympathizer that killed 49 Americans in the worst domestic terror attack since September 11, 2001.
Experts told the Washington Free Beacon last month that ISIS will continue to instigate large-scale attacks in the Middle East and western countries even as it weathers territorial losses in Iraq and Syria. The group has leveraged social media to reach sympathizers and pro-ISIS hacking groups have disseminated "kill lists" online targeting U.S. civilians and military, government, and law enforcement personnel.
The State Department assessed ISIS as the greatest global terror threat in 2015 in a June report despite territorial losses, highlighting the group’s ability to leverage technology and encourage external attacks.By Chip Brownlee
Alabama Political Reporter
MONTGOMERY — The House Judiciary Committee is expected to take up legislation authorizing the Alabama Prison Transformation Initiative in a meeting Tuesday morning.
The committee will consider SB302, passed by the Senate last month, which would authorize the construction of up to three new men’s prisons. The bill was a toned-down version of the original iteration of the bill and scrapped plans for a new women’s prison.
The House is expected to make several changes to the Senate Bill as it makes its way through the Legislature’s lower chamber, but the basic outline of three new prisons is expected to stay in place.
The Prison Transformation Initiative — an ambitious, albeit controversial plan to reform the landscape of Alabama correctional facilities by consolidating almost all of the men’s prisons into three “mega-prisons” — was former Gov. Robert Bentley’s top priority during the 2017 Legislative Session.
House and Senate leadership has also identified the plan as a priority to finish before the end of the 2017 Legislative Session next week.
The original plan, sponsored by Sen. Cam Ward in the Senate, called for building four new prisons at a cost of $800 million. Three of the prisons would have held 4,000 male offenders a piece, and one would have held 1,200 women. Their location had not been decided.
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A bond would have been issued to cover the costs.
The first iteration of the Alabama Prison Transformation Initiative had strong support among the upper echelons of the Alabama Legislature. But the plan faced fierce opposition from rank-and-file members of the Legislature, who raised concerns over bidding, transparency, cost and the location of the new prisons.
Instead of four new prisons, the legislation that passed the Senate in March will only authorize three new men’s prisons.
And instead of an $800 million bond issued by the State, the legislation only authorizes the Department of Corrections through a bond authority to take $325 million in bonds for one new prison and renovations of existing facilities.
But ADOC can only take out the bond if they find two localities to go first.
Under the legislation Senate version of the bill, the first two prisons will have to be financed by county or local authorities. The localities must establish their own bonding authorities and borrow up to $225 million to build the prisons, which would then be leased back to the State.
The Department of Corrections would first have the authorize the bonds and the plans before any construction began. The localities would have to meet State standards to be considered.
The Alabama Prison Transformation Initiative was conceived by ADOC Commissioner Jeff Dunn and is intended to alleviate several major problems in Alabama’s prisons: increasing costs, dangerous overcrowding and understaffing.
By consolidating the prisons into three mega-facilities, the State could save $50 million a year — enough to finance the bond payments — and wouldn’t need as many guards, ADOC officials have said.
“The State prison system is close to exploding the state budget,” Ward said after the Senate version passed. “We have numerous prisons that were built before the Vietnam War and some pre-date World War Two. The upkeep alone for these facilities is a bleeding hole in our budgets.”
ADOC has said the consolidation using the “mega prisons” would reduce staffing costs by about $17 million a year, overtime payments by $21 million a year and healthcare delivery by $10 million, according to the two independent studies the department commissioned.
The exact savings all depend on the size of the new prisons built by the localities — if they’re built at all.
Email Chip Brownlee at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter.A Portuguese and a Russian were arrested in Rome over the weekend on suspicion of espionage, the European Union's judicial cooperation unit Eurojust said on May 24.
Portuguese media said the arrested Portuguese citizen worked for the national SIS intelligence service and was suspected of being a double agent who was passing sensitive information about NATO and the EU to Russia.
There was no official confirmation of this from either Portugal or Italy, and the two suspects were not named. The Russian Embassy in Rome also declined to comment.
Portugal's prosecutor-general confirmed that Lisbon had requested the twin arrests, saying in a statement that investigations suggested the Portuguese national had handed over information in exchange for money "to a foreign national supposedly linked to a foreign information service."
The Hague-based Eurojust said that besides the two arrests and the seizure of evidence in Italy, house searches were carried out in Portugal as part of the operation.
"Espionage cases are relatively rare, and require unique solutions," Eurojust said.
Based on reporting by Reuters, AFP, and Interfax8. Houston Rockets
Revenge of the nerds! Bill and Jalen decide whether the addition of Dwight Howard will bring a championship to Houston, wonder where Omer Asik will finish the season, and predict that Kevin Durant will eventually join James Harden and Howard on the Rockets to form a new “big three.”
7. Brooklyn Nets
You might not think much of the Brooklyn Nets’ championship chances, but after watching this preview, Bill and Jalen will have you wondering if the added veterans, new coach, and super-expensive starting five can make a run to the Finals. You will also learn how Mikhail Prokhorov convinced Andrei Kirilenko to sign for less in Brooklyn, what Kevin Garnett’s shot chart looks like, and what Jalen was doing in the ’90s with Das EFX.
For more of Bill and Jalen’s NBA Previews, click here.Schools all over the country are weeding out the terrorists
Steve Watson
Infowars.com
Jan 31, 2013
The deadly rise of extremism in America continues as yet another child has been expelled from school for wielding a toy gun.
WLTX news reports that six-year-old Naomi McKinney brought a small transparent plastic toy gun to school for a show and tell, causing her teachers to freak out.
The kindergartner’s father told reporters that he was called to Alice Drive Elementary in Sumter, South Carolina, because his daughter “was fixing to be expelled.”
“I got in the car and rushed down there and when I got in there the principal told me that she had a gun at school and she pulls it out and it is a little clear plastic gun.” Hank McKinney said.
“You have to show some kind of judgment,” the father continued. “I know there is a lot going on with guns and schools and that is tragic but a six year old bringing a toy to school doesn’t know better.”
The school has expelled Naomi indefinitely, saying in a statement that weapons or replica weapons are prohibited. School officials refused to release any pictures or details of the offending item, saying they are “part of the child’s discipline record.”
“I’m sorry anything can be a weapon,” the father said. “A pencil is more of a weapon than the toy gun she brought to school.”
When the parents tried to appeal, the school sent them a letter saying that the girl would be subject to criminal trespassing charges if she is seen on the campus or at any school sponsored event.
Naomi will instead be assigned a home-based instructor from the school district, according to officials.
When asked what her intentions were regarding the dangerous weapon, the girl said “I chose to bring it to school because I thought I could show my friends it because they might like seeing it.”
When asked to react to her expulsion, Naomi said “I felt bad because i didn’t want to miss all my friends”. Clearly she is very much a dangerous terror threat and has been dealt with accordingly.
This case is far from isolated, as we have seen over the past days and weeks, in the wake of the Sandy Hook shooting. It is now a daily occurrence.
Yesterday we reported on the five-year-old in Massachusetts who faces suspension for building a small toy gun out of lego bricks and play-shooting his classmates.
Earlier this week, we reported on an incident that erupted when a discussion between two children about a toy nerf gun caused a lockdown and a massive armed police response at two elementary schools in the Bronx.
Earlier this month, a Long Island high school was also placed on lock down for 6 hours in response to a student carrying a toy nerf gun.
Another incident this month saw a five-year-old girl suspended after a three hour grilling, and described as a “terroristic threat”, when she brought a pink bubble gun to school.
Last week, a South Philadelphia elementary student was searched in front of classmates and threatened with arrest after she mistakenly brought a “paper gun” to school.
A 6-year-old boy was suspended from his elementary school in Maryland for making a gun gesture with his hand and saying “pow”.
Days later another two 6-year-olds in Maryland were suspended for pointing their fingers into gun shapes while playing “cops and robbers” with each other.
In Oklahoma, a five-year-old boy was also recently suspended for making a gun gesture with his hand.
A 13-year-old Middle School seventh grade student in Pennsylvania was also suspended for the same hand gesture.
When will this reign of terror end?
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Steve Watson is the London based writer and editor for Alex Jones’ Infowars.com, and Prisonplanet.com. He has a Masters Degree in International Relations from the School of Politics at The University of Nottingham, and a Bachelor Of Arts Degree in Literature and Creative Writing from Nottingham Trent University.Davone Bess's offseason has gone from funny to frightening. One day, he's tweeting photos of weed. The next, he's having what can only be described as a mental breakdown at the airport. It soon emerged that Bess had another breakdown in March, a month before Miami traded him to Cleveland. The all-important question becomes: Did the Browns know what they were getting?
A police report describes Friday's incident at Fort Lauderdale airport. Bess was seen "acting irrationally"—singing, dancing, his pants falling to his ankles. A deputy approached Bess, who crushed a cup of coffee on the officer, assumed a fighting stance, and removed his shirt before eventually calming down and being arrested.
It wasn't Bess's first run-in with police, as revealed in an incident report obtained by the Miami Herald. On March 11, 2013, when Bess was still with the Dolphins, his mother flew in from California after being told he hadn't slept in three days and wasn't acting like himself. Police arrived at Bess's home to a strong smell of marijuana, and several friends attempting to restrain a raving, incoherent Bess. Police then took their turn:
Six BSO deputies were needed that night to restrain Bess, who was screaming, "Hide the guns!" "Where is my weed?" and "I want to get in the end zone; throw me the football!" according to the incident report.
Bess was taken to the hospital under the Marchman Act, a Florida law that allows for family members to have an individual hospitalized for substance abuse and given a psychiatric assessment without his consent. (It's the drug-focused equivalent of California's more well-known 5150 involuntary psychiatric hold.)
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Whether this was an isolated drug-induced episode or indicative of a larger problem, to a football team, it's merely a line in a personnel file to be used for risk assessment. Forget this guy's mental health—what are the chances it interferes with his ability to play football? On April 26, 2013, Bess was traded to the Browns. Armando Salguero of the Herald reports that the Dolphins were aware of Bess's first hospitalization, but declined to inform the Browns.
But while the Dolphins knew Bess was troubled, sources confirm they took a don't-ask-don't-tell approach on the matter when shopping and trading Bess. The Dolphins did not offer information on Bess's apparent personal instability, according to multiple sources.
The Dolphins were under no obligation to tell the Browns about Bess's meltdown, but it's just good sense to avoid pulling fast ones on trading partners. Like not disclosing a physical injury, eventually the full story is going to get out—and other teams will be wary of dealing with you in the future.
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(Possibly recognizing this, one of Salguero's sources walked it back a bit after publication, telling him the Dolphins warned the Browns to "do their homework" on Bess.)
The incident report for Bess's May hospitalization was available for anyone who wanted it. Adam Beasley, the Herald reporter who first dug it up, told me he only had to submit Bess's name and date of birth to the Broward Country Sheriff's Office. Two hours later, he had the report.
This sounds like basic due diligence. (Wouldn't you assume every NFL team checks for local police records on players it plans to acquire?) It's not clear if the Browns did it, though. Beasley said the Browns "stonewalled" him when he tried to ask straight-up if they had known about Bess's March incident, and my own inquiry hasn't received a response. The Cleveland papers don't know either, making it clear that the Browns' front office is on lockdown on this front.
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From a football point of view, this is yet another embarrassment for first-year GM Michael Lombardi. Rather than letting Bess play out the year remaining on his deal, the Browns signed him to an extension that included $5.75 million in guaranteed money. Since Bess's time in Cleveland is probably done, that's $5.75 million down the drain.
The backlash against Lombardi has begun in earnest, with ESPN Cleveland tallying all of his questionable and downright bad moves, and calls for him to be fired.
From a human point of view, it's depressing that a player with some serious issues was allowed to fall off the radar. This is especially true given that the Browns count their Inner Circle Program among their proudest achievements. Founded by former coach Sam Rutigliano in 1981, it provided help, counseling, and support to players with substance abuse and other mental issues, and was years ahead of the NFL's own substance-abuse program, which still requires a failed drug test.
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Rutigliano believes the Inner Circle saved lives and careers, and was explicitly designed with situations like Bess's in mind.
Medical professionals might have interpreted Bess's tweets as cries for help. Rutigliano certainly sees a player who needs assistance and wonders why the Browns didn't involve Collins, now head of the psychology and psychiatry department at the Cleveland Clinic and a consultant on the NFL's drug program since 2000. "I don't know if Miami knew anything about it and I don't really care. Maybe we could have helped him and we could have avoided what's going on," Rutigliano said
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Cleveland is expected to release Bess once roster moves are allowed on Feb. 3. At 28, another team may take a chance on Bess, but if not, he'll find himself almost completely beyond the reach of the NFL's safety net. It would be a shame if he slipped through because one team failed to do its homework and another wanted an edge in a trade.From time to time Outright Geekery brings you a slanted and biased opinion on some trivially specific topic of geekery. We call it Outright Geekery’s Top o’ the Lot.
There were a ton of rides of all shapes and sizes in a Galaxy Far, Far Away; way too many for a single Lot. Making the trivial crucial, we break the minutia into more minute chunks of awesome! Easier to chew; better for the digestion. And since going Solo was a recurring theme throughout Star Wars, without further ado, it’s Outright Geekery’s Top o’ Lot: Star War Vehicles (One-Seaters).
Honorable Mention: The TIE Family
The Lot just wouldn’t be complete without the addition of at least one of the Empire’s TIE family of starships, and I couldn’t decide. Whether it was the infamous TIE Fighter and Vader’s Advanced X1 design shooting Rebel scum out of the space over way too many planets, or the TIE Bomber shaking asteroids turned makeshift Rebel hideouts, the Top just wouldn’t be the Top without having the TIE make an appearance in the Lot. Although the Shuttle conversion to the Bomber class TIE ship would have otherwise excluded the TIE family of vehicles from this Top o’ the Lot, nostalgia demands they make an appearance. There’s a tank too!
5. Anakin Skywalker’s Podracer
Podracers are kind of like the soapbox racecars kids build and roll down hills…if soapbox racecars were powered by twin F-22 Fighter engines! Jabba the Hutt may have been bored by them, along with a lot of the viewing audience, but the Podracing scene was one of the highlights of an otherwise shabby offering in the film series, and Anakin’s podracer was the focus of the entire race. You couldn’t help but root for the little rugrat despite knowing exactly what a Force-choking meanie he would eventually become. Critical appeal may not have been enough to get it on the Lot, but the great Nintendo 64 game featuring little Annie’s Podracer redirects the power flow just in time, and avoids some Tuskan Raider fire, to get on the Top.
4. The A-Wing Interceptor
The A-Wing was the fastest class ship in the entire Rebel fleet. It was more than a match for the Empire’s TIE fighter squadrons, and even gave the advanced TIE Interceptor a run for its money. Most famously remembered for pilot Arvel Crynyd’s kamikaze attack aimed at the bridge of the massive Star Dreadnought Executor, the concentrated fire of a group of A-Wing’s sent the Dreadnought epically crashing into the Death Star. There may be some better choices than the A-Wing for the Lot, but it’s slanted and biased for a reason, and I dig the hell out of this ship.
3. The Jedi Starfighter
I bet it handles like a dream! This sporty model from Kuat Systems Engineering makes-up for its lack of leg room with streamlined style, never before seen maneuverability and speed that can outrun even the most determined Bounty Hunter, even with seismic charges. With optional hyperspace transport ring accessories available for a slight extra cost, the Jedi Starfighter is THE go-to ship for any Jedi looking to shoot their way onto a cruiser or just for a quick jump across the galaxy to see what the Separatists are up to. If the opening scene of Episode III doesn’t make you immediately fall in love with the Jedi Starfighter you need a higher resolution screen to watch it again. The similarities to future Empirical starships gave it that hint of nostalgia that sends the Jedi Starfighter dodging asteroids on its way to the Top o’ the Lot.
2. Darth Maul’s Bloodfin
It was only seen for a few brief moments onscreen, but it didn’t matter! Darth Maul’s speeder bike was the closest thing to a Harley-Davidson in Star Wars universe, and helped to cement just how badass this Sith really was. Of course, putting any character on a fat hog immediately makes them cooler, and Maul kind of felt like Leonard Smalls from Raising Arizona with an intergalactic feel. It fits; look it up. The FC-20 had a unique impact all its own, surprising Jedi’s with a twisting front flip into the next to the Top Spot o’ the Lot.
1. The X-Wing
The T-65 is one of the most recognizable ships in all of popular culture, and is the ride of choice of those fly-by-the-seats-of-their-pants’ers in Rogue Squadron. The perfect balance of maneuverability, weapons and shielding made it the go-to ship for taking down pesky Empirical TIE Fighters or even a Death Star or two. They even came with advanced on-board weapon’s guidance computers, but who needs a fancy computer when you got some dead old guy in your ear telling you what to do? There’s really just no other choice besides the X-Wing for the Top o’ the Lot o’ Star Wars one-seaters. And, sorry, Droids don’t count.
See a mistake? Disagree with the choices? Tell us what you think about this installment of Top o’ Lot, join in the discussion and share your opinion.
AdvertisementsIf you want to see politics based on emotionalism over reason and a borderline-religious devotion to an iconic figure, forget the Trump Army; look instead to the Cult of Clinton.
Ever since Donald Trump won the presidential election, all eyes, and wringing hands, have been on the white blob who voted for him. These "loud, illiterate and credulous people," as a sap at Salon brands them, think on an "emotional level." Bill Moyers warned that ours is a "dark age of unreason," in which "low information" folks are lining up behind "The Trump Emotion Machine." Andrew Sullivan said Trump supporters relate to him as a "cult leader fused with the idea of the nation."
What's funny about this is not simply that it's the biggest chattering-class hissy fit of the 21st century so far — and chattering-class hissy fits are always funny. It's that whatever you think of Trump (I'm not a fan) or his supporters (I think they're mostly normal, good people), the fact is they've got nothing on the Clinton cult when it comes to creepy, pious worship of a politician.
By the Cult of Hillary Clinton, I don't mean the nearly 62 million Americans who voted for her. I have not one doubt that they are as mixed and normal a bag of people as the Trumpites are. No, I mean the Hillary machine—the celebs and activists and hacks who were so devoted to getting her elected and who have spent the past week sobbing and moaning over her loss. These people exhibit cult-like behavior far more than any Trump cheerer I've come across.
Trump supporters view their man as a leader "fused with the idea of the nation"? Perhaps some do, but at least they don't see him as "light itself." That's how Clinton was described in the subhead of a piece for Lena Dunham's Lenny Letter. "Maybe [Clinton] is more than a president," gushed writer Virginia Heffernan. "Maybe she is an idea, a world-historical heroine, light itself," Nothing this nutty has been said by any of Trump's media fanboys.
"Hillary is Athena," Heffernan continued, adding that "Hillary did everything right in this campaign… She cannot be faulted, criticized, or analyzed for even one more second."
That's a key cry of the Cult of Hillary (as it is among followers of L. Ron Hubbard or devotees of Christ): our gal is beyond criticism, beyond the sober and technical analysis of mere humans. Michael Moore, in his movie Trumpland, looked out at his audience and, with voice breaking, said: "Maybe Hillary could be our Pope Francis."
Or consider Kate McKinnon's post-election opening bit on SNL, in which she played Clinton as a pantsuited angel at a piano singing Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah," her voice almost cracking as she sang: "I told the truth, I didn't come to fool ya." Just imagine if some right-leaning Christian celeb (are there any?) had dolled up as Trump-as-godhead and sang praises to him. It would have been the source of East Coast mirth for years to come. But SNL's Hallelujah for Hillary was seen as perfectly normal.
As with all saints and prophets, all human manifestations of light itself, the problem is never with them, but with us. We mortals are not worthy of Hillary. "Hillary didn't fail us, we failed her," asserted a writer for the Guardian. The press, and by extension the rest of us, "crucified her," claimed someone at Bustle. We always do that to messiahs, assholes that we are.
And of course the light of Hillary had to be guarded against blasphemy. Truly did the Cult of Hillary seek to put her beyond "analysis for even one more second." All that stuff about her emails and Libya was pseudo-scandal, inventions of her aspiring slayers, they told us again and again and again.
As Thomas Frank says, the insistence that Hillary was scandal-free had a blasphemy-deflecting feel to it. The message was that "Hillary was virtually without flaws… a peerless leader clad in saintly white… a caring benefactor of women and children." Mother Teresa in a pantsuit, basically. As a result, wrote Frank, "the act of opening a newspaper started to feel like tuning in to a Cold War propaganda station."
Then there was the reaction to Clinton's loss. It just wasn't normal chattering-class behavior. Of course we expect weeping, wailing videos from the likes of Miley Cyrus and Perez Hilton about how Clinton had been robbed of her moment of glory; that's what celebs do these days. But in the media, too, there was hysteria.
"'I feel hated,' I tell my husband, sobbing in front of the TV in my yoga pants and Hillary sweatshirt, holding my bare neck," said a feminist in the Guardian. Crying was a major theme. A British feminist recalled all the "Clinton-related crying" she had done: "I've cried at the pantsuit flashmob, your Saturday Night Live appearance, and sometimes just while watching the debates." (Wonder if she cried over the women killed as a result of Hillary's machinations in Libya? Probably not. In the mind of the Hillary cultists, that didn't happen—it is utterly spurious, a blasphemy.)
Then there was Lena Dunham, who came out in hives—actual hives—when she heard Clinton had lost. Her party dress "felt tight and itchy." She "ached in the places that make me a woman." I understand being upset and angry at your candidate's loss, but this is something different; this is what happens, not when a politician does badly, but when your savior, your Athena, "light itself," is extinguished. The grief is understandable only in the context of the apocalyptic faith they had put in Hillary. Not since Princess Diana kicked the bucket can I remember such a strange, misplaced belief in one woman, and such a weird, post-modern response to someone's demise (and Clinton isn't even dead! She just lost!).
It's all incredibly revealing. What it points to is a mainstream, Democratic left that is so bereft of ideas and so disconnected from everyday people that it ends up pursuing an utterly substance-free politics of emotion and feeling and doesn't even realize it's doing it. They are good, everyone else is bad; they are light itself, everyone else is darkness; and so no self-awareness can exist and no self-criticism can be entertained. Not for even one second, in Heffernan's words. The Cult of Hillary Clinton is the clearest manifestation yet of the 21st-century problem of life in the political echo chamber.
Mercifully, some mea culpas are now emerging. Some, though not enough, realize that Hillaryites behaved rashly and with unreason. In a brilliant piece titled "The unbearable smugness of the liberal media," Will Rahn recounts how the media allowed itself to become the earthly instrument of Clinton's cause, obsessed with finding out how to make Middle Americans "stop worshiping their false god and accept our gospel."
Indeed. And the failure to make the gospel of Hillary into the actual book of America points to the one good thing about Trump's victory: a willingness among ordinary people to blaspheme against saints, to reject phony saviors, and to sniff at the new secular religion of hollow progressiveness. The liberal political and media establishment offered the little people a supposedly flawless, Francis-like figure of uncommon goodness, and the little people called bullshit on it. That is epic and beautiful, even if nothing else in recent weeks has been.Imagine a kitchen table somewhere in Canada where a family is sitting down to dinner. One of the children says to her parents, "I've finally decided what I'm going to be when I grow up. I'm going to be a politician."
What might the parents do? Most likely they'd turn to each other, white knuckles gripping forks, and then one would say, "Are you sure, sweetheart? Think of all the other meaningful paths you could take. I hear there's lots of work for pirates these days. And jewel thieves."
These are not sterling days for those who seek public office. Turn around and you'll find one politician being drummed out of office by her caucus, another being arrested for drug possession and another pleading stupefaction for not remembering his own drug possession. There is the Fair Elections Act, which seems bent on driving even more Canadians away from the polls. We reached bottom with the spectacle of fired Conservative organizer Dimitri Soudas and his MP fiancée, Eve Adams, taking a photo-op walk with borrowed dogs – actual Potemkin pups.
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Should it be any surprise that voter turnout in Canada (61 per cent at the last federal election) is only slightly higher than it is in Afghanistan (58 per cent, and that's with threats of dismembered limbs)? Is it any wonder, as Alison Loat and Michael MacMillan write in their new book, that "Canadians are checking out of their democracy in droves"?
That book is Tragedy in the Commons, but it could have been called The Haunting of Hill House for its disturbing tales of dysfunction in Ottawa. Ms. Loat and Mr. MacMillan are the founders of Samara, a think tank devoted to increasing political participation in Canada, and Tragedy in the Commons is a collection of interviews with 80 MPs from five political parties after they left politics. "Left" as in "ran screaming from a burning building."
The interviews offer eye-opening insight into a system in deep malaise, with power concentrated in party leaders' offices and individual MPs treated "like potted plants, trained seals or bobbleheads." Party bureaucracies are out of touch not just with average Canadians, but also the candidates running under their banners. Decision-making is jealously guarded at the very highest levels. Dissent isn't just stifled, but suffocated.
Russ Powers, a Liberal MP from 2004 to 2006, talks about the yawning gulf between the idealized vision of federal politicians' roles (betterment of the country) and the reality they find when they arrive in Ottawa: "You're there to develop policy that is self-serving and beneficial to your party in order to keep you in power and get you re-elected."
Or, as Reform-turned-Liberal MP Keith Martin puts it, "The tragedy of the Commons is that the public good is sacrificed on the altar of short-term political gain." He says, "the system works against innovation, works against independent thought, works against representing the constituents." MPs who do not sufficiently kowtow to the party line, or are seen to be more loyal to their constituents than head office, feel the icy of wind of ostracism. (And in Ottawa, that's pretty icy.)
Remember that it's the politicians themselves saying these things, not cranky callers to drive-time radio. The majority of the MPs interviewed "had taken a look at politics and found it wanting." They thought of themselves as mavericks, outsiders, reluctant participants in the political circus.
In other words, even politicians don't like politicians, which is probably the best argument for rehabilitation of the system. Canadians' trust in government, the authors write, was nearly 60 per cent in 1968 and is 28 per cent now.
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So if people inside and outside the system are essentially holding their noses, what's to be done? Clearly, the average citizen needs to find a way to reinvest in the process, because there is no alternative. The country can't be governed with a tournament of rock, paper, scissors.
None of the authors' suggestions is radical: Political party recruitment and fundraising should be more transparent; power in Parliament should be better dispersed and less autocratic. (They see encouraging signs in Michael Chong's Reform Act, a private member's bill that seeks to give some control back to individual MPs.)
As well, there needs to be a recognition that "politician" can be a vocation, not just a costume put on at Halloween to scare the neighbours. Perhaps things won't change by next Halloween, but there's hope somewhere down the road.ZTE Employee Hints at Unlocked Bootloader on Axon 7
One important aspect of how many users decide to buy a phone is whether or not they can root it or flash ROMs. Many users, myself included, hold the ability to root in high regards, and almost find no interest in phones if they are not able to be rooted.
A recent phone making buzz is the ZTE Axon 7. The Axon 7 has turned many heads given its beefy specs and attractive price. As some users on ZTE’s official forums have pointed out, they value having an unlocked bootloader to develop, and the discussion was noticed by the company.
In that same comments section, ZTE employee sshasan left a reply hinting at the future availability of an unlockable bootloader on the Axon 7.
Does this mean that ZTE will officially unlock the bootloaders of the Axon 7? Only time will tell, but that’s a pretty obvious hit if I’ve ever seen it. Keep a close eye on our own ZTE Axon 7 Forums for further developments.Benedict Cumberbatch to host Laureus World Sports Awards
03/24/15
Hugely popular film and TV actor Benedict Cumberbatch is to host next months Laureus World Sports Awards in Shanghai.
Fresh from his latest triumph, playing Bletchley Park scientist Alan Turing in The Imitation Game, which won him Oscar, BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations, Cumberbatch will present the worlds most prestigious sports awards event for the second straight year.
Benedict said: I am delighted the selectors have picked me again to be part of the team for such an important event for the second straight year. We all admire the achievements of the greatest sportsmen and women that we meet, so to be able to share the stage for such a signature moment for them is a treat for me.
I am a big sports enthusiast and last year was a real pleasure for me. I met Tony Hawk, my childhood hero, and had the chance to swap a few running tips with Sebastian Coe and Daley Thompson. And of course it is all for such a good cause. The work Laureus does around the world, using sport to improve the lives of young people, is an inspiration and I am delighted to be part of this very special event.
Benedict has appeared in a series of highly successful films over the last few years, including the Oscar-winning 12 Years a Slave and the Academy Award nominated August: Osage County. In addition he has appeared as Julian Assange in the Wikileaks movie The Fifth Estate and as the Dragon Smaug, in Peter Jacksons The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, plus, of course, his role as Sherlock Holmes in the highly successful TV drama Sherlock.
He has also appeared in Atonement (2007), Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011) and Steven Spielberg's War Horse (2011), and is about to star as Hamlet in Londons West End.
A great supporter of charities, Benedict is an ambassador for the Prince's Trust which aims to help disadvantaged young people in the United Kingdom. After playing scientist Stephen Hawking in the TV production of Hawking in 2004, he has been an active supporter and patron of the Motor Neurone Disease Association.
The 16th Laureus World Sports Awards, which recognise sporting achievement during the calendar year 2014, is the premier honours event on the international sporting calendar. The winners, as voted by the Laureus World Sports Academy, the ultimate |
like nobody's business. She got to know everybody in the industry." Today she's one of the top marijuana business lawyers in the state. Canna Law Group, a practice group within Harris Moure, has about 200 active marijuana clients in Washington and other states. Bricken says their number-one challenge is capitalization: "Running a compliant marijuana business is not cheap." One of her clients is a group made up of a couple of former Microsoft engineers who decided to move into something a little different. Oscar Velasco-Schmitz had opened, with some partners, a medical marijuana cooperative in 2011, called Dockside Cooperative. When recreational marijuana became legal, he and some partners opened Dockside Cannabis. Bricken says she's advised Dockside on forming a corporation, contracts, vendors, landlords, trademark registration, and entering into potential business deals.
While Dockside Cannabis offers a full menu including pre-rolled joints, tea, lemonade, and even vegan and gluten-free bars, it's facing an uphill battle. At the beginning, says Velasco-Schmitz, there was a good demand for recreational pot in Seattle. Then things changed. "As producers have come online, we've seen that go the other way around. Now there's a huge amount of product" and not enough demand. Some 10,000 pounds of cannabis were produced in Washington at the end of the year, and only about 1,000 were consumed. Some 10,000 pounds of cannabis were produced in Washington at the end of the year, and only about 1,000 were consumed. His business is going to take a few years to land in the black, Velasco-Schmitz says. "But we think in the end it will be worth it. We're starting on the ground floor of a nascent industry." Roger Roffman, a professor emeritus at the University of Washington, co-sponsor of the state's medical marijuana initiative, and the author of the book Marijuana Nation, says that the rollout of recreational marijuana in Washington has been slow. "There continues to be a thriving black market, and there continues to be a thriving medical marijuana market with unlicensed entrepreneurs," he says. "It's going to be a while before the system is structured the way it ultimately will be." Bricken sees some form of national legalization developing, whether it's states opting out of prohibition one by one or the result of federal action. That would stimulate investment in marijuana—making her services, no doubt, even more in demand.The Online News Association has honored The Baltimore Sun with two awards for its digital coverage of the Freddie Gray case and the Baltimore riots.
The Sun was honored in the breaking news, medium category, for its live coverage of the Freddie Gray case and the Baltimore riots. Many Sun reporters, photographers, editors, designers and other journalists contributed to the coverage.
The Online Journalism Awards were announced during ONA's annual conference in Los Angeles.
The Sun was also recognized in the explanatory reporting, medium category, for "The 45 Minute Mystery of Freddie Gray's death," a story and interactive video timeline, published April 25, that revealed new information about Gray's arrest and transport in a Baltimore police van on April 12. Gray died a week later from a severe spinal injury.
Sun reporter Kevin Rector wrote the article. Designers Greg Kohn and Adam Marton, visual journalists Catherine Rentz, Amy Davis and Kenneth K. Lam, and video editor Christopher T. Assaf, among others, contributed to the package.
A Mother Jones story, "What Does Gun Violence Really Cost?" also won in the explanatory reporting, medium category.
The two honors are the most Online Journalism Awards won by The Sun in a single year.
The Sun's "Undue Force investigative series on Baltimore police misconduct settlements was a finalist in the medium category for the Al Neuharth Innovation in Investigative Journalism Award. That award was won by The Center for Investigative Reporting ("The Dark Side of the Strawberry").
The Sun won its first Online Journalism Award last year for "Breaking the Silence about the sexual assault of men in the U.S. military.
ONA describes the Online Journalism Awards as "the only comprehensive set of journalism prizes honoring excellence in digital journalism, focusing on independent, community, nonprofit, major media and international news sites."As befits a singer/songwriter who was young enough to have been reading The Scarlet Letter in Language Arts class when she became famous, Taylor Swift’s songs have always been very heavy on recurrent symbols. Her early albums were so reliant on the same shorthand of lyrical signifiers — items to represent romance, anxiety, heartbreak and freedom — that three separate songs on the deluxe edition of 2006’s Fearless include characters throwing rocks or pebbles at windows. Now, Swift’s songwriting has evolved in the years since, and so has her repertoire of metaphors, but it seems she’ll never escape certain go-to emblems — rain, smiles, dancing — entirely.
With her fifth album, 1989, due for release next week, we’ve decided to comb over Taylor’s discography and come up with the ultimate index of her most frequent and meaningful lyrical symbols. Some of them may have followed her to New York, some she may have left behind in Nashville, but they’re all inextricable elements of the Taylor Swift experience to date, and are crucial to understanding the work of one of the best pop songwriters of the 21st century.
Meaning: The scary-but-exciting place where adults move when they become big and important and successful.
Examples: “Some day I’ll be living in a big ol’ city / And all you’re ever gonna be is mean” (“Mean”); “So here I am in my new apartment / In a big city, they just dropped me off” (“Never Grow Up”)
Variations: Los Angeles (“The Lucky One”); New York (“Welcome to New York”); London (“Come Back… Be Here”)
Meaning: The consummate game-changer for young men looking to sweep young women off their feet.
Examples: “And then you’re on your very first date and he’s got a car / And you’re feeling like f-lyyyy-iiiiing” (“Fifteen”); “He opens up my door and I get into his car” (“The Way I Loved You”); “In the front seat of his car / He’s got a one-hand feel on the steering wheel / The other on my heart” (“Our Song”); “You carry me from your car up the stairs” (“The Other Side of the Door”)
Meaning: The hanging ornament that reminds you how everything would be happy and wonderful if that special someone was under them with you.
Examples: “Christmas lights glisten / I’ve got my eye on the door / Just waiting for you to walk in” (“The Moment I Knew”); “When you were putting up the lights this year / Did you notice one less pair of hands?” (“Christmases When You Were Mine”)
Meaning: The ultimate expression of youthful freedom and exuberance.
Examples: “I’m wonderstruck, dancing around all alone” (“Enchanted”); “I’m dancing on my own / I make the moves up as I go” (“Shake It Off”); this scene from the “You Belong With Me” music video
Variations: Dancing in pajams (“Never Grow Up”); Dancing before bedtime (“Ronan”); Dancing in a storm or a parking lot (“Fearless”); Dancing to a new soundtrack forevermore (“Welcome to New York”)
Meaning: The month of incliment weather and impending breakups.
Examples: “I’d go back to Decemeber, turn around and make it all right” (“Back to December”); “Last December / We were built to fall apart” (“Out of the Woods”)
Meaning: The brave face one puts on whilst not-so-secretly dying inside.
Examples: “Drew looks at me / I fake a smile so he won’t see” (“Teardrops on My Guitar”); “And you’re tied together with a smile / But you’re coming undone” (“Tied Together With a Smile); “He can’t see the smile I’m faking” (“The Way I Love You”); “There I was again tonight, forcing laughter, faking smiles” (“Enchanted”)
Meaning: The top priority of the small-town folks you can’t wait to leave behind.
Examples: “And I can see you years from now in a bar / Talking over a football game / With that same big loud opinion / But nobody’s listening” (“Mean”); “But in your life you’ll do things greater than dating the boy on the football team” (“Fifteen”)
Meaning: The entry point of love if opened, the death knell if closed.
Examples: “I hope your love will lead you back to my front door” (“Stay Beautiful”); “And don’t you leave ’cause I know / All I need is on the other side of the door” (“The Other Side of the Door”); “Wishing you were at my door / I’d open up and you would say, ‘Hey'” (“Enchanted”); “I’ve got my eye on the door / Just waiting for you to walk in” (“The Moment I Knew”); “And I just wanna see you back at my front door” (“If This Was a Movie”); “I’d go back in time and change it, but I can’t / So if the chain is on your door, I understand” (“Back to December”)
Variations: Back Door (“You Belong With Me”)
Meaning: Those most callous of trendy individuals, who exist primarily to mock and be mocked.
Examples: “It feels like a perfect night to dress up like hipsters” (“22″); “Hide away and find your peace of mind / With some indie record that’s much cooler than mine” (“We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together”); “They wouldn’t teach you that in prep school so it’s up to me / But no amount of vintage dresses gives you dignity” (“Better Than Revenge”)
Meaning: The most romantic thing you could possibly ever do in your life.
Examples: “Drop everything now / Meet me in the pouring rain / Kiss me on the sidewalk / Take away the pain” (“Sparks Fly”); “But I miss screaming and fighting and kissing in the rain” (“The Way I Loved You”); “Can’t help it if I wanna kiss you in the rain” (“Hey Stephen”)
Meaning: The definitive garment for young women looking to make a memory.
Examples: “When you think happiness / I hope you think that little black dress” (“Tim McGraw”); “And I broke down crying, was she worth this mess? / After everything and that little black dress” (“The Other Side of the Door”)
Variations: Dress (Colorless) (“Dear John,” “Today Was a Fairytale”)
Meaning: The time of the day when all things melodramatic happen.
Examples: “Cause there we are again in the middle of the night” (“All Too Well”); “Oh, I remember you driving to my house / In the middle of the night” (“You Belong With Me”); “Oh, in the middle of the night / Waking from this dream” (“Untouchable”)
Variations: 1:58 AM (“Last Kiss”); 2:00 AM (“The Way I Loved You,” “Enchanted”); 2:30 AM (“Mine”); 4:00 AM (“Come Back… Be Here”)
Meaning: The pant of choice for young men and women of high character, later to be looked back upon with wistful nostalgia for a more innocent time.
Examples: “Think of my head on your chest / And my old faded blue jeans” (“Tim McGraw”); “Got the radio on, my old blue jeans / And I’m wearing my heart on my sleeve” (“A Place in This World)
Variations: Ripped-up jeans (“Long Live”); Worn-out jeans (“You Belong With Me”)
Meaning: The most sentimental conveyance of popular music and most frequent soundtrack to pivotal relationship moments.
Examples: “Someday you’ll turn your radio on / I hope it takes you back to that place” (“Tim McGraw”); “Sing me to sleep / Every night from the radio” (“Superstar”); “Got the radio on, my old blue jeans” (“A Place in This World”); “I look around, turn the radio down / He says, ‘Baby is something wrong?” (“Our Song”); “He smiles, it’s like the radio” (“Stay Beautiful”)
Meaning: Take a guess.
Examles: “I almost didn’t notice / All the roses / And the note that said…” (“Our Song”); “You gave me roses and I left them there to die” (“Back to December”)
Variations: Flowers (“Should’ve Said No,” “Superman”)
Meaning: Warmer to relationships than December, certainly, though still with the hint of impending winter.
Examples: “Time turns flames to embers / You’ll have new Septembers” (“Innocent”); “And how you held me in your arms that September night” (“Back to December”); “September saw a month of tears” (“Tim McGraw”)
Meaning: A pretty clear tell that you’re about to do or say something super-dramatic and/or theatrical.
Examples: “I stand up with shaky hands, all eyes on me” (“Speak Now”); “I said remember this moment in the back of my mind / The time we stood with our shaking hands” (“Long Live”); “Well you stood there with me in the doorway / My hands shake” (“Fearless”)
Meaning: An ideal way to establish a romantic connection with someone.
Examples: “You said you never met one girl / Who had as many James Taylor records as you / But I do” (“Begin Again”); “I know your favorite songs / And you tell me about your dreams” (“You Belong With Me”); the entirety of “Our Song”
Meaning: Second only to dancing alone in terms of intense, engrossing music-related experiences.
Examples: “He’s the song in the car I keep singing” (“Teardrops on My Guitar”); “We’re singing in the car, getting lost upstate” (“All Too Well”).
Meaning: The sweetest and most soulful thing about a person (when not faked).
Examples: “You’ve got a smile that takes me to another planet” (“Today Was a Fairytale”); “Should’ve burst through the door / With that ‘baby I’m right here’ smile,” (“The Moment I Knew”); “And all I’ve seen since eighteen hours ago / Is green eyes and freckles and your smile” (“Everything Has Changed”); “I miss your tanned skin, your sweet smile” (“Back to December”); “You smile that beautiful smile” (“Superstar”); “I see sparks fly whenever you smile” (“Sparks Fly”); “And you’ve got a smile / That can light up this whole town” (“You Belong With Me”)
Meaning: The saddest act of depraved loneliness routinely performed by the heartbroken.
Examples: “And I stare at the phone / He still hasn’t called / And then you feel so low you can’t feel nothing at all” (“Forever & Always”); “Me and my stupid pride are sitting here alone / Going through the photographs, staring at the phone” (“The Other Side of the Door”)
Variations: Dreading the phone (“Dear John”); Refusing to pick up the phone (“You’re Not Sorry”); Throwing the phone across the room (“Stay Stay Stay”)
Meaning: That all-too-brief time of the year when everything is absolutely perfect.
Examples: “And I was right there beside him all summer long” (“Tim McGraw”); “And I think about summer, all the beautiful times” (“Back to December”); “I close my eyes and the flashback starts / I’m standing there on a balcony in summer air” (“Love Story”); “The story starts when it was hot and it was summer and / I had it all, I had him right there where I wanted him” (“Better Than Revenge”)
Meaning: See “Cars.” (Dialect regional to Nashville area.)
Examples: “Two A.M. riding in your truck and all I need is you next to me” (“Mary’s Song”), “I hate that stupid old pickup truck / You never let me drive” (“Picture to Burn”)
Variations: Chevy Truck (“Tim McGraw”)
Meaning: Items to be tapped and have rocks or pebbles thrown at, in order to capture the attention of the young man or woman on the other side in the most charming way possible.
Examples: “Sneakin’ out late, tapping on your window” (“Our Song”); “You were Romeo, you were throwing pebbles” (“Love Story”); “All I really want is you / To stand outside my window throwing pebbles / Screaming, ‘I’m in love with you.'” (“The Other Side of the Door”); “Of all the girls tossing rocks at your window / I’ll be the one waiting there even when it’s cold” (“Hey Stephen”)
Meaning: The most powerful way to venerate or excoriate an intended subject, depending.
Examples: “I’ll fight their doubt and give you faith / With this song for you” (“Ours”); “All those other girls / Well, they’re beautiful / But would they write a song for you?” (“Hey Stephen”); “And she thinks I’m psycho ’cause I like to rhyme her name with things” (“Better Than Revenge”); “The girl in the dress / Wrote you a song” (“Dear John”).
Illustrations by James GrebeyOriginally posted at The Billfold
Last weekend in London I had a cute little lunch at a cute little patisserie in Soho, and was feeling all satisfied with myself until I was on the Strand later in the day and saw the same patisserie—same food, same interior, same smell coming out the door.
Oh, I thought, deflated. It’s a chain.
Suddenly I felt scammed. These punks tricked me! They made me think their little bakery was all artisanal and small-scale, when actually it’s some venture-capitaled, focus-grouped, conveyor-belted profit factory. They probably have a corporate headquarters in midtown Manhattan, some Yale econ grad staring at the surveillance cam footage of my purchase, trying to moneyball me into buying more next time.
So my immediate reaction was Well! Never going there again. But now that I’ve thought about it, I’m less sure of my reaction.
First, let’s get the obvious out of the way: Of course it’s a chain. Soho is one of the most expensive neighborhoods in the world. Thatcher, gentrification, celebrity chefs, they ran mom and pop outta there decades ago. The only businesses that can afford Soho rents do so through high volume, high margins and manufactured cosiness. That “grandma’s cinnamon roll” smell coming out the door is as deliberate as the font above it. What did I expect?
So I should have known. Next up: Who cares? I had a tasty meal at a reasonable price in a pleasant environment. It was precisely what I wanted. What’s the difference if there is a duplicate of my experience happening elsewhere? Or 100 duplicates? Or 1,000?
When I lived in Copenhagen, my favorite bakery was called Lagkagehuset (“layer cake house”), and it had the best bread on the planet. There was only one location in Copenhagen, family owned, and I glowed with self-satisfaction every time I bought a dense loaf of bread or a misshapen (artisanal!) breakfast roll there.
A year after I left Denmark, it was bought by a private equity firm. Now there are nine of them in Copenhagen (industrial!), and last time I visited I walked past one at the airport (monetizers!).
But you know what? The products are exactly the same. Still dense, still misshapen, still crazy-overpriced, still so salty you want to dip them in a cup of water like a hot dog eating contest. The only difference, as far as I can tell, is that now I can buy them in nine places instead of one.
Which brings me to my last point: What am I actually against?
Among my people (urban, lefty, low BMI), places like Starbucks, McDonald’s and Applebee’s have take the role of a kind of punchline, the culinary equivalent of Coldplay. For us, they’re not restaurants or cafes, they’re totems of America’s—and the world’s—relentless, inevitable march toward sameness.
I’m generally sympathetic to this. Starbucks kills independent cafes, McDonald’s cuts down rainforests, Applebee’s wants you to have diabetes.
But in every other aspect of my life, this doesn’t bother me. I wear Nikes, I shop at Safeway, I use rapper-endorsed headphones to drown out the clacking on my MacBook. All of this is just as mass-produced as anything from Starbucks, and yet I willingly (OK, maybe grudgingly) submit.
But chains underpay their workers, my conscience shouts. They get foodstuffs from poor farmers and nonrecyclable lids from petroleum! They donate to ugly political causes!
All that’s probably true, but there’s no reason to think an independent restaurant or café is any better by default. Maybe the guy handmaking the gluten-free scones at that ‘small batch’ bakery makes the same minimum wage as the teenager at McDonald’s. Or maybe he owns the place, and thinks women never should have been given the vote. Just because I have no way of knowing his conditions, impacts or beliefs doesn’t mean they’re not there or that they’re not problematic.
So if I don’t object to chains in principle, and I don’t object to the goods and services of some chains in particular, then all I’m left with is opposition to chains as a class signifier. I reject them not because the food is bad or they’re worse for the planet than other corporations, but because I personally don’t want to be associated with them. Starbucks is for tourists, Applebee’s is for flyovers, McDonald’s is for the poor.
I’m not defending chains, really, I’m not going to start actively seeking them out or anything. I just need to be honest with myself about what I’m avoiding, and why.
My favorite cafe in Berlin is called The Barn. Silky lattes, snobby staff, handwritten prices, brownies dense as Jupiter—it’s perfect. Just before Christmas they opened a second location, closer to my house than their first. If I’m lucky, next year they’ll open a few more.Presenter tells how her relationship with Davies is different from his with Stephen Fry, and reveals her passion for boxing
For years he has been admonished by Stephen Fry for failing to grasp even the most simple brainteasers on QI, but the show’s new presenter Sandi Toksvig has revealed that Alan Davies is far from the dunce he portrays.
Toksvig, the first woman to host a major UK comedy panel show, told ITV’s Lorraine: “He gets it. It’s an act. I have to say he’s one of the cleverest, most charming people I have ever worked with.”
She said her relationship with Davies, who has been a team captain on the BBC programme since it began, would be different from the one the Jonathan Creek star had with Fry.
“He and I honestly have a little bit more of a love fest,” she said. “I like him very much and what he brings to the show. It’s that proper combination of entertainment and information.”
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Davies and Toksvig on QI. Photograph: BBC/Brian Ritchie/Talkback
The presenter told how she had to ask for a bigger chair after taking over from Fry on the BBC show, in which she makes her debut as host later this month.
Sandi Toksvig's QI: 'I'm not here as a mini-me for Stephen Fry' Read more
“Stephen is 6ft 3in and I’m not,” she said. “They had to put up a little platform. I seriously had to climb up on to a platform. They are talking now about the next series and asked me: ‘Is there anything you would like to change? And I said: ‘I wouldn’t mind a chair that fits.’”
Toksvig also revealed that she has shed four stone after taking up boxing, and said she believed the sport offered a good way for people to learn skills to defend themselves against domestic violence.
“I’m absolutely obsessed with boxing,” she said. “I was thinking I should try and box [the Olympic champion] Nicola Adams for a laugh. It would be funny.
“Boxing … is a fantastic defence against domestic violence, and not because they’re going to punch back but because it gives them confidence and it gives them the strength to say: ‘Actually, you’re not going to treat me like that.’”
Fry stepped down as host of QI after 13 years in the role, saying it was “one of the best jobs on television” but that he felt it was time to move on.Ah, the winter holidays. It’s a joyous time filled with family, friends, and the occasional crackling fireplace. For startup founders and other tech industry hangers-on, it’s also an opportunity to toast another year of hypergrowth at plush parties thrown by the venture capital firms that invest in them.
It’s usually a celebratory circuit. But this year things felt different. Founders who would normally be “crushing it” were instead “just grinding away.” Investors who would normally brag about a new deal traded intel on which startups hit their annual revenue targets and which ones badly missed. And gone were the debates over whether we’re in a tech bubble. (We are, according to 73% of founders who responded to a recent survey by First Round Capital.) Instead, the tech industry’s seasonal revelers debated whether or not to include mutual funds like Fidelity and T. Rowe Price in their startup’s next round of funding.
Why shut out the funds? Because that money is a gift that comes with strings attached. For example, late-stage investors have taken to demanding “ratchets” that prioritize their shares if things go sideways. When the November IPO of payment processor Square priced below the company’s most recent private valuation, its last investors (who arguably took the least amount of risk) boosted their returns by diluting the shares of earlier investors. Wall Street funds also tend to regularly recalculate and publish the value of their holdings, leading to sometimes uncomfortable disclosures that weigh on an ascendant startup’s narrative. When Fidelity marked down the value of some of its startup holdings in November, it set off a wave of negative headlines that raised doubts about highly valued companies like Snapchat and Zenefits.
Those moves have added tension to an already awkward relationship between Silicon Valley and Wall Street. Neither side would admit it, but each sees the other as the “dumb money.” For a long time, that view didn’t matter because the arrangement was equally beneficial. When mutual and hedge funds poured huge sums into startups at massive valuations, early-stage venture capitalists could claim another so-called unicorn—a startup worth $1 billion or more—in their portfolio. Founders could keep their companies private for longer, sidestepping public market scrutiny. And the funds gained early exposure to fast-growing companies.
But that relationship has soured. Investors tell me that the vast majority of the 131 startup unicorns missed their 2015 revenue targets, leaving their Wall Street backers seeing red. If a public company missed its expectations, management would have explaining to do. But startup CEOs? “They’re not even humble about it,” one investor grumbled at a holiday cocktail party. “It’s the bravado of someone who doesn’t take their guidance very seriously.”
Founders know the easy money is drying up—nearly all of them believe it will be harder to raise capital next year, First Round says. So all the anxiety about late-stage money felt at this year’s holiday parties may not matter. For the Valley and the Street, the breakup is mutual.
A version of this article appears in the January 1, 2016 issue of Fortune.Get the latest news and videos for this game daily, no spam, no fuss.
Halo 5: Guardians aims to shock and surprise players with its story, which dives into Master Chief's mysterious backstory and his convoluted relationship with a new character named Agent Locke, according to franchise development director Frank O'Connor.
"I think we'll have done a good job if people are shocked at the end of the game and surprised by the direction that [we] took," O'Connor said as part of a new Halo 5 video posted in the Halo Channel.
Through a viral campaign, Microsoft has been teasing that Master Chief may not be all he says he is. Locke is charged with hunting him down, but we don't exactly know why just yet.
The nature of the Locke/Chief relationship remains unclear, though it certainly sounds interesting.
Locke actor Mike Colter mentioned previously that he "can't confirm whether he's a friend or foe of Master Chief," but he also offered up some more clues about that relationship. Locke is on a manhunt for Master Chief, however, "...you won't know what the purpose of finding Master Chief is [right away]. Or what will happen if we do find him, what condition he will be in, and where he's at mentally. But I'm sure that'll be a plot twist in Halo 5."
Although Master Chief remains the main character and hero of Halo 5, Locke will also be playable for portions of the game.
Also in the video, senior designer Alex Cutting said developer 343 Industries is hoping to avoid a sophomore slump with Halo 5. "Anyone can get lucky once," Cutting said about the generally positive reception to Halo 4, the first all-new Halo game that 343 developed. "This is our sophomore effort. This is where we prove whether we can really pull Halo off."
Halo 5 launches exclusively for Xbox One on October 27. This week at Comic-Con, Microsoft announced the biggest multiplayer map in Halo history. GameSpot editors Justin Haywald and Mary Kish also got to play with Halo toy guns in a real-life Halo 5 multiplayer match of sorts. Watch the video below.You don’t need a giant, environment-wrecking dam to capture the energy of a river. That’s the premise Free Flow Power is trying to build its business on, and the company said it now has a project up and running on the Mississippi River that it believes demonstrates the potential of hydrokinetic generation.
Free Flow’s low-key announcement – picked up by media in Boston, where the company has one of three U.S. offices – said it began operating the turbine on June 20 at Plaquemine, La., just south of Baton Rouge. So far, so good, the company said. “The equipment is handling the Mississippi River conditions without power interruptions or degradation,” noted Ed Lovelace, Free Flow chief technology officer.
Free Flow said the turbine is installed on a research surface platform that includes monitoring equipment that measures stream velocity, electrical current and voltage. “Performance to date has been consistent with our design predictions, which makes it very competitive with published data on similar devices being developed around the world,” Lovelace said.
A big issue unaddressed in Free Flow’s announcement is the environmental impact of its submergible turbine, which, as shown in the picture above, looks like a giant airplane jet engine. Despite creating clean power, large-scale, conventional hydropower – AKA, dams – is frowned upon by environmentalists due to its profound impact on river ecology. But there’s hope for smaller-scale hydrokinetic technology: Last fall we wrote about a turbine installed on the Yukon River near the village of Eagle, Alaska, that was apparently living up to its claim of being low-impact.
On its website, Free Flow says it has has permits for more than two dozen projects on the lower Mississippi River between Kentucky and Louisiana that it’s seeking licensing on. Those projects would generate 3,303 megawatts, the company said. An additional 43 projects in the preliminary permitting stage could produce up to 5,371 MW.This was one of those weeks where, even more so than usual, I’d love to know what was left on the cutting room floor. Pretty much every segment of this episode felt like we were missing something. In some cases, those missing pieces were standard and not totally necessary, but in others, they were vital. Methinks the editing department went a little snip-happy this week.
The typical missing pieces would be the bits of Kristina‘s date not pertaining to her past. Where was the light banter, the romance, the conversation that resulted in her getting that rose? I absolutely appreciated and was moved by her (heart-wrenching) backstory and am glad (as long as she’s glad) that it got shared. But, there’s a whole lot more to her (at least a decade’s worth) that I for one am also curious about. And I actually do feel there’s a great chemistry between Nick and Kristina but my issue is we never really got to SEE it. But, again, this sort of glossing over is par for the course. We’ve seen this kind of stuff not get shown plenty of times before.
In the Group Date, however, there were large chunks of storyline that I, as a viewer, felt I would’ve needed in order to know what the hell was going on. At one point Vanessa said, “How can my relationship get to another level when all Nick’s experiencing is me being competitive at a volleyball game?” It’s totally normal for Group Dates to have group daytime activities and then the more personal 1-on-1 times in the evening. Why would Vanessa’s interactions with him be limited to this volleyball game? Mid-game Rachel said, “I quit. I don’t want to play” and later, “I’m not going to compete for Nick’s attention…. I just don’t feel valued.” Even the normally Switzerland-esque Danielle M said, “I’m crying over a stupid f-cking volleyball game… This whole environment is about how much time you have, and when you don’t get that time or that time’s taken from you, it’s like, there goes your shot.” And Vanessa again chimed in with, “I’m fed up with having to compete for time.” Based on all that, I have a hard time believing this volleyball game was not begun without the premise that the winning team would get time with Nick and the losing team would have to go home. That’s not unheard of in Bachelor land (in fact, it’s pretty standard), making me wonder WHY, in this case, that stipulation wasn’t shared? Especially since so many women—even the normally “together” ladies like Vanessa, Danielle M and Rachel—were seriously losing their cool about it. What else happened here? Did a team actually love? Was there some fight? They all went on the evening portion of the date, so did Nick have a change of heart? Again, none of this is anything we haven’t seen before, so why would we be kept in the dark this time? It only makes me more curious about what’s behind the curtain. What didn’t they want us to see here?
Related: A GIF by GIF Guide to The Bachelor: Episode 6
My frustrations don’t end there, sadly. As the 2-on-1 unfolded it became obvious that Danielle L wasn’t the most popular lady in the house. The shock I had about this reminded me of Ben’s season; it became apparent (also in Episode 6!) that Leah wasn’t necessarily well-liked when her sabotage of Lauren B came as no surprise to anyone. But, so much time had been dedicated to Olivia that this friction came completely out of the blue. This season, perhaps if so much excess airtime hadn’t been spent focusing on Corinne vs. Taylor, we’d have had the slightest clue why Whitney, Vanessa, and Danielle M (and who knows who else) all felt Danielle L wasn’t “ready for a relationship” or wasn’t “right for Nick”. (I don’t care how “not right” or “not ready” a girl is; if she’s well-liked, no one’s going to call her out on it.) What piece of the Danielle L puzzle are we missing? Two episodes ago she had a 1-on-1 which was loaded with chemistry. Personally, I’m not super surprised Danielle L isn’t Nick’s final lady, but I am surprised by how early she went, especially since precisely why she went is still unclear to me. And no, “the relationship fizzled” doesn’t suffice when a mere two weeks prior she received a 1-on-1 date rose. Again, what didn’t they want us to see involving Danielle L and the other women? And personally I’d be curious to know: Is all this news to her?
My frontrunners after this bloodbath of an episode are as follows…
1. Vanessa, 29: We saw a rainbow of emotions from Vanessa this week. There were hilarious moments with her early in the Group Date, followed by such aggravation on her part that I wanted to give her a hug through my television screen. We didn’t see her conversation with Nick in the evening portion of the Group Date (after her tears), which normally I would see as a bad sign, but honestly, she’s so far ahead of the pack in my eyes that her ranking can afford that and still stay #1.
2. Rachel, 31: I was surprised to hear Rachel say “I just don’t feel valued” when just last week she had such an epic 1-on-1. Now, I’m the first to admit that the Bachelor filming process is like the land of Narnia in its time warp; one week can feel like a month, so maybe Rachel really is in the post-1-on-1 downswing. (Again, we were missing so many parts to make sense of this downswing.) Regardless, her 1-on-1 is still fresh on my mind and Nick doesn’t look at many of the women the way he does her. Rachel stays.
3. Raven, 25: Raven’s very much a constant; her reactions, interactions, and commentary are consistently shown, PLUS she got this week’s Group Date rose. I’m still waiting to see romance between her and Nick jump out at me, but in the meantime Nick really seems to trust in her, and she is a bonafide fixture of the season.
4. Kristina, 24: After her fairly late 1-on-1, I’m getting some dark horse vibes from Kristina. (Remember |
one question, Was creating a superior sequel important?JJ Abrams: Hi I’m JJ. (JJ signs an autograph for me, as I mention we are wearing matching glasses.) Well, I set out to entertain and excite, keep people happy and make the best possible science fiction story with a human element as possible.
As Abrams walks away, shaking my hand, I say: Your early comedy writing, especially Taking Care of Business was hilarious, do you ever want to revisit that kind of non-special effects film again?
JJ Abrams: It’s possible one day. Thank you very much.
–+–
Meanwhile, Zachary Quinto (Spock) rushes past skipping up the red carpet on a mission saying to us “I’ll be back.” He didn’t.
Amidst a massive of screams, a bearded Chris Pine comes over for a chat.
I know a lot of people who may only see this film only because you’re in it, not so much Star Trek or sci-fi fans, simply admirers of your work.
Chris Pine: First of all, there is a big knock against science fiction that it’s a geeky realm where some people think they are too cool to go. But you think about Transformers, Batman, Green Lantern or whatever, it’s all science fiction and other worldly. This movie is really an action thriller where much of it takes place on Earth. The situations that these characters go through are very real in various aspects, the terrorism they encounter is similar to what we face today for real. It may have space ships and be a future world, but the things they deal with are very current, very real, very here and now.
In the movie you say “Respect the chair!” So how does Kirk mature in this film and how hard was it off the set not to give out that major secret in the film?
Chris Pine: Nice question. Kirk’s journey is huge in this one; he goes from that kind of kid we know from the first film, who was a brash, a young punk having a great old time Captain-ing the ship to realising how real, scary, vulnerable that position is.
At the time he didn’t know he was a good leader or what his strengths were, he was finding himself in this quicksand of self-doubt that was really scary for him. I think he works himself out of it in this one. Keeping the secret was easy, we had a great time in JJ’s camp, we are absolutely part of the cult, if JJ wants to hide things from fans to make the experience going to the film THAT MUCH MORE exciting, I’m all for it.
Your relationship with Bones is a winner again; it has also developed.
Chris Pine: (Laughing, shaking my hand, taking a small step towards me) I love me some Karl Urban man, a great guy.
Star Trek Into Darkness hits theaters in 2D, 3D and IMAX on May 10, 2013!
Shane A. Bassett is a contributor for TheYoungFolks.com. Read more about him on our Partners & Contributors page.
Liked it? Take a second to support The Young Folks on Patreon!Solar City and Tesla CEO Elon Musk unveiled the exciting Tesla Solar Tiles Panels. However, as we are on the verge of a solar revolution, should you consider going solar?
Smart Homes are a step forward towards a future of interconnectivity of devices. Through the power of home automation, we are able to manage our resources better. With a connected home, we have more time for our personal activities. What’s more, smart home devices are often energy efficient, helping us reduce our carbon footprint and save up on our energy bills. While solar energy is not a common topic among home automation enthusiasts, the recent announcement from Tesla sparked a conversation within the community on the growing solar industry. We were extremely enthusiastic about the unveiling of the Tesla Solar Tiles and chances are, you are excited about the solar future as well. However, investing in solar power is a major decision, which should be considered carefully.
The Costs of Solar Power
In recent years, the solar market has been growing exponentially and with major investment in the technology, there is a correlating trend of price drops and rise of the efficiency of solar panels. Today, solar panels are shaping up to become a great investment. In fact, the price of solar panels is currently the lowest it has been in the last decade, while the efficiency of the current panels is growing. Nevertheless, going solar is still a huge investment.
The Beauty of Design of the Tesla Solar Tile Panels
Through Solar City, Tesla and Elon Musk are bringing us something we haven’t seen up until this point in solar technology. The beauty of the design of the Tesla Solar Tile Panels is something that can bring a wider audience to solar. Making the green energy a sufficient design choice for rooftops,the tile panels might be the right step forward for the industry. With the tiles, you won’t need to put an ugly rectangle on top of your house, in order to be greener. Instead, you can make your roof look amazingly modern and still receive the benefits of a reduced energy bills.
Sufficient Power and Houses Running on Batteries
Nevertheless, the Tesla Solar Tile panels won’t be a good investment without the Tesla Power Wall battery. According to Elon Musk, a solar roof in combination with the power wall will be sufficient for a four-bedroom home to have infinite electricity. Up until this point, the major concern with power has been the need of an additional generator or an energy supply for the cloudier days and throughout the night. However, with a battery of the caliber of the Power Wall, we may truly be on the verge of a solar revolution.
Should you invest?
If you are considering to invest in solar energy, we would advise you to wait a few years. Making your home smarter means that you need to make your home more efficient. However, we may very well be on the verge of a major solar revolution. With that in mind, it’s hard to see now as the perfect time to invest in solar, simply because the technology needs a kick, such as the release of the Tesla Solar Panel tiles, to truly become a valuable option for the future.
For more news and info on the home automation and the smart home world, make sure to stay tuned to BuildYourSmartHome.coStyleDemocracy challenged me with the task of investigating a Zellers store that I drive past nearly every day, just West of Toronto. Yes, you read that correctly… a ZELLERS STORE! This appears to be one of the last Zellers stores in Canada, in fact. (*Editor’s Note: the original article stated that this location is the last in Canada. The article has been adjusted to reflect the correct information.)
You may have spotted the dated, red Zellers logo from the highway if you’re a frequent QEW commuter. I noticed it every now and again, but have never given it a second thought (it wasn’t a Target after all). When I ventured over to the abandoned looking Kipling Queensway Mall, I was surprised to find what I (and many others online,) would describe as a Hudson’s Bay Outlet, disguised as a Zellers store. Note: all items are labeled with Hudson’s Bay price tags.
Located at 1255 The Queensway in Etobicoke sits a large Zellers store carrying discounted items by mid to high-end designer brands typically sold at Hudson’s Bay. I was pleasantly surprised and impressed by the clearance selection of handbags by Nine West, Ralph Lauren, (the now-loathed) Ivanka Trump, Dooney & Bourke, and Kensie all right at the entrance. Note: all items were still in great condition without any rips or tears.
In addition to a hearty accessories department at this Zellers store, I found footwear, home décor, family apparel and a MASSIVE furniture department. Note: if you’re looking for a discounted mattress or couch, try here!
Despite this Zellers store appearing fully stocked, I have to pre-warn you about the inventory selection (it’s nothing to get excited about). After finding a rack of long, summer BCBG dresses for only $8, I was disappointed to see that all twenty dresses on the rack were either a size XS or XXL. The same large quantities of identical apparel filled other racks and the size selections were either one extreme or the other.
Then there’s pricing… After a quick lap around this Zellers store, I was confident that I was shopping in a full-fledged clearance or liquidation store. Until I picked up a pair of Nike runners in the shoe department and asked a sales associate to clarify the sale price for me. That’s when I learned that the shoes I was holding were not in fact on sale, but regular price because they were new spring merchandise. “Huh?” The price tag clearly looked as though a sale sticker had been ripped from over top of it. Tip: Know your pricing and don’t get fooled by “XX% off” stickers! Not everything at this Zellers is a deal.
Have you visited this Zellers store? Have you spotted another Zellers location in Canada? Leave a comment below.
All image by Cristina Avila
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10 Things Every Hudson’s Bay Shopper Needs to KnowKikolani features a weekly series called Fetching Friday. It has been exciting to see the series take off, and I thought I would share some of the elements, benefits and tips of writing a weekly blog series.
The Consistency Element
I chose Fetching Friday because I wanted an article that really summed up the best of the week. Fridays are not usually that popular in the blogging world, so I thought it was a great day to catch people’s interest. Also, the basic items in Fetching Friday are generally consistent from week to week. Readers can expect to find the resources mashup at the top, which contains the best articles I have found over the week, #FollowFriday recommendations, related news, previews, and a random video – sort of a TGIF treat!
Benefits of Consistency – Having the article appear on a consistent time interval, plus regularly including the items that readers like the most makes the articles more sticky, memorable and likely to attract regular readers. Also, keeping a consistent style for each article in the series allows you to create a template, further simplifying the process of creating the new post each week.
Tips on Consistency – If you choose a particular day of the week for your weekly series, pick a catchy, short title with the day included. I researched a lot of different titles before coming up with Fetching Friday – you want to make your series title unique and memorable! Also, don’t abandon the post just because it is late. While it is best to get it published as early possible on the chosen day, giving it to your readers a day later is better than not at all, disrupting the rhythm.
The Reader Interest Element
Chances are if you have been blogging for awhile, you have a good idea of what information the majority of your readers are interested in. This knowledge is what I use to guide my choices of articles in the Resources Mashup. Currently, the top subjects my readers are wanting to read more about is blogging, social media, personal development, business, SEO, and technical articles.
Benefits of Focusing on Reader Interest – This one is pretty simple. If your articles cater to your readers, then your readers will return for more and share with members of their community as well.
Tips on Reader Interest – How do you find out your reader’s interests? Start in your comments section – read and respond, and follow the author’s link to their blog and see what they write about. Chances are you will see a pattern across all of your commentators’ sites. New to blogging or do not have a community yet? Why not visit more established blogs on the same subject, and do the same thing – check out their comments and commentators!
The Link Love Element
While I do include some articles from the top authorities on subjects in the resources mashup, I also give a lot of link love to those in my community. Why? Because I believe that if an article could be beneficial to readers, it should be shared.
Benefits of Link Love – Again, this one is pretty obvious. It shows your community that you do read their content as well and, thus, care about their interests. It shows your community that you want to bring them the best information possible, whether or not you were the one who wrote it. And with the trackbacks, it notifies other bloggers that may not have visited your site before that you found their article useful, which may bring them in as a new reader to your series as well.
Tips on Link Love – Don’t include articles just to get a more popular blogger’s attention. Your first goal in link love sharing is to benefit your readers, not just to flatter other blog owners. Also, keep the articles that you want to include in your weekly series in one place – either tagged on a particular social bookmarking network or as you find articles, go ahead and add them to the template for the upcoming article.
The Twitter Trend Element
Since I love the idea of recommending your favorite Twitter members to all of your friends, I thought I would extend special #FollowFriday recommendations on the Fetching Friday series as well.
Benefits of Riding a Twitter Trend – By having #FollowFriday recommendations in my article, I can include that tag into the article title. So anytime the article is shared on Twitter, it is not only exposed to the followers of the Twitter member who shares it, but also to everyone searching and interested in the #FollowFriday trend.
Tips on Selecting Twitter Trends – Not interested in #MusicMonday, #FollowFriday, or other weekly Twitter trends? Why not check out the top trending topics of the day (via sites like What the Trend, Hashtags.org, or the Trending Topics section of the Twitter sidebar) and write a blurb in your article about that topic to include in your title?
The Related News Element
The related news section of Fetching Friday contains site updates, social networking news, or simply personal updates on other projects.
Benefits of Related News – This is a great section to share with your readers any changes that is going on in relation to you or your blog. New sections (archives or categories) or opportunities (advertising or guest posting), communities based on your site (Facebook pages or groups elsewhere), and something personal to let readers know about the person behind the blog (wedding photos or other goals) are all things that can be related news.
Tips on Related News – This is a great place to announce things that you want to bring attention to, but don’t necessarily want to write a full blog article about.
The Preview and Review Element
Up until now, I have been including a preview for upcoming articles in the next week. I also plan to start adding a week in review section starting this coming Friday.
Benefits of Preivews and Reviews – Since there are readers that may be coming in for just the Fetching Friday, I hope to draw their attention to other articles that have been written during the week, and peak their interest into returning earlier the next week (or better yet, subscribing) to catch the previewed articles as well. The bonus for doing previews is that it forces me to plan ahead on what the next week’s articles will be, as opposed to finding myself on Monday in a slump because I haven’t a clue what I want to write about. And of course, let’s not forget the SEO benefits of internal linking to your own posts.
Tips on Previews and Reviews – If you know your reader interest, especially related to your weekly series, make sure that any articles you are trying to draw their attention to is related to those topics.
The Video Element
I include random videos that I have added to my favorites over the week on YouTube or Vimeo. Since I have a lot of friends that are YouTube junkies, and lots of people in my StumbleUpon community that share videos, it is usually not too hard to come across an interesting video each week.
Benefits of the Video Element – One statistic that is overlooked when counting pageviews and referrers is the bounce rate, or the amount of time people spend once they arrive on your site. Aside from writing essay – long articles, there is nothing better than a video to keep your reader on your page for a longer amount of time.
Tips on Videos – You can go two ways with videos. Either you can search for videos that are related to your topic and reader interests. You can go for humorous and otherwise interesting, as most people with any area of interests like to laugh or learn something new. Or you can go for something that is just something you like, to show your readers a more personal side of you, the author.
Your Thoughts & Opinions on Weekly Series
Are you a fan of Fetching Friday and have a particular favorite element? Does your blog have a weekly series with other unique elements? Do you think a weekly series would be beneficial to your blog? Join the discussion below with your thoughts, ideas and tips!Following some excellent work by Emma Brownbill, copies of meeting minutes from the North’s “Gender Governance Group” (G3) have been uncovered. Formed in 2005, this was initially a forum for gender practitioners from the North of England to discuss their experiences but lately has taken a slightly more sinister turn. It seems the group is concerned about the more progressive approach taken by Charing Cross becoming the UK standard and wants to have input into the forthcoming Royal College of Psychiatrists’ Standards of Care and UK-wide NHS commissioning guidelines to ensure they can carry on as they are. (The UK-wide NHS commissioning guidelines may now not happen: it depends on the NHS Reform Bill passing)
Yes, you read that right: they’re worried about Charing Cross being more liberal.
Edit: This has also been written about by Emma Brownbill and Sarah Brown.
Edit 2: I’ve been advised I should add a trigger warning to this post: Some folk are finding this upsetting.
One could possibly forgive the group, which at the time consisted of just Sheffield, Leeds, Leicester and York, for not having heard of a “genderless patient” in 2005. After all, back then not many gender-neutral folk would have had the courage to be completely open with the NHS. One surgeon suggested this could be “Scoptic syndrome“, which I’ve never heard of, but may be a typo.
But the group hasn’t improved. Here is one quote from the minutes in 2009 that’s quite revealing regarding the attitude of some doctors towards their patients – the doctor works at Leicester GIC.
[A doctor] spoke to the group about the issue of unintentionally creating “she-men”: patients who have breasts and are on hormones but don’t have final surgery as they don’t want to go any further. These patients continue to live full time as female but with male genitalia. Many of the services present at the meeting had examples of this happening
Further comments also in 2009 show that the clinicians were “wary” of folk requesting just an orchiectomy, despite a surgeon present stating this wasn’t anything new and there were few follow-up issues from this treatment.
Glasgow had similar issues in 2010, referring to a “highly intellectualised” patient who it appears also identifies as gender-neutral, but is repeatedly misgendered as “he” throughout the meeting. Clinicians did not seem to know how to handle this situation due to a lack of an “evidence-base” (as if any of their other work relies on one!) Luckily (for the patient, not for the GIC!) they apparently know their rights and how they can be treated. It seems the patient may also have had to resort to legal threats, as there is a note that the Equality Bill (as it then was) “only mentions FtM/MtF“.
Think you have legal rights?
So is it just those people that don’t fit the nice stereotype and wear frilly dresses or excessively manly outfits to their meetings that they’re uncomfortable with? Sadly not. It seems they are not keen on any of their patients having legal rights at all. One of the rights gained under the Gender Recognition Act allowed people to have complete separation of their old records and details from their new ones, so you can’t be “outed” to medical staff. (After one bad incident, my details are withheld from the central NHS database, the “spine”)
Following a discussion in March 2009, it appears most of the members would discharge patients that actually tried to insist on this, as they were quite keen on their “right not to give care“. There was no discussion about finding an accommodation. Legal rights, or NHS treatment: a simple choice.
Similar applies if you ask for your notes not to be transferred. Given the approach of some doctors I can quite understand patients not wanting unknown material to be handed over effectively scuppering their chances of getting treatment. This is a no-no for many doctors. If you won’t let them see your previous psychiatric notes, they won’t treat you.
It’s probably no surprise to learn that the Department of Health wrote to lead clinicians at the clinics in 2009 reminding them of their legal responsibilities, although the Equality Act was dismissed in 2010 as not applying to the clinics because they work in mental health. (In Scotland and some other countries, gender services are not necessarily lead by mental health)
Even a Gender Recognition Certificate won’t help you. Also in 2010 a trans man (Who has a GRC and has been transitioned for a couple of decades) tried to push for bottom surgery without a second opinion, but they refused. The implication from the minutes is that either he had already had a negative second opinion or that if he did it would be refused as the Gender Clinic regarded his presentation as “chaotic“.
Presumably any non-trans individuals who want genital surgery because of an accident would also be refused if the doctors thought they were acting a little camp?
Based on the above, one might suspect the clinics have a few unhappy patients. Despite this, it was reported in April 2010 that the results of a user survey had “astounded” researchers due to the differences between the NHS and Independent Sectors.
Other organisations aren’t happy either
Other organisations have their concerns about some of the clinics too, and this has not made the members of the G3 group happy. There was grumbling about the Equality and Human Rights Commissions’ report into trans healthcare, with it being claimed “the document could lead to confusion to service users“. Similarly, Leeds were getting “harassing emails” which they found “not very pleasant” because a Department of Health leaflet “doesn’t reflect what they do“. I would guess the DoH leaflet probably states what they should be doing however.
Charing Cross do not appear to be too pleased either, as surgeons who work closely with them refused to accept referrals from Northern GIC clinicians until May 2010 and insisted on having a Charing Cross based doctor performing the second referral. The members of G3 felt that surgeons in London “did not appear to have knowledge of the credibility of services in the UK“. Given one quite vocal member of the group refers to his patients as “she-men“, I’m not entirely convinced they have as much credibility as they would like to think.
Going for a power grab
So, what are the next steps for the G3 members? The national Standards of Care may be published soon, so they keep saying, and the NHS Reform Bill could be more pressing as it would centralise policy. Once that happens, “in commissioning there can’t be any differences any more“.
One would hope that they would aim to work towards the new WPATH Standards of Care, but instead they are clearly wanting to stop things heading in that direction and force the more restrictive RCPsych/UK Standards of Care on everyone. They refused to let a private doctor join the group in 2007, unless he signed up to the new but still draft UK SoC.
It’s not surprising they want to stop others moving forward with care because as of 2008 at least one GIC, Northampton, were “not keen” on the old WPATH Standards of Care. That’s the previous version by the way, as the new one is even more progressive so they presumably hate that even more.
The approach favoured by some members want the group to take “clear clinical governance” and heavier involvement in national commissioning and the UK SoC, which they feel may be applicable not just to the NHS but also the private sector. If they do this, they hope the standards and guidelines will be “flexible enough for all teams to work with” as their current “concern is if they talk to Charing Cross to agree and commission then things will be modelled around Charing Cross.”
But you can forget any actual trans folk or the private doctors having significant input into this process as these quotes illustrate:
When National Standard agreed there would be a one day event and we felt at that stage there was a need for a national body and that is should be for professionals only instead of users and carers
D also made the team aware that the largest independent provider in London, Charing Cross won’t talk to this person. so is there any problem in excluding the independent sector? K said the national standards of care is written for the independent sector and the NHS. A thinks the private sector is a bit of a complication at this stage
This approach would let them carry on with their current practices, such as Nottingham restarting people from square one even if they’ve been private before. (That was 2008, although they did insist they won’t take people off HRT)
For trans men, many doctors – although this is apparently a controversial point within the group – want the ability to impose a 12 month wait and two opinions before allowing top surgery (something that might be required for a trans man to pass at all) despite the WPATH SoC only mandating one opinion.
Leeds and Nottingham are currently requiring “evidence of physical examinations” from GPs for even a referral, even though this isn’t in the WPATH guidelines anywhere at all. Just the pre-surgical exam can be traumatic enough for transfolk when it’s with experienced nurses and surgeons, without an inexperienced GP having to go looking down there too.
I’ll close with this October 2011 quote:
Leeds have struggled recently with GIRES putting pressure on them regarding hormones and real life experience. Leeds clarified that they have two stages of RLE, the stage before hormone and assessment 6 months, RLE 2 years before surgery
This is the kind of regime that they’re fighting to preserve.The modern world has been reinventing our relationship with energy for some time now. Cars are turning away from fossil fuels and relying ever more on electricity to make them go, while wind and solar power are slowly but surely helping to reduce our reliance on dirty energy. But what if we could actually reduce our reliance on electricity, too? A team of scientists at MIT have been working on something that might make that possible, and it’s like something straight out of a sci-fi movie.
Imagine a future where your bedside table is lit not with a power-sucking lamp, but a pleasant potted plant. MIT researchers have taken a huge step towards that potential future by creating plants that actually glow in the dark, and they’re pretty darn cool-looking to boot.
To create their glowing plant prototypes, the scientists relied on an enzyme that many of us are already familiar with, even if you’ve never heard the name. It’s called luciferase, and it’s the same enzyme that allows fireflies to emit bright flashes of light in the dead of night.
Nanoparticle packages containing the enzyme along with the molecule luciferin, upon which it acts, and co-enzyme A which promotes the process, were applied to watercress plants. The particles release the luciferin slowly over time, entering the plant cells where the luciferase is ready and waiting to make the light show happen.
At first, the glowing effect lasted less than an hour, but as the processes was tweaked that figure jumped to nearly four hours. The scientists believe that with further improvement, they may reach a point where the materials can be applied to a plant just once while yielding a lifetime of useful lighting.
“Our target is to perform one treatment when the plant is a seedling or a mature plant, and have it last for the lifetime of the plant,” Michael Strano, senior author of the research, explains. “Our work very seriously opens up the doorway to streetlamps that are nothing but treated trees, and to indirect lighting around homes.”
Eventually, the light output of the plants may be able to change depending on conditions, allowing treated plants to look perfectly normal in the daytime but glow brightly at night.The Indians announced that they have officially signed Daisuke Matsuzaka to a minor league contract with a Spring Training invitation. Matsuzaka will make a $1.5MM base salary if he makes the team, according to Paul Hoynes of the Plain Dealer (on Twitter). Matsuzaka, a Scott Boras client, can earn up to $4MM on the deal, according to Jon Heyman of CBSSports.com (Twitter link).
The deal reunites the former Red Sox right-hander with manager Terry Francona. Matsuzaka has made just 18 big league starts over the last two seasons thanks to Tommy John surgery. For his six years in Boston, the Japanese import owns a 4.52 ERA with 8.2 K/9 and 4.3 BB/9. He also earned nearly $52MM as a member of the Red Sox.
Heyman first reported the sides had agreed to a deal (Twitter link).Constance Mary Whitehouse CBE (née Hutcheson; 13 June 1910 – 23 November 2001), known as Mary Whitehouse, was an English social activist who opposed social liberalism and the mainstream British media, both of which she accused of encouraging a more permissive society. She was the founder and first president of the National Viewers' and Listeners' Association, through which she led a longstanding campaign against the BBC. A social conservative, she was disparagingly termed a reactionary by her socially liberal opponents. Her motivation derived from her traditional Christian beliefs, her aversion to the rapid social and political changes in British society of the 1960s and her work as a teacher of sex education.[2]
Born in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, Whitehouse became an art teacher, at the same time becoming involved in evangelical Christian groups such as the Student Christian Movement (which became increasingly more liberal leading up to and after a 1928 split with the Universities and Colleges Christian Fellowship) and Moral Re-Armament. She became a public figure via the Clean-Up TV pressure group, established in 1964, in which she was the most prominent figure. The following year she founded the National Viewers' and Listeners' Association, using it as a platform to criticise the BBC for what she perceived as a lack of accountability, and excessive use of bad language and portrayals of sex and violence in its programmes. As a result, she became an object of mockery in the media.
During the 1970s she broadened her activities, and was a leading figure in the Nationwide Festival of Light, a Christian campaign that gained mass support for a period. She initiated a successful private prosecution against Gay News on the grounds of blasphemous libel, the first such case for more than 50 years. Another private prosecution was against the director of the play The Romans in Britain, which had been performed at the National Theatre.
Whitehouse's campaigns continue to divide opinion. Her critics have accused her of being a highly censorious figure, and her traditional moral convictions brought her into direct conflict with advocates of the sexual revolution, feminism and gay rights. Others see her more positively and believe she was attempting to halt a decline in what they perceived as Britain's moral standards. According to Ben Thompson, the editor of an anthology of Whitehouse-related letters published in 2012: "From... feminist anti-pornography campaigns to the executive naming and shaming strategies of UK Uncut, her ideological and tactical influence has been discernible in all sorts of unexpected places in recent years."[3]
Early life [ edit ]
Born in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, Whitehouse was the second of four children of a "less-than-successful businessman" and a "necessarily resourceful mother".[4] She won a scholarship to Chester City Grammar School,[5] where she was keen on hockey and tennis,[4] and after leaving she did two years of unpaid apprentice teaching at St John's School in Chester, Cheshire. At the Cheshire County Teacher Training College in Crewe, Cheshire, specialising in secondary school art teaching, she was involved with the Student Christian Movement before qualifying in 1932. She became an art teacher at Lichfield Road School in Lichfield, Staffordshire, where she stayed for eight years.
She joined the Wolverhampton branch of the Oxford Group, later known as Moral Re-Armament (MRA), in 1935.[6] At MRA meetings, she met Ernest Raymond Whitehouse; they married in 1940 and remained married until he died in Colchester, Essex, aged 87, in 2000.[7] The couple had five sons, two of whom (twins) died in infancy.[8]
After raising her sons in their earliest years, Whitehouse returned to teaching in 1953. That year she broadcast on Woman's Hour on the day before the coronation of Elizabeth II "as a loyal housewife and subject" and wrote an extensive article on homosexuality for The Sunday Times.[3] According to Thompson this concerned how a mother might "best avoid inadvertently pressuring her sons towards that particular orientation", and gained enough attention to be republished as a pamphlet.[3]
She taught art at Madeley Modern School in Madeley, Shropshire from 1960, taking responsibility for sex education. Shocked at the moral beliefs of her pupils, she became concerned about what she and many others perceived as declining moral standards in the British media, especially in the BBC.
Clean Up TV campaign and the NVALA [ edit ]
Beginnings [ edit ]
Whitehouse began her activism in 1963 with a letter to the BBC[9] requesting to see Hugh Greene, the BBC's Director-General. Greene was out of the country at the time, so she accepted an invitation to meet Harman Grisewood, his deputy,[10] a Roman Catholic who she felt listened to her with understanding.[11] Over the next few months though, she continued to be dissatisfied with what she saw on television.
With Norah Buckland, the wife of a vicar, she launched the Clean Up TV Campaign in January 1964 with a manifesto appealing to the "women of Britain". The campaign's first public meeting, on 5 May 1964, was held in Birmingham's Town Hall.[12] Richard Whitehouse, one of her sons, recalled in 2008: "Coaches arrived from all over the country. Two thousand people poured in and suddenly there was my mother on a podium inspiring them to rapturous applause. Her hands were shaking. But she didn't stop".[1]
Although he regularly clashed with Whitehouse, the academic Richard Hoggart shared some of her opinions and was present on the platform with her at this meeting.[13] The Times commented the following day: "Perhaps never before in the history of the Birmingham Town Hall has such a successful meeting been sponsored by such a flimsy organisation".[14]
Sir Hugh Greene at the BBC [ edit ]
Greene, knighted in January 1964,[15] became her bête noire. He was, according to Whitehouse, "the devil incarnate"[16] who "more than anybody else... [was] responsible for the moral collapse in this country".[17] The CUTV manifesto asserted that the BBC under Greene spread "the propaganda of disbelief, doubt and dirt... promiscuity, infidelity and drinking".[18] In place of this, the authors argued, the Corporation's activities should "encourage and sustain faith in God and bring Him back to the hearts of our family and national life".[19][20] Interviewed by The Catholic Herald for its Christmas 1965 issue, Whitehouse thought the BBC loaded its programmes in favour of the 'new morality'.[21] She commented about one unnamed television programme, believing it to be "unbalanced" and biased, in which "youngsters were asking questions there was not a single member of the panel who was prepared to say outright that pre-marital relations were wrong. In fact when a girl asked a clergyman 'Do you think that fornication is sin', he replied. 'It depends on what you mean by sin and what you mean by fornication.'" Whitehouse thought it was a "big hazard" for "present-day children" that "so many adults do not stand for anything", and affirmed that it was the responsibility of the BBC to have a "missionary role" to compensate for this social deficiency.[21]
The Clean Up TV petition, using the manifesto, gained 500,000 signatures. Whitehouse complained in 1993 that during Greene's period at the BBC, "hardly a week went by without a sniping reference to me".[5] Whitehouse's critics responded quickly. The playwright David Turner had heckled her[17] at Birmingham Town Hall; his work was criticised during the meeting.[11] Within a few months, an episode of Swizzlewick, a twice-weekly serial he created, featured a parody of her as Mrs Smallgood.[22]
In a speech Greene delivered in 1965, he argued, without naming Whitehouse directly, that the critics of his liberalisation of broadcasting policy would "attack whatever does not underwrite a set of prior assumptions", and saw the potential for "a dangerous form of censorship...which works by causing artists and writers not to take risks". He defended the right of the BBC "to be ahead of public opinion".[23] Greene ignored Whitehouse, blocked her from participation in BBC broadcasts, and purchased a painting of Whitehouse with five breasts[17] by James Lawrence Isherwood.
The National Viewers' and Listeners' Association (now known as Mediawatch-UK) was launched to succeed CUTV in November 1965,[12] replacing what they themselves perceived as CUTV's negativity with an active campaign for legislative change.[24] The former cabinet minister Bill Deedes, later editor of The Daily Telegraph, supported the group in this period and was the leading speaker at NVALA's founding conference in Birmingham on 30 April 1966,[25] and acted as a contact between his parliamentary colleagues and Whitehouse.[26] Quintin Hogg, better known as Lord Hailsham, was another high-profile politician who gave his support to NVALA and Whitehouse at this time.[25]
Through the letters she frequently sent to Harold Wilson, the Prime Minister, Whitehouse caused particular difficulties for civil servants at 10 Downing Street.[27] Reportedly, for some time Downing Street intentionally "lost" her letters to avoid having to respond to them.[ |
is pulled out a lighter and Martin’s wallet, handed them back and began walking away.
Martin, who has filed a civil lawsuit against Goris and the city in Brooklyn Federal Court, claims he then reiterated to the officer that he had no right to search his pockets. Goris turned and smirked, prompting Martin to ask jokingly, “Where’s the hundred dollars that was in my pocket?”
“I make too much money to take a hundred dollars out of your pocket,” Goris allegedly responded.
Martin, at the urging of witnesses, then asked for Goris’s name and badge number.
Another officer told Martin he was going to jail for making the accusation, according to the lawsuit. Martin says in the lawsuit that he was just joking, but the other officer responded, “You want to be a smart ass and make accusations, you go to jail."
Martin was arrested, taken to the 77th Precinct station house and issued two disorderly conduct summonses. Meanwhile, his van, filled with Christmas presents for a trip to South Carolina, was left unattended with the engine running. The car was stolen before Martin’s wife returned to the car, according to the lawsuit.
Martin accused the officers of purposely leaving the car running to teach him a lesson. When he asked about his car while being hauled away, an officer responded, “That’s too bad, you should have thought of that before being a smart ass.”
The Civilian Complaint Review Board — whose mandate is to investigate allegations of police misconduct involving excessive force, abuse of authority, discourtesy and offensive language — verified that Goris abused his power and conducted an unwarranted stop-and-frisk.
Until recently the CCRB could only pass along those findings and disciplinary recommendations to the NYPD, which would then conduct its own administrative trial.
But under an agreement reached between the police department and the CCRB in April, now when the watchdog agency substantiates allegations and recommends serious discipline, it prosecutes the administrative trial itself.
An administrative law judge presides over the trial and issues a decision and disciplinary action. However, the NYPD commissioner has final say on what punishment to mete out.
Christopher Dunn, the associate legal director of the New York City Civil Liberties Union, said the CCRB's prosecutorial role will add a new layer of impartiality to the proceedings.
"When it comes to prosecuting police officers accused of mistreating civilians, it is essential that those cases be handled by someone independent of the police department," said Dunn, whose organization has legally challenged the NYPD's stop-and-frisk policy.
"This improves the quality of the prosecutions and should bolster public confidence in the fairness of the process. For these reasons, we have supported the shift to the CCRB handling these police-misconduct cases."
Stop-and-frisk has been a hot-button topic during the past year, looming largely over the mayoral race.
When Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio announced Bill Bratton as his choice for NYPD commissioner last week, he vowed to change stop-and-frisk policing.
The tactic has also been the subject of high-profile lawsuits. In August, Manhattan Federal Judge Shira Schiendlin rebuked the NYPD over the tactic, claiming the department used it to racially profile New Yorkers. She ordered a litany of remedies, including a federal monitor for the NYPD.
Goris’ trial began Dec. 4 with testimony from Martin. The next hearing date is Jan. 17.
Martin declined to comment. The two summonses issued to him were eventually dismissed.
Goris' lawyers also declined to comment.
The officer's case is the second to be prosecuted by the CCRB. The first case, which began in November, involves a Queens officer accused of being discourteous to three Catholic high school seniors while searching for assault suspects.
CCRB investigators found that officer Newton Hun stopped the students and cursed at them when one questioned why he wanted to look at their knuckles.
Overall, the CCRB’s prosecution unit is working on 129 cases, with 22 more trials on the calendar from now until March. About 52 percent of the 129 cases involve stop-and-frisk charges.MICHEAL Luck did not bother looking. Sure it hurt, but this Warriors hardman had work to do.
"I'm not about to lie down when there are tackles to make," Luck said. "I had to get up. It was 16-16 and they were on our line."
Unassuming and underrated, Luck will go down in rugby league folklore after getting up and rejoining the defensive line despite suffering one of the game's most gruesome injuries.
With an 18cm gash above his knee that later had his teammates dry-retching and comparing it to a shark attack, the footy warrior limped across field chasing down a kick before being carried off on a stretcher.
"I went in to make a tackle [on Anthony Watmough] and his boot must have hit my leg," Luck said.
"I felt some pain but didn't think much of it."
At first Luck thought it was a cork. His leg burned above the knee and it failed to respond when he heaved it away from the ruck, leaving him to drag his boot along the ground as Watmough stayed down waiting for his trainer.
But as he ran back to defend his line, he put his hand down to feel the pain and almost lost his finger.
"I just went to rub it," Luck said. "You know, rub it like it was a cork, and then my finger sunk into it and I thought 'eeew'.
"I didn't realise how bad it was. Until I looked at it I just thought it was a cork.
"Once we had that break in play I realised how bad it was.
"Our trainers and the Manly trainers were brilliant: they were straight on there and they had me back in the Manly sheds and then in the ambulance pretty quick."
Luck doesn't know how much blood he lost. Doesn't know how many stitches he got either after spending two nights in Royal North Shore Hospital. But that is part of the appeal of this no-nonsense tacking machine from North Queensland, who doesn't need a badge to prove how tough he is.
"I haven't unwrapped it yet and I didn't ask about the blood loss," Luck said.
"I had surgery Sunday and I've kept it wrapped.
"I probably lost a bit I'd say, but it didn't matter."
Luck has no issues with Watmough or the cleats that opened him up. There were suggestions yesterday that the referees may have failed in their duty to check players' boots before the match, but Luck was having none of it.
"Nothing like that," Luck said. "It was just a freak accident. One in a million."
Luck is hopeful of returning to the field this year as the Warriors charge toward the finals but isn't sure when.
"No idea," he said.
"I didn't speak to the surgeon. As soon as I was conscious I jumped on a plane and came back to Auckland. I'll have to wait and see how the injury heals."
Originally published as Is Luck the toughest man in league?Signs for the 82nd Avenue of the Roses Parade and Carnival coming down on Wednesday - KATU photo
PORTLAND, Ore. – The annual 82nd Avenue of the Roses parade typically kicks off Portland’s parade season, however this year it was called off amid threats of a clash between protesters and marchers with the Republican Party.
The threatening email surfaced over the weekend, and singled out members of the Multnomah County Republican Party (MCRP) who were planning to take part in the parade. Several members of the community, including Portland commissioners and protest groups, have since spoken out against the threats of violence.
The email, sent from "thegiver@riseup.net," said they planned to have “two hundred or more people rush into the parade into the middle and drag and push them out.”
While the author of the email did not specify any affiliation to a particular group, they did include links to two different Facebook events of counter-protests; one by Direct Action Alliance and the other from Oregon Students Empowered.
The Portland Rose Festival Foundation said the parade organizers at Venture Portland were left with few options but to cancel the 82nd Avenue of the Roses.
MCRP chair James Buchal said that Venture Portland asked them to withdraw from the parade, an event they’ve participated in for several years.
Buchal declined the offer and instead called on Portland Police Chief Mike Marshman, Multnomah County DA Rod Underhill, and Mayor Ted Wheeler to provide security. (Read his statement below)
Rich Jarvis, a spokesperson for the Rose Festival Foundation, says organizers could not legally un-invite the MCRP to the parade because they were already approved. He added that Venture Portland canceled the event out of an abundance of caution, considering the potential safety impacts to all attendees at the parade.
“You can't really prevent it. You can be aware, you can be ready, anticipate, but if somebody's going to do something to interrupt or to attack - if you want to use that word - you can't really be in position to prevent it,” said Jarvis.
Now that the parade is canceled, community members are encouraging people to support businesses along SE 82nd Avenue on Saturday.
"This parade is away for east Portland to be proud of their community, from Lents to Montavilla to Mount Tabor and everywhere in between," Royal Rosarian Adam Baker said. "People who were going to come to the parade, come out and have lunch on 82nd, buy services or go to shops and just support the community."
Officials with the Rose Festival Foundation said their three most popular parades - the Starlight Parade, the Junior Parade and the Grand Floral Parade scheduled on June 3, 7, and 10, respectively - are still "business as usual."
Below are statements on the cancellation of the 11th annual 82nd Avenue of the Roses parade:
Initial statement from the Multnomah County Republican Party, along with the email:
Statement from the Rose Festival Foundation:
The Portland Rose Festival has inspired the public to gather and celebrate against a backdrop of historic external forces for the past 110 years. This year's Rose Festival will be another brilliant example of how a community can both honor diversity and celebrate unity.
The organizers of one of the Rose Festival's partner events--the 82nd Avenue of Roses Parade--recently decided to cancel their event in the interest of public safety. The Portland Rose Festival Foundation respects this decision but has no intention of following suit. As always, the Rose Festival will work closely with City leaders, Portland Police and other public agencies to ensure the comfort and safety of festival-goers and participants.
Traditional Rose Festival events begin Memorial Day weekend, with CityFair in downtown Portland and Fleet Week June 7-11. Rose Festival's three popular parades--the Starlight Parade, the Junior Parade and the Grand Floral Parade--will take place on Saturday, June 3; Wednesday, June 7; and Saturday, June 10, respectively. The parade lineups are filled with entries that will delight and inspire festival-goers.
The Portland Rose Festival Foundation is a 501(c)(3) non-profit that serves families and individuals with programs and events that promote the arts, education and volunteerism. We value environmental responsibility, diversity, patriotism and our historic & floral heritage.
Statement from Direct Action Alliance:
We condemn the erroneous reporting by mainstream news media outlets that link our organization to the letter that is being cited as the cause for the cancellation of this parade. It has resulted in countless amounts of death threats and intimidation directed at me and my family.
Direct Action Alliance and those affiliated with this group did not publish, produce or distribute the letter in question.
We are members of this community and like the Republican Party, our members have participated in past parades without incident.
It is unfortunate that some people choose to blame our organization for the cancellation of this event.
Unfortunately, the Trump regime has emboldened fringe and neo-nazi elements who did not traditionally march amongst the Republican contingent but who are now welcomed into the the ranks. Unfortunately, the "authorities" within the Republican party have decided to provide a safe-space for this kind of hate and discrimination.
This could have been resolved if any other "authority" (either within the republican party, the parade organizers, or the city) had stepped in to prevent known neo-nazis from politicizing the event and intimidating the local community, one of the most diverse in Portland.
We are disappointed that the Multnomah Republicans planned to allow a neo-nazi hate group march in their event, through the very community that said hate group has previously terrorized.
We are saddened that the organizers felt that they had to cancel the event because the Republican party refused to separate themselves from these violent neo-nazis.
We will continue be a voice for non-violent resistance and we will always defend our community.
Follow-up statement from the MCRP:
We are very disappointed at the cancellation of the Parade. Criminals committed to riot and disorder have bullied the parade organizers into causing Oregon moms, dads, kids, and well- meaning community organizations to lose their opportunity to participate in this cherished annual Oregon tradition. We are also angry that, once again, local civic leaders didn't do enough to prevent organized gangs of criminal thugs from running rampant in the City.
According to the criminal elements, they control the streets of Portland. This is a form of domestic terrorism, and our public officials are not responding appropriately. Worse than doing nothing, their refusal to take appropriate action enables these domestic terrorists to restrict the rights of other Oregonians.”
“Most Portlanders think we are long past any reasonable tolerance of this behavior, and the Multnomah County Republicans stand with them to demand that:
Those making criminal threats face full consequences under the law for their terroristic threats and actions;
The City’s law enforcement authorities conduct a full investigation and a transparent accounting to the public of what is being done to prevent problems like this in the future;
Local and national media give these groups strict scrutiny and stop making excuses for the instigators of these problems; and
The City’s leaders make new policy that puts the safety and freedom of innocent citizens ahead of license to violent protesters.
We urge the Portland Police to provide adequate protection for attendees and participants so the Parade and Carnival can be reinstated and proceed as originally planned by the 82nd Avenue of Roses Business Association.
“The bottom line is that Portland needs to choose between supporting terrorist thugs and protecting average citizens who want to participate in their community," said Multnomah Republican Party Chair James Buchal. “The Multnomah County Republican Party is not composed of ‘Nazis’ and ‘white supremacists’,” said Buchal, “and those who think we would tolerate marching in a parade with folks carrying swastikas are delusional.”MPL unveiled a “PIP39” industrial PC with a quad-core, 2.1GHz Core i7, ECC RAM, dual SATA bays, and protection against extreme temperatures, shock, and ESD.
Most industrial computers are claimed to be rugged, but the PIP39 seems to go the extra kilometer, so to speak, even compared to MPL’s highly ruggedized CEC10. Entirely designed and manufactured in Switzerland, the highly customizable PIP39 appears ready to resist the worst that nature — or the factory floor — can dish out.
MPL’s rugged PIP39
The highly customizable system features a standard PIP housing (DIN-Rail or Flange), and runs on a soldered, quad-core, 2.1GHz Intel Core i7-3612QE (Ivy Bridge) CPU with up to 16GB of DDR3 ECC RAM.
An MPL spokesperson confirmed in an email that the “PIP39 as well as all other MPL CPU products are fully Linux supported.” Although a specific version was not mentioned, the PIP39 presumably is supported with the same Debian Linux distribution that’s available with the company’s CEC10 system.
Ruggedization and reliability features on the PIP39 are said to include:
Long-term availability up to 10 years, repair-ability up to 20 years
-20 to 60°C operating temperatures
Shock and vibration resistance per EN 60068
EMC resistance per EN 55022, EN 55024, EN 61000, MIL-STD-461E
Environmental and safety per EN 50155, MIL-STD-810F, EN 60601, EN 60950
Approvals including CE, IEC 60945, IACS E10
Optional IP67 MIL protected housing
PCB engineered for best thermal conduction to enclosure (high heat dissipation components located on bottom).
6x GND planes in PCB for improved thermal conduction and signal transmission line reference path
Soldered CPU for better thermal conduction and reliability
ECC RAM for greater reliability
ESD protection on most components (SATA, GbE, DP, DVI-I, PS/2, serial)
Power rails with “controlled power up,” thereby reducing power up currents for less stress
Low impedance power distribution network for CPU, chipset, and all other high-speed devices, resulting in wide temperature range and stable parameters
Wide use of PCB internal capacitance, as well as X7R/X7S (-55 to 125°C) ceramic and polymer aluminum caps, for better power integrity
Power input protection against reverse polarity and load dump (details below)
Supports optional “galvanic separation” for marine or mining applications
PIP39 customizations, including military, open-frame, and railway
(click image to enlarge)
Aside from the two gigabit Ethernet ports, it’s hard to tell which of the many interfaces are available via real-world reports. Then again, the system is so highly customizable, there appears to be a lot of flexibility here, including special military and railway designs (see image above).
The PIP39 houses two 2.5-inch SATA HDD or SSD bays, supporting four available SATA ports, each with RAID 0/1/5/10 support. There’s also an mSATA combo socket that supports USB. The system provides dual-display support, with DisplayPort, DVI-I, and LVDS interfaces.
Eleven USB ports are available — four of them USB 3.0 — and there’s a PS/2 and a pair of RS232 ports, along with two more optional RS232/485 ports. For expansion, there is a Mini-PCIe x1 slot, plus a variety of PCI/104-Express options. The system is powered by a wide-range 10 to 36 VDC input, and consumes 17 to 46 Watts, says MPL.
Specifications listed for the PIP39 include:
Processor — Soldered Intel Core i7-3612QE (4x Ivy Bridge cores @ 2.1GHz/3.1GHz Turbo); 6MB cache; Intel QM77 chipset; Intel SpeedStep
Memory — Up to 16GB DDR3-1600 ECC via 2x SODIMMs; 8MB soldered BIOS flash
Storage: 2x SATA 3.0 ports 2x SATA 2.0 ports Up to 2x 2.5-inch HDD/SSD bays RAID 0/1/5/10 support mSATA full-mini combo socket with SATA 2.0 and USB 2.0
Display: DisplayPort with up to 2560 x 1600 pixels DVI-I 24-bit LVDS Dual-display capability
Networking — 2x gigabit Ethernet ports with wake-on LAN
Other I/O: 4x USB 3.0 7x USB 2.0 PS/2 2x RS232 (full modem) 2x optional RS232/485 HD audio (1mm header)with optional HDSOUND-1 card
Expansion: Mini-PCIe Gen2 x1 (and USB 2.0) PCI/104-Express: PCIe x16 4x PCIe x1 2x USB 2.0 Optional PCI/104-Express to PCIe x16
Other features — TPM; LEDs
Operating temperature — -20 to 60°C (-4 to 140°F)
Ruggedization — see list farther above
Power: 10 to 36 VDC ESD and EMC protected input Up to -36VDC reverse polarity protection Up to 150 V load dump protection Reset and power buttons Optional ignition input Optional 4-pin mini-DIN connector ACPI S1, S4, S5 Optional internal UPS with external removable battery 17 to 46 W consumption
Dimensions/weight (chassis dependent): DIN-Rail — 270 x 162 x 120/83mm; 2.2 k with HDD Flange — 312 x 162 120/83mm; 2.2 k with HDD Open-frame — 218 x 154 x 43mm and up; 1.5 k IP67 MIL — 304 x 234 x 95/75mm; 3.6 k
Further information
No pricing or availability information was provided for the PIP39. More information may be found on the PIP39 product page.It’s going to be a great weekend.
Two of my best friends are getting married in Oxford AND I’ll be covering the World Humanist Congress, which this year focuses on freedom of thought and expression, AKA my life. Total estimated sleep time: 0 hours.
Back in 2011 (when the International Humanist and Ethical Union hosted the last WHC in Oslo) I helped launch Free Speech Debate in Oxford. Some of our original advisors to the project, including Richard Dawkins and Jo Glanville, will be speaking at WHC this weekend along with my former colleagues at Index on Censorship Mike Harris and Padraig Reidy.
When I left Index for RNS last summer, my focus shifted from freedom of expression at its broadest to religious freedom and freedom of expression concerning thought and belief. I’ve been pleased to see how much overlap exists between the freedom of expression community and those working on freedom of thought, conscience, religion and belief in London and abroad.
Some of the greatest advocates for these rights I’ve met in the past year have been non-religious groups, a good example being the Center for Inquiry. As I mentioned in this week’s Religious Freedom Recap, CFI’s director of public policy Michael De Dora was recently elected president of the U.N.’s NGO Committee on Freedom of Religion or Belief.
CFI also has a Campaign for Free Expression to highlight cases of individuals, religious or otherwise, persecuted for expressing their beliefs. One of the earliest cases they tracked was that of Asif Mohiuddin, an atheist blogger from Bangladesh who was stabbed and arrested for writing blog posts critical of Islam. Mohiuddin will share his story at WHC Saturday morning.
Free and functioning societies require both freedom of and freedom from religion. Yet we know that 76 percent of people live in countries with high levels of social and government restrictions on religion and in 13 countries atheists face the death penalty for declaring their doubts.
WHC bills itself as attracting “atheist, humanist and other non-religious organisations and individuals from around the world.” Given this year’s theme I hope to see a few religious gatecrashers stirring up new debates and enriching the conversation as well.
From the weekend’s panel lineup, I’m most looking forward to Manifestations of hate, Key challenges to freedom of religion or belief, Getting the message out: Challenges to news and opinion journalism, Should Humanism matter in politics, and The difficult case of incitement to hatred. Heiner Bielefeldt, the U.N. special rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, will also speak about key challenges he faces in the role (spoiler: the list will be long).
Tickets are gone, but I’m sure I won’t be the only one tweeting from #WHC2014. Follow along and join the conversation online.India’s new Goods and Services Tax (GST) will unify the indirect tax system and remove domestic barriers to trade, which should support productivity gains and GDP growth over the long term, says Fitch Ratings.
The GST that came into effect on 1 July is relatively complex, including multiple tax rates for different goods – ranging from 0% to 28%, or higher where ‘sin taxes’ are applied – and requires frequent filing in all states in which a company operates. Nevertheless, it is far simpler than the previous system, under which each state set its own sales taxes – in addition to the central government – and imposed border taxes on goods entering the state.
The unified national system should offer significant opportunities for productivity. For example, it will become much quicker and less costly to move goods across the country now that trucks will not be held up at checkpoints at state borders. Smoother logistics should reduce retailers’ need for working capital and allow them to operate centralised warehouses, rather than in every state. Supply chains could extend, encouraging specialisation, now that there is less incentive to source goods within state borders. Tax filing may also become less time-consuming as a result of the new electronic system.
The GST is unlikely to increase revenue in the short term. However, it is likely to boost revenue indirectly over the long term, as it supports GDP growth and encourages tax compliance. A benefit of value-added taxes like India’s GST is that retailers are required to show compliance right along the supply chain to claim refunds. Large companies will now have an incentive to pressure smaller suppliers into compliance. The new electronic filing system is also likely to lead to more tax reporting. Moreover, the tax base will be broadened, as only SMEs with sales of INR2 million (USD31,000) will now be exempt from paying GST, down from INR15 million.
Small informal retailers – which account for over 90% of retail sales – should also find it harder to understate their sales or to avoid filing tax returns altogether in a system where transactions are tracked throughout the supply chain. This could accelerate the shift toward organised retail.
Shifting activity into the formal sector, where activity is regulated and taxed, is a key government goal and was the main motivation stated for demonetisation in late-2016. The informal sector is very large, accounting for over 20% of GDP and 80% of employment, and is largely untaxed. This is one of the reasons why government revenue is low, at just 21.4% of GDP in 2016, compared with a median of 29.9% for ‘BBB’ range sovereigns.
There are significant short-term risks involved in the GST implementation, emphasised by the late changes to the bill and the disruptive roll-out of demonetisation. High compliance costs for businesses and administrative difficulties have been problems in some emerging economies that have introduced value-added taxes, particularly those that had complex systems, under-resourced bureaucracies and short lead-in periods.
India’s new system will overhaul the way businesses operate, affecting their financial reporting, tax accounting, supply-chain management and technology requirements. Contracts will also need to be renegotiated. Smaller firms, many of which still keep their books manually, are likely to find the transition particularly difficult. India’s large bureaucracy is likely to be tested by the new system, with further potential implications for businesses. For example, delays in processing tax returns and paying out refunds might create cash flow problems. Multiple GST rates are also likely to lead to disputes over which goods fall into which category, which could add to strains on the judicial system.
Source: Fitch RatingsGetty Images
LeBron James is preparing to hand out cash to the people of Ohio, but first, you’ll have to tell him the capital of Papua New Guinea.
Cleveland.com’s Joe Vardon reports that Spring Hill Productions, the Cleveland Cavaliers star’s production company, is working to put together a prime-time game show offering “everyday people” a chance to win enough money to change their lives forever.
According to Vardon, the game show will air on a major network in a prime slot of evening airtime. Which network, exactly, has yet to be decided, but it’s reported that the show will feature a mix of trivia and luck components. Most interestingly, James says the program’s first contestants will be pulled from his hometown of Akron, Ohio, and the surrounding area.
“It gives people here an opportunity to live out a dream, things they only dream about, to make more money than they ever thought they could make in their lives,” James told Vardon.
“I thought starting here with the people I love here, means a lot to them. Me being a part of the game show is all part of my team doing things that [are] outside the box, but also that’s fun and families and people of any age can gravitate to.”
In case this is beginning to sound like a wildly roundabout way of James funneling money to his friends from back home, Vardon assures us none of James’ friends, family or business acquaintances can participate in the show.
“Friends of James, Spring Hill, or James’ charitable foundation are not eligible for the show,” Vardon writes.
As for the C.R.E.A.M., exactly how much money will be at stake for James’ show has yet to be revealed. Vardon’s sources have only intimated that the program will offer “the highest nightly stakes of any game show.”
With that information, one could surmise the nightly grand prize could rest somewhere north of $2.2 million, as the previous highest single game-show winner was Kevin Olmstead, who won $2.18 million on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire in 2001.
In any case, if you win James’ (yet to be named) show, you will soon be swimming through gold bullion in an aggressively striped leotard.
Giphy
Just remember, future game-show winners: Use your money to give back to the community—namely Akron’s local zebra retailers, water ski dealers and hard-carved bidet masons.
Follow Dan on Twitter for more sports and pop culture filigree.
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» As many of you know, due to my arm injury I was unable to maintain a list of Summer reading suggestions last year. However, my arm is much better this summer, and so I present you with the first installment of this year's list of lists.Additions to this list will be posted in the weblog, and be archived on their own page. Just click the link in the righthand sidebar to see the latest entries.
Summer Reading for Adults:
Steven King: Seven Great Books for Summer
ALA: Best genre fiction titles named to 2009 Reading List
The Daily Beast: The 13 Hottest Summer Reads
NPR: Best Fiction For Every Kind Of Summer Day
NPR: On The Hunt For Fabulous Fiction
NPR: For Summer Sleuths: Best Mystery, Crime Novels
NPR: The 10 Best Summer Cookbooks Of 2009
Examiner: Summer reading blockbusters
Examiner: Summertime and the reading is easy: Top five summer reads
Examiner: Sustainable summer reading
Examiner: Summer reading list: Part 1
The Dallas Morning News: Summer Reading Suggestions
The Dallas Morning News: 4 thrillers for summer reading
Newsday: Ten books for summer reading
Central Florida Future: Staff Summer Reading List
STL Today: Summer reading list from SLU libraries
2009 CSAF Reading List (selected by the Air Force Chief of Staff for service personnel)
Bill O'Reilly's 2009 Summer Reading List
Jane Austen Today: My Top Ten Jane Austen Sequels
ID-ology: The books we love most right now (branding and business titles)
One-Read: 2009 List of Suggested Titles
Childrens and Young Adult Books:
List of Lists: Top 10 Summer Reading Lists For Kids and Teens: 2009
Bonus links:
10 Books to Read Before They Hit the Big Screen
15 Influential Early Works of Apocalyptic Fiction (ranging from 1805 - 1941)“What Athens was in miniature, America will be in magnitude,” Thomas Paine wrote in 1792. Equal parts prediction and promise, Paine’s claim has been realized in many ways: Major aspects of the American political system—from popular referendums to secret ballots to jury duty—derive from ancient Greek precedents.
But while the ancient Greeks are often dubbed the inventors of democracy, only some elements of their political system shaped American practices. The forgotten aspects of ancient Greek politics are numerous and fascinating: voting by hand-raising or shouting, banishment by popular vote, radically direct management of public affairs by average citizens, and many others.
So what exactly did the U.S. copy from classical models, and what has been left out?
Banishment
Many modern politicians would surely relish the chance to see rivals banished by popular vote. In fifth century B.C. Athens, this was actually possible. Citizens met annually in the agora—a public center of commerce and politics—and voted on whether any individual was becoming too powerful. The person with the most votes was exiled from Athens for 10 years.
The names of candidates for exile were scratched onto small potsherds and tallied, with a minimum of 6,000 votes required to banish someone. Called ostraka in ancient Greek, these potsherds are the root of the English word “ostracize.”
Priceless Ancient Treasures Leave Greece for First Time
Shouting
While modern politics can feel like a shouting contest, voting by shouting was an actual practice in ancient Sparta.
This wasn't really like the voice votes held in the U.S. House and Senate (which can be challenged and followed by a roll call vote). In Sparta, the noise level was ranked by evaluators who assessed the volume produced when each candidate appeared before the gathered citizens. The closest modern analogy might be if a stadium applause-o-meter were used for government.
Voting by Hand
The ancient Greek term for voting came from the word for pebble, and early sources suggest that the Athenians may have initially voted by placing pebbles in urns. By the fifth century, Athenians voted by hand-raising or with small bronze tokens.
For jury trials and some legislation, they used a type of secret ballot: Each citizen received two bronze tokens, one with a hollow axle, one with a solid axle. The tokens represented votes for or against a certain proposition or defendant. Their size and design made it easy to cover the end of the axle with the thumb while voting, thus concealing the nature of the vote.
Paying for Votes
Athenians received a small payment for serving on a jury or as a member of the largest deliberative body—the Assembly. Payment was a democratic innovation to ensure that poor citizens would not be prevented from civic engagement by indigence.
There was even an ancient equivalent to “Get Out the Vote” campaigns. The fifth century B.C. playwright Aristophanes describes a rope dipped in wet red paint that was used to herd citizens to the place where they could vote and participate in the assembly.
While compensating citizens for lost time made participation possible for more people, Athenian democracy was also quite restricted in certain ways. Only adult male citizens could serve on juries, participate in the Assembly, or hold official positions of any sort. Women, foreigners, and slaves were categorically excluded.
Deciding Who Votes
In other ways, however, Athenian democracy was far more inclusive and transparent than the modern American system. All citizens had the right to vote in the Assembly, which met roughly once every 10 days on the Pnyx, a small hill just beside the Acropolis that could accommodate the 5,000 to 6,000 members who typically participated. This large assembly decided military, financial, and religious matters and was also able to confer citizenship and honors on individuals.
A smaller council of 500 citizens met to prepare the agenda for the Assembly. This smaller council also deliberated on matters of foreign policy and could issue decrees regarding treaties and alliances.
The 500 members were chosen randomly from the city-state’s tribes. Athens was organized into 10 tribal units, designed to cut across class, genealogy, and geography. And the smaller council drew 50 members from each tribe.
Implemented by Cleisthenes in 508 B.C., tribal reorganization helped decrease factionalism and build cohesion in Athens. Every tribe contained citizens from three areas that were previously rivals: the plain, the hills, and the coast. Members of tribes fought, feasted, sacrificed, and competed in religious festivals together.
Making the U.S. More Greek
An American political system that faithfully imitated the customs and institutions of ancient Greek democracy would be unrecognizable in many ways. For instance, it might feature the selection of senators and congressmen by a random lottery, with new members cycling through frequently.
Tribal reorganization would see Appalachian coal miners placed in the same tribe as New York stockbrokers, California tech executives, and Montana cattle ranchers. Popular referendums open to all citizens would play a significantly larger role in determining all domestic laws and foreign policy.
Of course, this system would also exclude women and immigrants entirely, and allow citizens to exile unpopular leaders—ideas that seem very un-democratic today.A total of 14 Vietnamese women -- half of them pregnant -- have been rescued from an "illegal and inhuman" surrogate baby breeding ring in Thailand, the AFP is reporting.
The company, called Baby 101, allegedly received orders by e-mail or via agents from childless couples offering thousands of dollars per newborn. In some cases, the male partner would also provide sperm to inseminate the women, who were being held in two houses in Bangkok and had their passports confiscated.
"Nine of the women said they had volunteered to work because they were told they would earn $5,000 for each baby," deputy immigration commander Major General Manu Mekmok is quoted as saying. "Four said they were tricked." Officials said four Taiwanese, one Chinese and three Myanmar nationals were arrested in connection with the business and charged with illegally working in Thailand. In addition, a 35-year-old Taiwanese woman, who police said ran the operation, has been charged with human trafficking.
The surrogacy service, from egg and sperm donation to the delivery of a baby, is advertised on the website believed to be run by the company for $32,000 plus other expenses. Nearly 40 women, who are identified only by a numbered code, are pictured in various poses on the site.
Public Health Minister Jurin Laksanawisit said those women carrying children would be cared for in a private hospital. "In some cases it looks like they were raped," he noted to the AFP.RIYADH (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia will lift a ban on internet phone calls, a government spokesman said, part of efforts to attract more business to the country.
A woman using an iPhone visits the 27th Janadriya festival on the outskirts of Riyadh in this February 13, 2012 file photo. REUTERS/Fahad Shadeed/Files
All online voice and video call services such as Microsoft’s Skype and Facebook’s WhatsApp that satisfy regulatory requirements will become accessible at midnight (2100 GMT), Adel Abu Hameed, spokesman for the telecoms regulator CITC said on Twitter on Wednesday.
The policy reversal represents part of the Saudi government’s broad reforms to diversify the economy partly in response to low oil prices, which |
by drugmakers," says Anthony Cox, a professor at Indiana University's Kelley School of Business who specializes in the marketing of medical products.
But Mark Grayson, a spokesperson for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, which represents the country's leading pharmaceutical research and biotechnology companies, says that drugmakers are also compelled by the government to join efforts to ensure that there is enough vaccine to go around.
"Because of national security implications, the government felt that they needed to encourage and ask [vaccine manufacturers] to move much quicker," he says. Grayson adds that vaccine manufacturers also face significant costs; aside from the expense of fitting a new vaccine into a tight production schedule, drugmakers GlaxoSmithKline and Sanofi Pasteur were forced to acquire new vaccine production facilities in recent years to keep up with demand.
Alternatives to Vaccines Are Few
While this promise of new treatments for painful diseases brings hope to many, vaccines continue to attract critics. The National Vaccine Information Center, a non-profit advocacy group, is at the forefront of a movement demanding that vaccines be tested more thoroughly before hitting the market. Although there has been little evidence to support their claim, detractors -- including the comedian Jim Carrey -- believe that vaccines are at least partly to blame for the sharp rise in autism in recent decades.
The swine flu vaccine has also attracted its share of critics. Frank Lipman, a New York-based doctor who specializes in a mix of Western and alternative medicine, points out that the swine flu is rarely fatal and that it's too early to tell if it's safe because it hasn't been widely tested.
Others argue that Americans have little choice. The cost of a widespread pandemic, similar to Spanish Flu outbreak in 1918, which killed 675,000 Americans (and 50 million worldwide), would be devastating. The Trust for America's Health, a Washington-based non-profit organization, estimates that a severe pandemic could push down GDP by more than 5 percent and cost Americans $683 billion.
"We're not seeing a pandemic that's this severe," says Jeff Levi, director of Trust for Americas Health. "We've dodged a lot of bullets."It’s a longstanding tradition that Ireland’s Taoiseach visits the White House for St. Patrick’s Day. There was some question over whether the country’s current head, Enda Kenny, would be invited to visit today, though, given that he accused Trump of using “racist and dangerous language” during his campaign.
But Kenny did visit, and the two had the traditional shamrock ceremony, where the President receives a bowl of the clovers.
They also engaged in a bit of Trump’s weird handshake maneuvering.
And, just for fun, let’s watch Sean Spicer try to pronounce “taoiseach.”
Ireland’s Taoiseach is pronounced “TEE-shock.”
Trump is lying about a wiretap but here’s Sean Spicer today mispronouncing Taoiseach 5 times. pic.twitter.com/b5dk9CGi8z — Mдтт Иegяiи (@MattNegrin) March 16, 2017
Other highlights include Trump quoting his favorite Irish proverb, which turned out to actually be a Nigerian poem, and tweeting a video of the meeting accompanied by the Royal Scots Dragoon Guard on bagpipes.
But the big moment came during Kenny’s speech, when he dives into what must be near the top of Trump’s “Please Don’t Talk About It” list: immigration. Kenny reminds everyone that St. Patrick was an immigrant (I mean, kind of, in that Ben Carson sort of way), and, for many, is a symbol of immigration. He tells us that 35 million Americans claim Irish heritage, and that “the Irish have contributed to the economic, social, political, and cultural life of this great country over the last 200 years.”
Four decades before Lady Liberty lifted her lamp, we were the wretched refuse on the teeming shore. We believed in the shelter of America, in the compassion of America, in the opportunity of America. We came–and we became–Americans.
“We were the wretched refuse on the teeming shore,” Irish prime minister says with Donald Trump in the room. pic.twitter.com/7jEfTVvIzE — Barry Malone (@malonebarry) March 17, 2017
Now, I have to admit that I don’t know all that much about Irish politics. But the little I do know indicates Kenny isn’t exactly beloved. His history with abortion and women’s rights, as well as racist language of his own, is especially troubling.
Still, that was one hell of a speech.
(via Pajiba, image via screengrab)
—The Mary Sue has a strict comment policy that forbids, but is not limited to, personal insults toward anyone, hate speech, and trolling.—
Follow The Mary Sue on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest, & Google+.By Steve Mascord
WORLD Number four ranked Samoa have fired a shot across the bows of third-ranked England, coach Matt Parish saying Wayne Bennett’s side may struggle to match Australia and New Zealand in the World Cup.
Former Salford boss Parish made the comment during an interview with ABC radio on Sunday, in which he discussed recent changes to international eligibility laws.
“The difference between rugby league and rugby union at the moment is that rugby league has generally got three teams that can win the World Cup,” said Parish.
“And possibly only two if you look at Australia and New Zealand because England, even though Wayne Bennett’s in charge, while I think they’ll be better, I think they’ll be a touch below those two … particularly in Australia.”
Parish also spoke of a lack of support from professional clubs in releasing players, commenting: “You don’t see club pulling too many players out of Australia and New Zealand or even England for that matter.
“It seems to be easy for them to pull them out of Pacific Tests.”
Meanwhile Melbourne and Cronulla will meet in the NRL grand final this Sunday to decide who meets the Super League champions in the World Club Challenge next year.
England stars Josh Hodgson and Elliott Whitehead were key figures in Canberra’s preliminary final against Melbourne, which the Raiders lost 14-12.
Whitehead scored the late try which lifted the Green Machine back into the game while Hodgson seemed to deliberately concede a penalty when the Raiders were reduced to 12 by the sin bin dismissal of fullback Jack Wighton.
Hodgson: Joint favourite to receive the Dally M medal this week
Heighington: His Cronulla team will face Melbourne in next weekend's NRL Grand Final
The resulting penalty was the difference between the teams, although some mistakes by Canberra winger Edrick Lee seemed more costly.
The results on the weekend – the Sharks ended the title defence of world champions North Queensland 32-20 on Friday night – means the only English involvement in the premiership decider is second rower Chris Heighington.
STAT ROUND-UP
CHRIS HEIGHINGTON: Played 29 minutes at Allianz Stadium, clocking up 72 metres and 17 tackles.
ELLIOTT WHITEHEAD: Along with his try, a try assist, a clean line-break and 40 tackles in another 80 minute outing.
JOSH HODGSON: 45 tackles without a break. Co-favourite with Cooper Cronk for the Dally M medal on Wednesday night.SHARE
While speaking before the US Congress’ Central America Caucus on July 6, InSight Crime Co-Director Steven Dudley outlined how drug trafficking organizations on the isthmus operate and the implications for rule of law and security, before offering three concrete ways the US government can improve its counternarcotics strategy in the region.
Drug Trafficking in Central America
Central America has long been a bridge that connects the producer countries in South America to the consumer nations in the north, principally the United States. This role has led to the development of several different types of criminal organizations, some of them transnational, some of them local, and many more of them hyper-local.
Some of the transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) have familiar names: the Sinaloa Cartel, the Gulf Cartel, the Zetas, and the Urabeños all have operatives in Central America. They purchase cocaine or coca base from producer nations like Colombia and Peru. And they oversee the movement of that product from production point to market.
In Central America, they oversee the second tier criminal organizations in these countries that provide the transportation for the illicit drugs. These so-called “transportistas” are often family-based groups with long criminal histories in contraband, human smuggling and other criminal activities, which give them a strong foundation to jump into narcotics trafficking.
Examples include the Cachiros, a Honduran-based organization that once controlled a prominent route through northern Honduras, between Nicaragua and Guatemala. The Cachiros started as cattle rustlers who sold their stolen cattle to one of the country’s most prominent elite families. Over the years, their land titles grew as did their role in illicit trafficking. By September 2013, the year the United States Treasury Department placed them on its “Kingpin” list, the Cachiros had accumulated anywhere between $500 million and $800 million in assets, much of which they had put into African Palm plantations, mining licenses, hotels, a prominent zoo-resort, and a local soccer team.
SEE ALSO: Cachiros News and Profile
It is these second tier, or transportista groups that inflict the most damaging consequences as it relates to drug trafficking. The Cachiros financed political parties of all stripes from would-be mayors to congressmen and perhaps above. They undermined local investigations against them and others by infiltrating the police, the local Attorney General’s Office and courthouses throughout the country. They bought construction companies, so they could win government contracts, then kicked money back to the politicians who supported their bids. They backed land invasions of their business rivals. And they killed their drug trafficking rivals and others who opposed them with impunity.
The increased drug trafficking in the region has had a trickle-down effect as well. Drug trafficking groups, from the TCOs to the local transportistas, pay local contractors and collaborators in-kind. The resulting flood of illicit drugs has turned traditional economics on its head: at InSight Crime, we found evidence of powdered cocaine being sold in the poorest Honduran neighborhoods. To be sure, that is not the drug of choice in those neighborhoods. Marijuana is. But it gives you an idea of the amount of drugs in the country and illustrates that supply can sometimes drive demand.
The local dealers of these drugs are very often the street gangs. The gangs have no role in international drug trafficking. They are restricted to dealing drugs on the hyper-local level. This drug dealing has become a critical part of the gangs’ criminal economy and thus a strong source of tension between gangs. In other words, the fight for the proverbial corner has become extremely violent in the last few years and helps us account for what has made Central America and, in particular the Northern Triangle nations of Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, the most violent region in the world that is not at war.
Local drug dealing has also allowed the gangs to accumulate more sophisticated weaponry, establish safe houses, buy businesses and expand their political reach. In some places, we have found gangs who are controlling the wholesale drug market. And in all three Northern Triangle countries, there are some parts of the gangs that are trying to become transportistas themselves. It appears they are still a long way from achieving that goal, but some of them are trying.
Implications of Drug Trafficking
The implications of drug trafficking in the region are devastating. Here are four major ones:
1) Corruption
The aforementioned transportista networks make the difference between how much the drugs cost when they receive them and how much they cost when they are passed to the next transportista. Our calculations are that an organization like the Cachiros can make between $5 million and $12 million per month at these rates. On the whole, trafficking in a country like Honduras can make close to $700 million per year, which is 4 percent of the GDP, or about half the value of the country’s top export, coffee. Guatemala and El Salvador have similar estimations, although El Salvador is more of a money laundering hub due to the dollarized economy.
The money is more than just economic capital. It is political and social capital as well. Proceeds from these transport networks go into legitimate and illegitimate businesses, which provide thousands of jobs and are a key motor of the economy in many areas. They fund political parties and candidates, giving the transportistas a say about security as well as economic development strategies. They fund social functions, church events, and soccer clubs, many of which leap to the first divisions and compete for championships, like the Cachiros’ funded club did from one year to the next.
We in the US understand how important sports are to local pride. And at InSight Crime, when we crossed various social networks working with the Cachiros, we found the soccer team was the most important place where the country’s elites, politicians and traffickers met and socialized. In the Cachiros case, their main business partners were from the Rosenthals, a prominent business and political family in the country. Jaime Rosenthal, the family patriarch, was thought to be one of the wealthiest people in Central America and was once vice president of Honduras. The Rosenthals own banks, insurance companies, television and media, telephone and communications companies, as well as soccer teams and many other businesses.
SEE ALSO: InDepth Coverage of Elites and Organized Crime
When I met with Jaime Rosenthal in June 2015, and asked him directly about his relationship with the Cachiros, he told me he first met them in the late 1970s. The family that would become the Cachiros would arrive to the Rosenthal’s meat-packing plant in a beat-up old truck to sell their cattle. Then they would sleep in the parking lot before driving back the next day. Over time, the Cachiros parked large amounts of their capital in the Rosenthal’s banks. The US government indicted the Rosenthals last October, presumably for some of these interactions they had with the Cachiros. But these relationships between criminal groups and elites continue in Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala.
2) Impunity
The transportistas also buy off prosecutors, police, and judges. They influence the judicial process from the beginning, first trying to make sure no one gets started on an investigation; then thwarting these investigations if they do get started.
The Cachiros, for instance, were untouchable for years. No one even mentioned the name of the family at the center of it when I first started looking at the group in 2010. At InSight Crime, we spoke openly about them, but that is largely because we are not based in Honduras. Journalists in Honduras told me that they were too afraid to speak up, or that drug traffickers paid journalists to keep them out of the press.
The impunity that results is contagious and the patterns set by the transportistas are repeated by other criminal groups. Judicial and security forces are bought off. Journalists are frightened or paid off.
3) Violence
Although it is hard to quantify because the data is flawed or unavailable, the transportistas are involved in the violence that is afflicting this region. The maps of the most violent areas coincide with the areas presumed to be the drug trafficking routes. This includes the area where the Cachiros once operated, the municipality of Tocoa, which consistently has homicide rates of close to 100 per 100,000 inhabitants.
In addition to the transportistas’ role in the violence, which is largely rural in nature, we have to consider the spillover effect their activities have in urban areas. Specifically, we are talking about gang violence in the region’s largest cities. As described earlier, these gangs control many of the local drug markets where they sell everything from powdered cocaine to forms of crack to marijuana. Between them, they are fighting for the proverbial corner, which InSight Crime believes is one of the main causes of homicide in these countries.
4) Migration
The combination of corruption, impunity, and violence is a powerful push factor when it comes to migration. The areas from where we are seeing some of the most migrants are the areas of transportista and gang violence. The frustration and lack of trust these migrants have with their own authorities is evident in the countless testimonies that come across my desk. Others have done more systematic studies of these push factors, which I urge the Caucus to consult as they consider how to deal with this issue.
US Policy
US policy as it relates to drug trafficking in the region is slowly evolving. I will mention three key strategies that are at the core of dealing with this issue.
1) Kingpin Strategy
The United States is focused on removing kingpins from the equation by either capturing or killing them. In some cases, the threat of a US capture leads suspects to hand themselves in to US authorities. This is what happened to the core of the Cachiros organization, which turned themselves in to the US in January 2015.
The strategy has its positives. It disrupts the distribution chain, although transportista groups are fairly easily replaced. It also requires a certain amount of political will and coordination, so it is an illustration of progress of the local government and an important political sign to the country that impunity is waning.
However, the kingpin strategy has its negatives. Cutting off the head of an organization can lead to chaos in the organization’s area of influence, leading to upticks in violence as the groups reorganize and a new leading organization emerges. This strategy also requires a huge commitment of resources on the part of the local government, something that can take away from other strategies it might deem more important, such as going after the most violent criminal groups (instead of the most prolific drug trafficking groups).
2) Interdiction
The second core strategy as it relates to dealing with drug trafficking is to interdict the flow of drugs. Intercepting drugs is a difficult and never-ending job, the fruits of which are rarely felt. The estimated amounts of drugs intercepted is small in the best of circumstances and miniscule in the case of the Northern Triangle nations. It requires a huge amount of resources, good will and practice. Yet it remains a key part of the US strategy.
3) Reforming/rebuilding the police
The third core strategy worth mentioning is that of reforming and rebuilding police forces. The perennial issue as it relates to US counter-drug assistance is how to purge and restock the police forces. The US also assists in developing special units that assist the US counternarcotics agents in capturing or killing drug traffickers, and interdicting drug loads. The work has had some good results, and many police who go through the US filtering system become important agents of change within their institutions.
SEE ALSO: Coverage of Police Reform
The case of Guatemala is worth mentioning in this regard. Guatemala has added hundreds of new police in recent years, which have come through a more rigorous filter and passed through a longer training period. Honduras has also showed signs that it is ready to purge the police. A special Honduran police commission, with the blessing of the presidency, has started to remove questionable characters from the police. As opposed to most police commissions, this Honduran commission is starting from the top and moving its way downward. The US is assisting by prosecuting a number of police commanders for their involvement in a drug trafficking case.
Recommendations
It is difficult to completely change the course of counternarcotic strategy. It is less like the go-fast boats that carry drugs and more like the battleship that tries to corral them. But there is a need to update these strategies. Here are three recommendations of how to tweak US counternarcotic strategy:
1) Reconcile the US agenda with that of the local governments
Many local governments are happy to get the assistance from the United States. It helps them beef up intelligence services, train personnel across the board, and it comes with additional equipment and other resources.
But their agenda does not necessarily coincide with the US agenda, especially as it relates to counternarcotics. Many of these local governments are focused on violence, specifically homicides. And while the US agenda looks for results as it relates to the capture, killings and extraditions of kingpins, the locals want lower homicide rates and ways to reduce crimes like extortion.
The US would do better by these countries if it allowed for the assistance to be put towards fulfilling the local agenda. In some cases, such as police reform, these agendas overlap nicely. But in others, such as the aforementioned kingpin strategy, they do not. Be sensitive to this and allow for shifts in resources that correspond to these local decisions rather than insisting on diverting resources towards US goals. In the case of stemming violence and extortion, this approach would also help these countries stem the flow of migration.
2) Focus on the money
As noted, the US Treasury department has begun to play an important role in counternarcotics strategy. Indeed, it was not until Treasury put the Cachiros on the kingpin list in September of 2013, that things began to turn against the criminal group. The Treasury also put the Rosenthals on the kingpin list to coincide with the US Justice Department indictment of various family members in October 2015, including Jaime Rosenthal.
Much of this work can be done from the United States. The US Treasury, in particular, can essentially shut down an operation just by adding its business to the kingpin list, as it did with the Rosenthals. This strategy has its negatives, not the least of which is the lack of transparency in the process and the lack of due process given to the accused.
So in addition to adding more transparency to this process and providing some way to more effectively appeal these decisions before they become effective, the US government should devote more resources to dismantling the money side of these organizations. In the best case scenario, these designations for the kingpin list would go hand-in-hand with indictments.
Going after the money side has an additional benefit. It is part of the way to extract political and economic elites from organized crime. These elites can open or shut the doors to organized crime and drug trafficking interests. Too often that door is wide open. The US can change that calculation by investigating and prosecuting these elites more vigorously. The Rosenthal case sent shudders through the region’s elites. But the US cannot stop with the Rosenthals.
3) Provide more assistance to Attorney General’s Offices
The police are on the front lines of the battle against drug trafficking interests, and the US has long assisted in the strengthening of this institution, but the Attorney General’s Offices are where the war is won or lost. These offices are generally devoid of resources, and in some cases systematically starved. Yet, as we can see from the case of Guatemala — where the Attorney General’s Office is at the center of nothing less than a revolutionary transformation of how people conceive of justice and political reform in that country following the resignation last year of the president and vice president for corruption — these offices are forgotten by the US agencies that can most help them with training, resources, and support.
That support goes beyond just providing better facilities, more wire-tapping services, and witness protection programs. It involves providing them with important political support, especially as it relates to cases in which powerful elites who have long treated the government as their own guard dogs are under judicial scrutiny. The Attorney General’s Offices need political allies as much as they need financial support. The US can be that ally, ensuring judicial independence and ultimately opening the door for reform.Howard County police have arrested a third person in connection with a human trafficking investigation involving a 16-year-old girl.Jessica Lynn Smitherman, 31, of Laurel, was charged with human trafficking. Police said investigators believe that Smitherman conspired with Andre Lamar Russell, 28, of Laurel, and Heather Lynn Harding, 23, of Woodbine, in late May and early June to force the teen into prostitution at motels in Jessup.Police said Smitherman helped coordinate prostitution appointments and forced the teen to perform sex acts for money, which Russell would then take for himself.Police said detectives believe Smitherman took pictures of the teen that were then posted on the website Backpage, advertising sexual services with the victim.Russell and Harding were arrested on June 1. Smitherman was arrested and charged on June 30.Smitherman remains held on $35,000 bond.Russell was indicted June 14 on multiple counts of human trafficking, human trafficking conspiracy, assault and drug charges. He is being held without bond.Harding was indicted June 28 on one count of human trafficking conspiracy. She was released on $35,000 bond.The victim was taken to a child advocacy center to connect her with appropriate housing and other services.Anyone with information about human trafficking in Howard County should call 410-313-STOP or email HCPDcrimetips@howardcountymd.gov.
Howard County police have arrested a third person in connection with a human trafficking investigation involving a 16-year-old girl.
Jessica Lynn Smitherman, 31, of Laurel, was charged with human trafficking. Police said investigators believe that Smitherman conspired with Andre Lamar Russell, 28, of Laurel, and Heather Lynn Harding, 23, of Woodbine, in late May and early June to force the teen into prostitution at motels in Jessup.
Advertisement Related Content 2 arrested in human trafficking of girl in Jessup
Police said Smitherman helped coordinate prostitution appointments and forced the teen to perform sex acts for money, which Russell would then take for himself.
Police said detectives believe Smitherman took pictures of the teen that were then posted on the website Backpage, advertising sexual services with the victim.
Russell and Harding were arrested on June 1. Smitherman was arrested and charged on June 30.
Smitherman remains held on $35,000 bond.
Russell was indicted June 14 on multiple counts of human trafficking, human trafficking conspiracy, assault and drug charges. He is being held without bond.
Harding was indicted June 28 on one count of human trafficking conspiracy. She was released on $35,000 bond.
The victim was taken to a child advocacy center to connect her with appropriate housing and other services.
Anyone with information about human trafficking in Howard County should call 410-313-STOP or email HCPDcrimetips@howardcountymd.gov.
AlertMeElizabeth Price on winning this year's Turner Prize, musician Ben Folds discusses his photography and Simon Callow takes us on a tour of the revamped Charles Dickens Museum.
With John Wilson.
Elizabeth Price has won this year's Turner Prize for work including her video installation The Woolworths Choir of 1979. She discusses her inspirations and what winning the prestigious art prize might mean for her future plans.
Ben Folds is best known for his musical career, notably with his band Ben Folds Five, but he is also a keen photographer and takes his camera on tour, sometimes capturing images of the audience at his gigs from the stage. Ben Folds discusses why Ben Folds Five are back together after a 13 year break, his collaborations with the novelist Nick Hornby and why taking photographs is similar to song-writing.
The Charles Dickens Museum, the author's former Bloomsbury home, is about to re-open following a £3.1 million refurbishment project. Historian Kathryn Hughes and actor and author Simon Callow explore the rooms where Dickens lived at the start of his career, and where he wrote Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickleby.
Hip hop musician and producer RZA, of the Wu-Tang Clan, has also acted in several movies. He now makes his directing debut with The Man With The Iron Fists - and he also plays the title role and co-wrote the screenplay. Inspired by kung fu classics and featuring an international cast including Russell Crowe, Lucy Liu and Chinese star Daniel Wu. the film is set in 19th century China, and follows the fortunes of a series of lone warriors forced to unite to defeat a common enemy. Film critic Mark Eccleston gives his verdict.
Producer Olivia Skinner.San Antonio Spurs' Joffrey Lauvergne played his first two seasons in the NBA with the Denver Nuggets before stints in Oklahoma City and Chicago.
Now in the Alamo City, the 6-foot-11 power forward knew the decision to sign with the Spurs was the best thing for him and his young NBA career.
“I came here because it was the best thing to do for my career," said Joffrey who inked a free-agent deal with the Spurs in the offseason. “It was a great chance for me to come here and keep working and develop myself as a player.”
Since his arrival to the NBA, Joffrey has career averages of 6.1 points, 4.0 rebounds in 153 games. He is also shooting 47-percent from the floor. In San Antonio, he'll likely benefit from playing in a system that will maximize his strengths and have a defined role.
It also helps to have familiar faces at his side during the season - former Euroleague teammate Davis Bertans and fellow French countryman Tony Parker.
“I am very happy, because of the Spurs, coaching staff, history of this team and everything but because of Tony (Parker) and of course Davis (Bertans). I played two years with him and we are good friends, we have a great time together," said Lauvergne.
In San Antonio, Joffrey will be relied upon to help push the team's goal of a title. In his career, he's only played three postseason games while with the Bulls last season. A team that wasn't built for a title run.
But competing for the NBA crown with a title contender makes things a bit more interesting for him.
“It’s a team to play for a title. It’s very interesting," Lauvergne said.
Twitter:
(Via Spurs.com)SALT LAKE CITY — Attorneys for the state want a federal judge to throw out a lawsuit challenging Utah's so-called "ag gag" law.
The animal rights activists, including a Salt Lake City woman who faced a criminal charge, don't have standing to challenge the law because they can't show an immediate threat of prosecution, according to a motion filed in U.S. District Court.
"The challenged statute does little more than provide protection to an industry and a small group of people who have been specifically targeted for surreptitious access and nonpermitted recording," assistant attorney general Daniel Widdison wrote.
The Animal Legal Defense Fund, the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, CounterPunch magazine and five individuals claim the law violates their rights to free speech and equal protection. They contend the law criminalizes undercover investigations and videography at slaughterhouses, factory farms and other agricultural operations, and gags speech that is critical of the industry.
Utah should pass a law requiring publicly accessible webcams in slaughterhouses and on farms to catch the abusers, not protect them. The state's motion, like the ag gag law itself, is designed to shield this industry from scrutiny. –Jeffrey S. Kerr
PETA says it has documented farm workers kicking pigs in the head, stomping and throwing chickens and turkeys like footballs, and smashing piglets’ heads against concrete floors.
“Utah should pass a law requiring publicly accessible webcams in slaughterhouses and on farms to catch the abusers, not protect them," PETA attorney Jeffrey S. Kerr said in a statement. "The state’s motion, like the ag gag law itself, is designed to shield this industry from scrutiny.”
The Utah Legislature approved a bill in 2012 that makes it a class B misdemeanor to trespass on private livestock or poultry operations and record sound or images without the owner's permission. It also prohibits seeking employment with the intent of making those recordings. Leaving a recording device for that purpose is a class A misdemeanor.
The law does not criminalize the possession or distribution of unlawful recordings, but focuses on trespassing and filming while on the property, according to the state.
"In essence, the law punishes trespass and fraud, and protects the right of private property owners to control who has access to their property and what they do while on that property," Widdison wrote.
It also helps assure agricultural operations that their employees are loyal, he wrote.
One of the plaintiffs, Salt Lake City resident Amy Meyer, was "the first and only person in the country" charged under an ag gag statute last February, according to the lawsuit.
Meyer filmed workers pushing what appeared to be a sick cow with a bulldozer at the Dale T. Smith and Sons Meat Packing Co. in Draper. She was standing on a public roadway when someone from the company told her that she was not allowed to film, according to her attorney, Stewart Gollan, but Meyer responded that she was on public property.
Draper police later cited Meyer with agricultural operation interference, a class B misdemeanor. Draper prosecutors dropped the charge in April when Meyer provided "new evidence which shows she may not have trespassed onto private property," according to city officials.
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Related StoriesA few days ago, sharp eyes across the internet noticed that Nintendo’s Switch console has been added to lists of compliant hardware at The Khronos Group. Vulkan 1.0 was the eye-catcher, although the other tabs also claims conformance with OpenGL 4.5 and OpenGL ES 3.2. The device is not listed as compatible with OpenCL, although that does not really surprise me for a single-GPU gaming system. The other three APIs have compute shaders designed around the needs of game developers. So the Nintendo Switch conforms to the latest standards of the three most important graphics APIs that a gaming device should use -- awesome.
But what about performance?
In other news, Eurogamer / Digital Foundary and VentureBeat uncovered information about the hardware. It will apparently use a Tegra X1, which is based around second-generation Maxwell, that is under-clocked from what we see on the Shield TV. When docked, the GPU will be able to reach 768 MHz on its 256 CUDA cores. When undocked, this will drop to 307.2 MHz (although the system can utilize this mode while docked, too). This puts the performance at ~315 GFLOPs when in mobile, pushing up to ~785 GFLOPs when docked.
You might compare this to the Xbox One, which runs at ~1310 GFLOPs, and the PlayStation 4, which runs at ~1840 GFLOPs. This puts the Nintendo Switch somewhat behind it, although the difference is even greater than that. The FLOP calculation of Sony and Microsoft is 2 x Shader Count x Frequency, but the calculation of Nintendo’s Switch is 4 x Shader Count x Frequency. FMA is the factor of two, but the extra factor of two in Nintendo’s case......
Yup, the Switch’s performance rating is calculated as FP16, not FP32.
Snippet from an alleged leak of what Nintendo is telling developers.
If true, it's very interesting that FP16 values are being discussed as canonical.
Reducing shader precision down to 16-bit is common for mobile devices. It takes less transistors to store and translate half-precision values, and accumulated error will be muted by the fact that you’re viewing it on a mobile screen. The Switch isn’t always a mobile device, though, so it will be interesting to see how this reduction of lighting and shading precision will affect games on your home TV, especially in titles that don’t follow Nintendo’s art styles. That said, shaders could use 32-bit values, but then you are cutting your performance for those instructions in half, when you are already somewhat behind your competitors.
As for the loss of performance when undocked, it shouldn’t be too much of an issue if Nintendo pressures developers to hit 1080p when docked. If that’s the case, the lower resolution, 720p mobile screen will roughly scale with the difference in clock.
Lastly, there is a bunch of questions surrounding Nintendo’s choice of operating system: basically, all the questions. It’s being developed by Nintendo, but we have no idea what they forked it from. NVIDIA supports the Tegra SoC on both Android and Linux, it would be legal for Nintendo to fork either one, and Nintendo could have just asked for drivers even if NVIDIA didn’t already support the platform in question. Basically, anything is possible from the outside, and I haven’t seen any solid leaks from the inside.
The Nintendo Switch launches in March.Government kitty has swelled by Rs 12,591 crore with the sale of three mines to Hindalco, Jindal Power and Indrajit Power today, the third day of the second tranche of coal block auctions.
Amid stiff competition from bidders, Hindalco Industries won Dumri mine in Jharkhand, Jindal Power grabbed Tara block in Chhattisgarh and Indrajit Power clinched Nerad Malegaon block in Maharashtra.
"Indrajit Power bids the highest for Nerad Malegaon for Rs 660 (a tonne). Hindalco highest bidder at Rs 2,127 (a tonne) for Dumri and Jindal Power at Rs 126 (a tonne) for Tara coal block," Coal Secretary Anil Swarup tweeted.
These three mines would contribute a cumulative Rs 12,591 crore to the state exchequer. With the three blocks, the government stands to garner over Rs 1.43 lakh core, including over Rs 1 lakh crore from the auction of 19 blocks in the first tranche. Three more coal blocks will be put up for auction when the bidding starts tomorrow.
The amount of proceeds has been calculated based on extractable reserves and highest bid price.
Hindalco Industries has bagged Dumri mine in Jharkhand for an estimated Rs 9,809 crore, while Jindal Power won Tara block in Chhattisgarh for Rs 2,103 crore. Indrajit Power bagged Nerad Malegaon block for Rs 679 crore.
"Auction for Tara block, which is for power sector, began at 11 am with rupee one bid. For Dumri, the auction began at Rs 2,125 per tonne while for Nerad Malegaon it started at Rs 413 per tonne," an official told PTI.
For Tara block, it was reverse bidding while for the other two it was forward bidding.
On March 5, in fierce bidding that lasted over eight hours, Mandakini Exploration and Mining bagged Mandakini block in Odisha, while the Meral mine in Jharkhand went to Trimula Industries, in the process fetching an estimated Rs 19,633 crore for the states.
On March 4, the first day of the second round of the auction, three mines that were sold garnered Rs 11,083 crore.
In the second leg of the coal block auction, government has put up 15 blocks for sale, which are under the'ready-for- production' category.
The auctions follow the Supreme Court's decision last year to cancel the allocation of 204 coal mines.
To grab Dumri block in Hazaribag district of Jharkhand, which has an extractable reserves of 46.13 million tonnes (MT), there were eight players.
The companies included Balco, Easternrange Coal Mining Pvt Ltd, Hindalco Industries Ltd, Lake |
In order
to implement this in C, Beam uses the GCC extension “labels as values”.
We can see how the Beam dispatcher is implemented by looking at the add instruction in beam_emu.c. The STORE_ARITH_RESULT macro actually hides the dispatch function which looks something like: I += 4; Goto(*I);.
#define OpCase(OpCode) lb_##OpCode #define Goto(Rel) goto *(Rel)... OpCase(i_plus_jId): { Eterm result; if (is_both_small(tmp_arg1, tmp_arg2)) { Sint i = signed_val(tmp_arg1) + signed_val(tmp_arg2); ASSERT(MY_IS_SSMALL(i) == IS_SSMALL(i)); if (MY_IS_SSMALL(i)) { result = make_small(i); STORE_ARITH_RESULT(result); } } arith_func = ARITH_FUNC(mixed_plus); goto do_big_arith2; }
I will talk about the Beam virtual machine at EUC, covering how to look at compiled Beam code, how preemption is handled and some of the Beam instructions are implemented.
Hope to see you there.A long-distance exchange of words between Chandler Parsons and James Harden is heating up the rivalry between the Houston Rockets and Dallas Mavericks.
Editor's Picks Chandler Parsons is not a superstar player. But sports would be pretty boring if guys like him just accepted what the numbers say they are, writes Jason Concepcion. Story
Parsons, who left Houston to sign a three-year, $46 million deal with Dallas as a restricted free agent, took offense to former teammate Harden opining that Dwight Howard and Harden are the Rockets' stars and the rest of the roster is made up of role players.
"Dwight and I are the cornerstones of the Rockets," Harden said while appearing at a charity event in the Philippines, according to The Philippine Star. "The rest of the guys are role players or pieces that complete our team. We've lost some pieces and added some pieces.
"I think we'll be fine next season."
During an appearance on the "Jay Mohr Sports" show on Fox Sports Radio, Parsons reacted strongly when told what Harden reportedly said.
New Maverick Chandler Parsons has had his fill of jabber coming from the Rockets, the latest from James Harden. Bill Baptist/NBAE/Getty Images
"That's a pretty ridiculous statement if he meant that," Parsons said. "That's part of the reason I wanted to go to Dallas, because I'm ready for that next step. I'm ready for a bigger role, and I'm ready for more leadership.
"If anybody should understand that, it's James, because he was in the same situation in Oklahoma City and then he got his chance to come to Houston and shine. I'm not real sure what that means."
Parsons, 25, averaged 16.6 points, 5.5 rebounds and 4.0 assists per game to help Houston win 54 games last season.
In Harden's third NBA season, he averaged 16.8 points, 4.1 rebounds and 3.7 assists as Oklahoma City's third option behind Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook. Harden's statistics shot up to 25.9 points, 4.9 rebounds and 5.8 assists per game in his first season after being traded to the Rockets.
This isn't the first time that Parsons has publicly acknowledged being bothered by comments coming from his former team. He was "offended" by Rockets general manager Daryl Morey's opinion that the Rockets were better off not exercising the right to match the Mavs' offer for Parsons because it would have prevented Houston from having the flexibility to add the star needed to complement Harden and Howard.
"We feel strongly that turning down Chandler's option gives us a better chance to win a championship than not turning it down," Morey said on Sports Talk 790 AM in Houston the day after Parsons officially became a Maverick. "It really comes down to the question of, Harden, Howard, Chandler, what chance does that [core] have a chance of winning a championship?"There are lots of reasons why people don’t always wear their glasses. They might dislike the way they look, get teased or simply feel more comfortable without them. Beyond comfort and aesthetics, though, some fear that wearing glasses too often will weaken their eyesight, and that they will increasingly rely on them more often than when first worn.
A study from Nigeria published last year found 64% of students believed that wearing glasses can damage eyes. Research in the Indian state of Karnataka put the figure at 30%, and in Pakistan 69% of people feel the same way. In Brazil, even medical staff believed that your eyes would gradually get weaker as a consequence of wearing glasses. Is there any evidence to suggest they are right?
There are, of course, two very different reasons why people wear glasses – short-sightedness, or myopia, where things in the distance are blurry; and long-sightedness, or hyperopia, where you can’t focus on things close up. Long-sightedness is often age-related: many people begin noticing in their 40-50s that it’s difficult to read in low lighting. As we age the lenses in our eyes gradually stiffen, making it harder to adjust to different distances. When people get to the stage where their arms aren’t long enough to hold a book or menu far enough away to focus on the text, they opt for reading glasses.
What’s surprising is how few trials have been conducted on the prolonged effect of wearing glasses. And from what we know there’s no persuasive evidence that wearing reading glasses affects your eyesight. Why then do so many people become convinced, anecdotally, that glasses have made their eyesight worse? People may gradually find themselves more and more dependent on their specs, but it’s because their lenses have continued to deteriorate with age. So people find themselves needing their glasses more often, leading them to conclude that the glasses must have made their sight worse, where in fact, there’s no causal relationship. Whether or not you choose to wear your reading glasses will make no difference to your eyesight in the long run (although if you have to strain your eyes to read, you might get headaches or find that your eyes feel sore).
Corrected vision
However, the situation is not the same with children. Not wearing the right glasses, or any glasses at all if they are needed, can have a long-term impact. For decades it was thought that deliberately under-correcting for short-sightedness – by giving children weaker glasses than they really needed – might slow down the elongation of the eyeball over time and thus slow down the progression of myopia. The idea was that if you wear glasses to allow you to see clearly in the distance, your eyeball tries to elongate itself when you focus on a close object in order to see it properly.
But a trial conducted in Malaysia in 2002 proved this hypothesis was so wrong it had to be halted a year early. A group of 94 children with myopia were randomised at the toss of coin either to wear the correct glasses for their prescription, or to wear glasses that left them slightly short-sighted. When the study began the children were between the ages of nine and 14, and for the next two years the length of their eyeballs were measured at regular intervals. Contrary to an earlier, smaller study from the 1960s, the children who wore the weaker glasses showed a greater elongation of the eyeball over time. In other words their eyesight was gradually getting worse.
Some argue that there’s still not enough evidence to come to any firm conclusions. But a Cochrane review from 2011 of studies of interventions in children with myopia concluded that the limited evidence available suggests it is better to give children the correct glasses, rather than deliberately trying to under-prescribe. There’s no suggestion that wearing the correct glasses will make their eyesight worse than not wearing them at all. In fact the longest-ever study of the progression of myopia, which has just published its 23-year findings suggests the contrary. Back in 1983 a group of children in Finland with myopia were randomised to various conditions, including reading without spectacles. Their myopia progressed a little faster than those who wore their glasses continuously. After the initial three years of the study, they were all advised to wear glasses all the time. Twenty years on, there was no difference between the groups.
The benefits of wearing glasses if you’re a child who needs them, are clear. Children’s eyes need to learn to see, so if they don’t have the right glasses they can develop so-called “lazy-eye” or amblyopia because they’ve never had a sharp image on their retina. The correct prescription has also been shown to improve your reading speed and reduce the risk of developing a squint.
But, returning to adults, what I find curious is the lack of studies that have been carried out in this area. We might expect science to have all the answers, but sometimes the studies that seem the most obvious to conduct haven’t been done. Studies requiring children with myopia not to wear glasses would be unethical because of the effects it’s known to have on educational attainment and on the developing eye. But, in principle, this kind of study could be carried out on long-sighted or short-sighted adults. So we’re left with the question of why no one wants to do it. Professor Ananth Viswanathan, Consultant Surgeon at Moorfields Eye Hospital in London, believes the lack of research is probably down to the absence of any physiological reason why glasses might damage eyesight. Research needs not only to look for associations, but for plausible mechanisms.
So it sounds as though this type of study won’t be done any time soon. In the meantime we’ll have to go on the anatomical evidence. And while there are plenty of reasons to choose not to wear glasses, the fear that you might be damaging your eyesight isn’t one of them.
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Disclaimer
All content within this column is provided for general information only, and should not be treated as a substitute for the medical advice of your own doctor or any other health care professional. The BBC is not responsible or liable for any diagnosis made by a user based on the content of this site. The BBC is not liable for the contents of any external internet sites listed, nor does it endorse any commercial product or service mentioned or advised on any of the sites. Always consult your own GP if you're in any way concerned about your health.* Nutrients that feed the world damage the environment
* More efficient use would offer multiple benefits
* Report calls for inter-governmental cooperation
By Nina Chestney
LONDON, Feb 18 (Reuters) - More efficient use of nitrogen fertilisers could cut annual consumption by 20 million tonnes, help the environment and save $170 million a year by the end of the decade, scientists said in a report on Monday.
Nitrogen, phosphorous and other nutrients essential for plant growth have long been used in fertilisers to meet world food and energy demand.
It is estimated that nitrogen and other mineral fertilisers help to feed about half the world’s population, which is set to rise to 9 billion people by 2050 from the 7 billion today.
However, the excessive use or misuse of fertilisers can also release harmful greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and nitrate and phosphate compounds into water, contributing to soil erosion and damage to ecosystems.
The global annual cost of damage from nitrogen pollution alone is about $800 billion. But improving the efficiency of nutrient use by 20 percent by 2020 would not only save money, the report commissioned by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) said.
“Our analysis shows that by improving the management of the flow of nutrients we can help protect the environment, climate and human health, while addressing food and energy security concerns,” said Mark Sutton, lead author of the report and professor at Britain’s Centre for Ecology and Hydrology.
INEFFICIENT
While many sub-Saharan African farmers struggle to access enough nutrients to produce good-quality crops, excessive use of nutrients by rich and rapidly developing countries is threatening the climate and biodiversity.
Current nutrient use is not very efficient. On average, more than 80 percent of nitrogen and 25-75 percent of phosphorous are lost to the environment and the energy used to prepare them is wasted.
The UNEP report’s co-author Oene Oenema, of Wageningen University in the Netherlands, says that 4-12kg of both nitrogen and phosphorous are needed to produce 1kg each of the two nutrients in the food on a consumer’s plate.
The study, carried out by nearly 50 experts in 14 countries, calls for an inter-governmental framework to tackle inefficient nutrient use.
Lead author Sutton said that the motivation to take action would be much stronger if governments joined forces to meet the multiple global challenges for food, climate, health and energy, water and air pollution.
One option could be to include rules on nutrient use in the 1995 UNEP agreement to prevent the degradation of marine environments from land-based activities.
Improvements should be made to the management of soil, crops, livestock and manure, the report said. Nutrient loss from industry and waste water treatment could also be reduced and the rate of nutrient recycling increased.
The study also said that individuals and governments should consider ways of lowering the amount of meat and dairy eaten where there are high rates of consumption and waste.
“With rapidly increasing meat and dairy consumption, as Asia and Latin America aspire to European and North American norms, our diet choices have a huge potential to influence future levels of global nutrient pollution,” it said. (Editing by David Goodman)WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A small team of Treasury officials is discussing options to stave off default if Congress fails to raise the country’s borrowing limit by an August 2 deadline, sources familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner pauses while speaking at the Clinton Global Initiative in Chicago, June 30, 2011. REUTERS/John Gress
Senior officials, including Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, have repeatedly said there are no contingency plans if lawmakers do not give the U.S. government the authority to borrow more money.
But behind the scenes, top Treasury officials have been exploring ways to prevent a financial meltdown that would be triggered if the government were unable to pay its bills on time, sources told Reuters.
Treasury has studied the following issues:
- Whether the administration can delay payments to try to manage cash flows after August 2
- If the U.S. Constitution allows President Barack Obama to ignore Congress and the government to continue to issue debt
- Whether a 1985 finding by a government watchdog gives the government legal authority to prioritize payments.
The Treasury team has also spoken to the Federal Reserve about how the central bank — specifically the New York Federal Reserve Bank — would operate as Treasury’s broker in the markets if a deal to raise the United States’ $14.3 trillion borrowing cap is not reached on time.
The U.S. government currently borrows about $125 billion each month. The Obama administration wants Congress to raise the limit by more than $2 trillion to meet the country’s borrowing needs through the 2012 presidential election.
The contingency discussions, which have remained a closely guarded secret throughout weeks of negotiations with Congress over the debt ceiling, are being led by Mary Miller, Assistant Secretary for Financial Markets, who is effectively custodian of the country’s public debt.
Miller’s team has debated whether Obama could ignore Congress and order continued borrowing — by relying on the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution — if it fails to raise the borrowing cap.
The fourth section of the 14th Amendment states the United States’ public debt “shall not be questioned.” Some argue the clause means the government cannot renege on its debts.
Obama dismissed talk of invoking the amendment on Wednesday. “I don’t think we should even get to the constitutional issue,” he said. “Congress has a responsibility to make sure we pay our bills. We’ve always paid them in the past.”
HINT OF PLAN B COULD HURT TALKS
The White House declined to comment on the discussions at Treasury, but administration officials sought to tamp down talk of relying on the 14th Amendment.
There has been growing speculation in Washington in recent days that the administration could use the amendment to ignore the congressionally imposed limit on the amount of money the United States can borrow.
“Despite suggestions to the contrary, the 14th Amendment is not a failsafe that would allow the government to avoid defaulting on its obligations,” said White House spokeswoman Amy Brundage.
Miller’s team has discussed the Government Accountability Office’s 1985 assessment that Treasury has the authority to prioritize payments in the event of a default — an option Treasury officials have been wary of.
The administration’s nightmare scenario is that investors panic at the prospect of a default, triggering a crisis that eclipses the 2008 financial meltdown. That could plunge the U.S. economy into another recession, something that could doom Obama’s re-election prospects in 2012.
Some conservative Republicans have argued the Treasury can prioritize payments and manage a default. The administration wants to keep lawmakers focused on the August 2 deadline, and even a hint of a “Plan B” could lessen the urgency to strike a deal by then.
“As we have said repeatedly over the past six months, there is no alternative to raising the debt limit,” Treasury spokeswoman Colleen Murray said when asked to comment on the Treasury discussions.
“The only way to prevent a default crisis and protect America’s credit-worthiness is to enact a timely debt limit increase, which we remain confident Congress will do.”
TREASURY OFFICIALS MUM
Obama meets leaders from both parties at the White House on Thursday as he seeks to get an agreement to cut trillions from the U.S. deficit, which Republicans have demanded in exchange for their support to raise the debt limit.
The fear of any loss of momentum in the debt and deficit talks is so great that even in their private conversations with former colleagues and investors, administration officials are refusing to admit to contingency discussions.
“There has to be contingency planning,” said one former Obama administration official. “But they won’t even tell me that.”
That view was echoed by numerous former officials from the Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations.
“You have to have a backup plan. If you are relying on Congress to avoid the possibility of an Armageddon, you can’t just bet on that,” said Keith Hennessey, who headed the White House National Economic Council during President George W. Bush’s administration.
In August, the Treasury will take in roughly $172 billion, but is obligated to make $306 billion in payments — meaning it cannot pay about 45 percent of its bills without borrowing more money, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center, a Washington think tank.
That would force the administration to make some difficult choices, even though officials believe emergency measures will buy little time and cannot stave off an economic catastrophe.
OPTIONS “PRETTY UGLY”
If Treasury were to decide to delay some payments, one option could be to postpone a disbursement of more than $49 billion to Social Security recipients that is due on August 3.
It would be a politically explosive step but one that could allow the government to temporarily pay bondholders to try to avoid foreign investors dumping U.S. Treasuries and the dollar.
The administration has warned that any missed payments, including those to retirees, veterans and contractors, would be default by another name, and the Treasury team still has concerns that any contingency plan would prove unworkable.
Steve McMillin, a former deputy director of the White House Office of Management and Budget under Bush, said Treasury has options but most of them are “pretty ugly.”
If Treasury were to decide to delay payments, it would need to re-program government computers that generate automatic payments as they fall due — a massive and difficult undertaking. Treasury makes about 3 million payments each day.
From their second floor offices in Treasury, Miller and Fiscal Assistant Secretary Richard Gregg, are the lieutenants Geithner is relying on if the administration’s first option of negotiating a deal with Republicans falls apart.
“She’s dealing with this day in and day out,” said a former Treasury official.
The former official said Treasury aides were “speaking with Congress on a daily basis,” giving them the latest updates on receipts and when default could occur.
The source said White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley and other officials regularly ask Miller for information.
“Every day they talk about the debt ceiling. The night before, they get the most recent numbers,” the source said.
Michael Barr, a former Treasury official who worked closely with Miller, said he spoke with Miller and Gregg a month ago.
“They were exploring if there were any legal and practical alternatives. It was not obvious to them that the president has the legal authority to pick and choose who gets paid,” he said.
Barr added: “It is not obvious that even if they had legal authority, that as a practical matter you can do it.”
As recently as June 21, Miller told a group of sovereign debt holders in London that there is no Plan B and assured them that the debt limit would be raised before August 2.
Publicly, Treasury has maintained there is no contingency plan. “Our plan is for Congress to pass the debt limit,” Geithner said late in May. “Our fall-back plan is for Congress to pass the debt limit, and our fall-back plan to the fall-back plan is for Congress to pass the debt limit.”“I don’t believe it is really a riddle to be solved,” he told the television interviewer François Chalais. “Every spectator can find his own interpretation, and it’s likely to be the right one.”
Mr. Resnais had a full head of white hair that the French newspaper Le Monde said he had sported for so long that one could forget he was ever young. He exhibited a youthful energy well into his 80s and was working on drafts of his next project from his hospital bed when he died, the producer Jean-Louis Livi said.
Despite the serious nature of his films, he showed a playful side in recent years and said he had found inspiration in Larry David’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” one of his favorite television shows. Another expression of his appreciation for “high” and “low” culture was his interest in cartoons. His 1989 movie, “I Want to Go Home,” was a comedy collaboration with Jules Feiffer, with whom he wrote the screenplay. He told a French interviewer that he wanted his work to have the effect of “désolation allègre” — “cheerful desolation.”
Mr. Resnais was married twice. His first wife, Florence Malraux, was the daughter of the novelist André Malraux and worked as his assistant on many of his films from “Marienbad” to “Mélo.” They later divorced. His second wife, Sabine Azéma, who survives him, is an actress who appeared in many of his films.
Mr. Resnais was born on June 3, 1922, in the village of Vannes, in Brittany, where his father was a pharmacist. He became fascinated by the movies as a child, and at 14 he directed his first film in eight millimeter, “L’Aventure de Guy,” now lost but said to have been inspired by Louis Feuillade’s crime serial “Fantômas.”
In 1939, he moved to Paris to study acting, and in 1942 he appeared as an extra in Marcel Carné’s Occupation allegory “Les Visiteurs du Soir.” When the French national film school, L’Institut des Hautes Études Cinématographiques, was founded in 1943, Mr. Resnais became a member of what would become the first graduating class.You're 24 points ahead in the polls in the race to be Labour leader. The bookies give you a 95% chance of winning. Your chances of victory are all but a nailed-on certainty. So what do you do? Well you kick back and hang out with one of the biggest cod-reggae acts of the 80s of course.
Jeremy Corbyn's joint press conference with UB40 yesterday afternoon was hands down the strangest political event I've ever been to. At one point, as the band listened intently to Corbyn's musings on the virtues of Romanian folk music, I began to believe I was in some sort of cheese-fuelled daydream. Was this really happening? Had I fallen asleep and woken up on the set of a David Lynch film? Was that really Jeremy Corbyn underneath a banner with the giant hashtag "UB4Corbyn" (Unemployment Benefit for Corbyn)? Was that really the leader of the opposition asking saxophonist Brian Travers whether he listens to classical music ("occasionally" apparently)? Did Corbyn really just thank the band "for everything you do, because music is part of our lives and part of everyone's existence"? Was this really happening? Was I really here?
By the time the Q+A session came around, the audience of assembled hacks looked like they were suffering from the advanced stages of post traumatic stress. What were we meant to ask about this? "Why on God's green Earth are you holding a press conference with UB40?" seemed the most obvious question, closely followed by "How the hell was this approved by anybody?" and "Will this be available on DVD?"
Instead, we asked politely about the Labour leader's musical taste. We learnt that he loves sixties Caribbean music, Joan Baez and Mahler. On the latter he explained at length that: "Trying to understand what it is that motivates somebody to sit in a garret room, often in great poverty in the nineteenth century and turn out something truly stupendous, when they didn't have the opportunity to play it immediately and see what it was like and then to write it out and find an orchestra that could perform it and then decide if it was any good or not, that was an incredibly complicated process and I just admire the skill that goes into that and the skill of the teachers that managed to teach those people to write music. It really is a fantastic message."
He then turned to UB40. "I don't know if you do your writing in that way?"
"There's no point asking us. We do everything arse backwards," replied drummer Jimmy Brown.
Pushed further, Brown replied: "we just get in a room and knock something together."
An inspiring message. And one which has apparently not been lost on Corbyn's team, for whom "just get in a room and knock something together" seemed to have been the entire plan for this event.
Afterwards, the assembled hacks stumbled outside into the daylight. "What the f*** was that?" asked one bemused correspondent. "Did that really just happen?" asked another. There wasn't long to ponder this question before Corbyn and the band came outside for one final photo shoot together.
As the Labour leader stood uncharacteristically proudly for the cameras, he looked happier than I had ever seen him before. For a man who normally looks like he'd rather be anywhere else but doing his job of leading the official opposition, Jeremy looked like he'd finally found his place. If there really was any point to all of this, perhaps it was that.
Adam Bienkov is deputy editor of Politics.co.uk
The opinions in politics.co.uk's Comment and Analysis section are those of the author and are no reflection of the views of the website or its ownersThe Church of Uganda, the branch of the Anglican Communion there and led by the Most Rev. Henry Luke Orombi, has at last joined the chorus of voices on the nation’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill. So let it be known, once and for all, the Church does not support the bill. Well, they don’t support one tiny, self-serving part of it. All the rest, they like!
The Church is just fine with the bill’s calling for the death penalty for gays who have sex with minors, the disabled, or while HIV-positive. The one thing they don’t want lawmakers to do is allow prison time for anyone who fails to report alleged homosexuals, which could put doctors and — egads! — church pastors in jeopardy of going to jail if they dare stumble upon A Gay and, rather than turn him in, try to counsel him with Jesus’s message.
Otherwise, besides a clause recommending “language that strengthens the existing Penal Code to protect the boy child, especially from homosexual exploitation; to prohibit lesbianism, bestiality, and other sexual perversions; and to prohibit procurement of material and promotion of homosexuality as normal or as an alternative lifestyle, be adopted,” the Church of Uganda, which counts about a third of Ugandans among its flock, says in its statement that it wants to “ensure that homosexual practice or the promotion of homosexual relations is not adopted as a human right.”
Ugh.Does my phone weigh more when the battery is charged?
Short answer: Yes, your phone does weigh a tiny bit more when fully charged.
Long answer: It’s a common misconception that a battery contains a reservoir of electrons, like a bucket full of water. Rather, batteries are a reservoir of energy, stored in chemical bonds between ions, which can be used to produce an electric current in a circuit. The number of particles in the phone doesn’t change from use.
So if there is the same amount of matter present in the battery, whether or not it is charged or dead, why does the battery weigh more when it’s charged?
The reason comes from general relativity. We know that E=mc2 – energy and mass are connected in some fundamental way – and we know a charged battery contains more energy than a dead one. Again, this doesn’t mean there is more mass or matter in your phone when it is charged, it just means that there is more stuff present for gravity to pull on, which makes the battery weigh more.
Gravity pulls on both mass and energy, so the weight is determined by the total mass and energy contained in the object. Since a charged battery contains a greater total amount of energy than a dead battery, the earth’s gravity will pull more strongly on it. However, the difference in weight is tiny. A 2000 mAh, 5 V battery contains about 36000 Joules of energy. If this energy were an equivalent mass (by E=mc2), then it’s not much more than a lone bacteria.
For comparison, if you could annihilate your phone (perhaps with an antimatter phone) to turn the matter into energy, you’d die because the resulting explosion would be as powerful as an atomic bomb. As far as batteries go, nothing stores energy quite as good as matter itself.
asked by Santiago V.
image credit: Wikimedia CommonsA dashcam video posted on YouTube that captures an apparent road rage incident and alleged assault is making its rounds on social media.
The ‘instant karma’ incident occurred on February 12 on Terminal Avenue, near Science World and Pacific Central Station.
In the video, a man is seen getting out of his white car and walking towards the driver of the car in front of him. The man touches the driver-side window and appears to assault the driver.
Other drivers act as witnesses and the man is unable to leave the scene as vehicles are blocking his vehicle. One of the witnesses walks over to the other side of the street to alert police: Vancouver Police were in the area responding to an unrelated incident.
Two police officers then walked over and arrested the suspect for the assault. Towards the end of the video, the individual who recorded the footage dubs the incident “instant karma in less than 3 minutes” – the duration of the entire incident from apparent road rage to arrest.
According to CTV, the suspect driver is 26 years old and is now facing charges of assault. The cause of the apparent road rage is not known.
[youtube id=”L6WtsakHbB0″]For the past couple of days Democrats have been touting a study by the kaiser foundation stating that the Obamacare insurance market has stabilized. The premise of the report is simple. The loss margin was down therefore the insurance companies were doing better. In 2016 insurance companies paid out 86% of all premiums collected in insurance claims. In 2017 they have so far paid out 75% of all premium claims collected in the first quarter. This data is used to claim that the Obamacare market is stable and is not in a death spiral. Second they state that the amount of days spent in a hospital per 1000 patients is similar to last year which means that the health pool is not getting sicker.
Health Pool
Lets take a look at this one first since it is hilarious. In 2011 the average amount of days per 1000 was 20.6 in 2012 it was 21.2 in 2013 it had risen to 21.6 and lastly in 2014 it had gone to 21.7. Over 4 years there was an increase of 1.1 days. By 2016 the amount had risen to 23.8 days and in 2017 it had gone up to 24.7.
The very study that they use to show that Obamacare had stabilized and that the health pool is not getting sicker shows a 0.9 increase over 1 year when it had only increased 1.1 days over 4 years previously.
Premiums and Loss Margin
Can anyone think of something that happened last year that would cause this? That’s right the insurance companies jacked up their premiums massively. Of course the data will show you are paying less money as a percentage of the premiums you collect. It is not because you are paying less money in claims as your health pool is getting sicker as evidenced by your own data but because you are collecting more money.
There is good news though. Insurance companies are already signalling another round of massive increases to premiums for Obamacare plans this year. Some will even go 40-50% higher in just one year. Congratulations. I guess Obamacare will be much more stable.
To summarize the arguments offered by the Kaiser foundation in defense of Obamacare. Our health pool got sicker 4 times as fast as previous years and premiums are going up at unprecedented rates therefore Obamacare is working! lol.
AdvertisementsA disagreement over who could sit in a booth at downtown Boston strip club led to the shooting of two people inside the Glass Slipper and the arrest of the owner of a Jamaica Plain videogame parlor on charges of attempted murder, law enforcement officials and the suspect’s attorney said today.
With his face obscured, Steven Gayle pleaded not guilty in Boston Municipal Court to multiple charges, including two counts of armed assault with intent to murder and unlawful possession of a firearm and ammunition.
Bail was set by Judge Eleanor Coe Sinnott at $250,000 cash.
His defense attorney, Pamela Harris-Daly, told reporters that Gayle, 34, is himself a survivor of a violent crime – he was shot in 2006 and has been partially disabled ever since. She also said he is the owner of the The Game Room in Jamaica Plain, a video game parlor.
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He is the father of a nine-year-old child who lives with the child’s mother, she said. Harris-Daly also said that Gayle’s version of the events inside the Glass Slipper will show he was the victim of aggression. She declined to provide further details.
Suffolk Assistant District Attorney David Fredette said Gayle was sitting in a booth at the strip club at 22 LaGrange St. when some other patrons sat down. Gayle began to argue with the men who had suddenly joined him, and the dispute grew into an altercation.
At some point, Gayle then stood up and shot one of the victims twice in the head and then turned and shot the second victim at least once, also in the head. Gayle then left the nightspot but was followed outside by a bouncer and several patrons who shouted to Boston Police Officer Mark Bordley that “he has a gun.’’ The patrons pointed at Gayle as he walked onto Washington Street and then Kneeland Street.
At the time, Bordley was working a paid detail at Centerfolds, the second strip club in downtown Boston, which is located next to the Glass Slipper. According to Bordley’s report, filed in court, he and Officer Earl Jacob, who was off-duty, followed Gayle and convinced him to stop at the corner of Washington and Kneeland streets.
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Gayle was holding a Colt revolver in his right hand, police said. The hammer on the revolver was in the cocked and ready to fire position, police said. Gayle, who was arrested at gunpoint, was carrying 16 rounds of ammunition in his backpack, police alleged.
Police said they had to protect Gayle from several angry men who tried to attack him after he was taken into custody. One person was quoted by police as saying, “That’s [expletive] up, Steve. So it’s like that. I know where you be at.’’
The incident happened around 2:13 a.m. Both victims are expected to survive, Boston police spokeswoman Cheryl Fiandaca said in an e-mail. One of the victims, a 31-year-old man, is in critical condition at Tufts Medical Center. The other is being treated at Massachusetts General Hospital for non-life-threatening injuries.
The Glass Slipper has operated on LaGrange Street since 1985 and was open at another location in the neighborhood when the city experimented with an adult entertainment district known as the Combat Zone in the 1970s.
The Glass Slipper and Centerfolds, also located on LaGrange Street, are the last remaining strip clubs downtown.President Barack Obama, seated next to Hester Clark, president and chief executive officer of the Hester Group, speaks during a meeting with small business owners to talks about the government shutdown and debt ceiling, Friday, Oct. 11, 2013, in the Roosevelt Room at the White House in Washington. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
In case it wasn’t already painfully obvious, here’s some more evidence the government shutdown is probably hurting the economy.
Jan Hatzius, Goldman Sachs’ chief economist, wrote in a note Friday that the shutdown could shave about 0.5 percent off the next quarter’s GDP growth. Hatzius’ 0.5 prediction may seem small, but if it proves true, it could have a big impact. Initially, Hatzius predicted the economy would grow by 2.5 percent, so cutting the forecast by 0.5 percent marks a 20 percent drop.
Congressional Republicans refused to pass a resolution to fund the government earlier this month unless it included provisions to defund portions of President Obama's health care reform law. The shutdown entered its third week Monday as 350,000 federal workers are still off the job, some national parks remain closed and some government functions -- like environmental inspections -- are on hold.
All of that, plus spooked consumers and investors, means the shutdown is costing the economy about $160 million per day, according to data released last week by global market research firm IHS.
But while the shutdown could certainly inflict some economic damage -- especially the longer it continues -- the impact is likely |
did not yield any interesting bugs however besides a few minor hangs. vmware-hostd is also an interesting process as it provides a webserver that is reachable from within the VM and mostly used for VM sharing. However, instead of drilling deeper into additional host software, we decided to turn our interest back to core parts of VMware.
vmware-vmx is the main hypervisor application running on the host and as most VMware processes, runs as root/SYSTEM and exposes several interesting features. In fact, this exists in two flavors: vmware-vmx and vmware-vmx-debug. The latter being used if debugging is enabled within the VMware settings. This is important, because when reverse engineering VMware, it is actually a lot easier to start off with vmware-vmx-debug due to its excessive presence of debug strings. It is not best suited however for actual vulnerability hunting as we will see later.
RPC/RPCI
Did you ever wonder how you can drag-and-drop a file from your VM to your host desktop? This is where RPC comes into play. VMware internally offers a so-called backdoor interface on port 0x5658. It provides means for a guest to communicate with vmware-vmx APIs by issuing I/O instructions (IN/OUT) from within a guest. When passing a VMware specific magic value in a register, VMware internally evaluates additional passed arguments. I/O instructions are usually privileged. However, this particular port on the backdoor interface is one exception. The number of additional exceptions however is very limited and there are numerous additional validations when issuing backdoor commands (e.g. absMouseCommand) to determine if execution originates from a privileged guest account.
On top of this backdoor interface, VMware implements RPC services to be used to exchange data between the host and the guest. On the guest side, this RPC service is used by issuing backdoor commands from vmware-toolsd. In case you ever wondered why certain features just work when installed vmware-tools, this is why. The combination of X (on Linux) driver code and userspace utilities makes this possible.
The original backdoor interface just allows passing data in registers, which for large amounts of data is quite slow. To account for that, VMware introduced another backdoor port (0x5659) to host a “high-bandwidth” backdoor, which is actually used these days for RPC. This allows passing pointers to data, which vmware-vmx can use for read/writes rather than repeatedly issuing IN instructions. Derek also once found a pretty interesting vulnerability in this.
The idea behind the RPC interface is to provide commands for:
opening a channel
send a command length
send bulk data
receive length of reply
receive reply bulk data
finish interaction
close RPC channel
You might wonder what prevents processes to mess with RPC interaction of others. When opening a channel, VMware creates two cookie values, which are required to be sent with further send and receive commands. As far as we can judge, these are generated securely. As they are simply two uint32 dwords, they are also not compared using memcmp or other comparison routines with security impact.
On top of this, VMware implemented RPC command handlers for DnD, CnP, Unity (used for using windows as native host windows), setting of information and much more. A subset of these commands is again only available to privileged guest users. On the guest side, the rpctool provided by vmware-tools/open-vm-tools (most importantly, the RpcOut_sendOne() function) can be used to interact with API. A simple example to store and obtain guest information with this is:
rpctool 'info-set guestinfo.foobar baz' rpctool 'info-get guestinfo.foobar' -> baz
This illustrates storing information within vmware-vmx and later retrieving it. The details of data storage goes beyond the scope of this post, but VMware internally uses VMDB, which is a key value store working on paths and having the ability to attach callbacks to certain pieces of data.
The number of RPC commands that are allowed to unprivileged guest users however is quite limited. It is not easy to come up with a complete list of RPC commands as this is not only version and OS specific, but also subject to configuration settings. The easiest way to get a list of currently active commands is by dumping the commands table at runtime from memory. Kindly enough, the Linux version of vmware-vmx actually offers a symbol that makes it very easy to do that: commands_ptr/commands.
Figure 1: Left-over Symbols in Linux vmware-vmx
The most interesting attack surface for us on this interface seemed to be indeed Drag&Drop, C&P, and Unity. The reasons we did not go for these are two-fold. First, this is what lokihardt was already targeting in his Pwnfest success. We expected others to further explore this particular area and find bugs. More importantly though, for Pwn2Own 2016 features such as Unity and Virtual printing were not allowed. Because of this and the documented risk, we expected that in 2017 VMware and ZDI are mostly interested in guest escapes that do not require features that can be switched off for security conscious users through isolations settings. The Pwn2Own 2017 rules did not provide further details here with regard to configuration settings and intention, but as a result, we turned our interest away from RPC.
It is worth mentioning though that irrespectively of that, the RPC interface can be of general use for VMware exploitation, as it provides a useful primitive for heap massaging (as also documented by the Marvel team).
Peripheral Virtualization
So what is left attack-surface wise? Besides VMware’s core code around virtualization of instructions, it has to provide virtualization layers for various peripherals to a guest. This includes network, audio, USB, Bluetooth, disks, graphics, and more.
A combination of user-space services, guest kernel drivers, and code within vmware-vmx is responsible to provide virtualized devices for such features. For example, VMware provides an SVGA graphics card adapter within the guest, which acts as PCI display device driver (for both 2D and 3G). On Linux this comes with modifications to X code that is part of mesa/gallium, a kernel driver called vmwgfx, which issues ioctl system calls, and ultimately an SVGA3D/2D layer in vmware-vmx, which acts on these commands. The latter also provides an interesting set of commands that was previously targeted by Kostya in 2009. Our assumption was that virtualized peripherals provide enough attack surface that is activated by default on modern systems. Since we were looking for a feature rich attack surface that is enabled by default, non-trivial (but not impossible) to fuzz, and reasonably easy to dive into, we decided to further look into graphics.
Finding Shader Vulnerabilities
Since the competition platform was going to be running VMware Workstation on Windows 10, we focused on graphics interaction on Windows rather than Linux. It is worth noting though that the presence of an Open Source implementation of VMware’s graphics driver portion within Gallium’s svga code helped tremendously in analyzing this portion within vmware-vmx. Likewise, Microsoft’s graphic driver samples helped in understanding how display drivers work on Windows in the first place.
As others have targeted SVGA commands itself before, we wanted to dig a level deeper and look at parts of the featured functionality rather that itself included significant complexity: translation of GPU shader programs. Furthermore, a significant advantage of targetting shader bytecode over raw SVGA commands is that shader bytecode can be fed to vmware-vmx from guest userland. While on Linux and Mac OS, shaders are translated into OpenGL, on Windows they are translated into Direct3D actions. As VMware supports a number of different guest operating systems, different kinds of native shader code needs to be translated to host shader actions, which we expected to come with significant complexity and space for introducing vulnerabilities.
Our original analysis was based on VMware Workstation 12.5.3.
Architecture
Two different virtual GPU implementations exist in VMware, a so-called VGPU9 (corresponding to DirectX 9.0) implementation that is used by older Windows guests and Linux guests and a VGPU 10 implementation that is used by Windows 10 guests.
For 3D accelerated graphics, VMware uses a WDDM (Windows Display Driver Model) driver in Windows 10 guests. This driver consists of a user-space and a kernel space part. The user-space portion is implemented within vm3dum64_10.dll, while the kernel-space driver is vm3dp.sys. When using a Direct3D 10 shader, the actual shader code goes through several layers of translation. Usually, the shader is first compiled from a so-called HLSL (High Level Shader Language) file to a bytecode representation. As VMware is providing virtualized 3D support, this bytecode cannot be used directly, but instead it needs to be further translated and the Direct 3D API needs to make use of the respective vendor-specific implementations for shader code. For this, the user-space driver implements callbacks that are stored in a D3D10DDI_DEVICEFUNCS structure. These are used to communicate and transform byte-code into a vendor-specific API, in this case VMware SVGA3D, which provides an API to define and set shaders. When flushing the shader code, the user-space driver goes through the pfnRenderCB callback of the kernel-space driver.
So any Windows application making use of GPU shaders will first and foremost utilize the Windows D3D11 API. This provides APIs to compile shader code from files, set them for different types of shaders (e.g. vertex), and render a scene. The rough translation path looks as follows:
Figure 2: Rough Architecture of Shader Stages During Execution
There are a number of additional small details under the hood and the number of internal D3D11 APIs that are involved is quite large. The interested reader can get a better idea about this by looking at the Direct3D11 examples provided by Microsoft in Windbg and tracing its execution path (Windbg’s wt command).
0:000> x /D /f Tutorial03!i* A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z 00000000`00da1900 Tutorial03!InitDevice (void) 00000000`00da28f0 Tutorial03!InitWindow (struct HINSTANCE__ *, int) 00000000`00da3630 Tutorial03!invoke_main (void) 00000000`00da3620 Tutorial03!initialize_environment (void) 00000000`00da4680 Tutorial03!is_potentially_valid_image_base (void *) 00000000`00da637a Tutorial03!IsDebuggerPresent (<no parameter info>) 00000000`00da63c8 Tutorial03!InitializeSListHead (<no parameter info>) 00000000`00da63aa Tutorial03!IsProcessorFeaturePresent (<no parameter info>) 0:000> bp Tutorial03!InitDevice 0:000> g Breakpoint 0 hit Tutorial03!InitDevice: 00da1900 55 push ebp 0:000:x86> wt -l 8 Tracing Tutorial03!InitDevice to return address 00da2dfe 259 0 [ 0] Tutorial03!InitDevice 100 0 [ 1] USER32!GetClientRect...
Creating Shader Input
When interacting with VMware’s shader implementation, it is important to understand how to write shaders in the first place.
Writing shaders for DirectX is done using the High Level Shading Language (HLSL) and compiled into bytecode using the D3D11 API or the fxc.exe program. Depending on which Shader Model is used, HLSL provides different types of shader features. The Shader Model assembly in bytecode form is the output of the HLSL compilation. VMware currently seems to support up to SM4 and SM3 internally, but not SM5 and SM6. This is important for reviewing translation implementations within vmware-vmx.
It is a little unfortunate that on current versions of Windows, there is no support anymore to write shader code in assembly instead of HLSL. As a result, crafting precise input for triggering vulnerabilities turns out to be a bit tricky. It is also important to note that D3D11 performs some sanitization of shader input so that fiddling with compiled shader objects (CSO files) can be tricky. Specifically, CSO files contain checksums that would need to be fixed. The API that checks these is D3D11_3SDKLayers!DXBCVerifyHash.
To get into a position to feed VMware with arbitrary shader bytecode, we instead leveraged the excellent Frida tool to hook and modify shader bytecode once all these steps have been taken. Specifically, we fed arbitrary shader bytecode into VMware by changing the compiled bytecode in memory once the vm3dum64_10.dll moves it in memory. Through reverse engineering, we determined the location of the respective memmove() and hooked that. Following is an excerpt from the Frida code that we used for that:
var vm3d_base = Module.findBaseAddress("vm3dum64_10.dll"); console.log("base address: " + vm3d_base); function ida2win(addr) { var idaBase = ptr('0x180000000'); var off = ptr(addr).sub(idaBase); var res = vm3d_base.add(off); console.log("translated " + ptr(addr) + " -> " + res); return res; } function start() { var memmove_addr = ida2win(0x180012840); var setShader_return = ida2win(0x180009bf4); Interceptor.attach(memmove_addr, { onLeave : function (retval) { if (!this.hit) { return; } Memory.writeU32(this.dest_addr.add(...),...);.... }, onEnter : function (args) { var shaderType = Memory.readU8(args[1].add(2)); if (!this.returnAddress.compare(setShader_return)) { if (shaderType!= 1) { return; } this.dest_addr = args[0]; this.src_addr = args[1]; this.len = args[2].toInt32(); this.hit = 1;... }); }
The above code listing uses Frida’s Interceptor feature to hijack the flow of execution when calling memmove() inside vm3dum64_10. Every time the code enters memmove(), its return value is compared to match an address within the setShader() function. On a match, destination memory is patched with crafted shader bytecode when leaving memmove().
While we did not want to compete with other fuzz farms, due to this rather convoluted setup and the various translation steps, fuzzing was somewhat inconvenient for approaching this target, at least with the current setup and on Windows as the host OS.
It is worth noting that during our research, we noticed that Marco Grassi & Peter Hlavaty had given a presentation on shader fuzzing. While it is not obvious from the presentation we later found out that VMware released a small bare-metal OS called metalkit that also comes with some shader examples; this seems to have been the basis for their fuzzing approach. Their findings can be found here.
Finding Vulnerabilities
VMware is still quite a large piece of software so that we did not know how hard it will be to identify the shader translation routines within vmware-vmx. There is essentially two directions to approach this problem: identify shader translation directly or follow SVGA3D command handlers, specifically handlers such as DXDefineShader, DXBindShader, DefineSurface etc.
These are relatively easy to find as a string table containing these can be found within the binary. These are used in a function translating SVGA3d command ids to strings.
Figure 3a: SVGA3D command strings
This doesn’t lead directly to their respective handlers, but looking e.g. for “svgaDXCmd” strings finds several functions, which have a cross reference in another large table in memory (only).
Figure 3b: SVGA3D commands table
Labeling these in a table, using the same offset as in the string table, reveals the concrete handlers. As these are ultimately used to control shader operations, following them leads us to shader parsing and translation code. Internally, there is a command FIFO between the kernel driver and vmware-vmx, which is used to push SVGA3D commands to the hypervisor. These routines first pull data from it and then call further internal processing routines.
To get directly to the shader code instead there are two ways. The first, utilizing strings contained in vmware-vmx-debug allows to go directly to the shader parsing and translation code – we followed cross-references to the strings “shaderParseSM4.c” and “shaderTransSM4.c”. While we did this initially, auditing the debug version of vmware-vmx for shader vulnerabilities has a big drawback: it contains checks that are not present in vmware-vmx.
We are not quite sure whether this is an oversight of VMware or what caused this, but at the time of auditing vmware-vmx, it seemed to be an omnipresent pattern to have numerous of security critical checks in shader parsing and translation code that would only be present in the -debug variant.
Instead, searching for specific immediate operands finds the code in the non-debug version and has the nice side effect that these definitions can be used to make the respective code in IDA much more readable. Thanks to the mesa driver, it is easy to know what values to look for. Specifically, its VPGU10 definitions were quite useful for our analysis and IDB annotations.
Now when vmware-vmx needs to translate guest shader code to host shader code, it first parses the packed shader code created from VMware libraries within the guest. Reverse engineering this functionality and also crafting meaningful input for verification is what took us most of the time, also due to the lack of low level documentation on shader bytecode. A blog post by Tim Jones was very helpful for that: “Parsing Direct3D shader bytecode” (thank you for that!).
The initial parsing of each specific opcode then is relatively simple as for the majority of opcodes, the function ParseSM4() only stores away arguments.
Figure 4: ParseSM4()
While the parser code operates on raw bytecode data, it is similar to a classic TLV parser. The overall shader code comes with a length that allows the parser to know when to stop parsing, while each opcode comes with a type, an instruction length, and a value. More specifically, each opcode “header” is a dword where bits 0:10 determine the opcode, bits 11:23 can be used to encode opcode-specific data, bits 30:24 encode the opcode data length and bit 31 denotes if the opcode is extended (most opcodes are not).
As most of the opcodes contain values that fit into a single byte, the parser for the most part just copies byte values into an internal custom data structure that is largely unknown to us. The above VGPU10_OPCODE_CUSTOMDATA is one of the tokens/opcodes that is an exception to this as it contains a variable-length buffer for constants as can be seen in the dcl_immediateConstantBuffer description.
As mentioned, the internal data structure that is used is for the most part unknown to us. However, for finding vulnerabilities within the translation step this does not matter, because the used offsets within that data structure are the same. As a result, it is mostly straight-forward to audit TransSM4 in binary while knowing what its “inputs” are.
Altogether, this was still a very time consuming step for multiple reasons. First, without any prior knowledge about shader code and VMware’s graphic virtualization, it took some time to arrive at this point in the first place. Second, testing a hypothesis by crafting test shader bytecode was not straight forward due to the lack of an ability to write SM4 assembly directly. Instead, we manually patched bytecode in memory using the aforementioned Frida approach. Lastly, understanding SM4 instruction details and mapping understanding to encoding of opcodes is a beast on its own. Besides having a debugger on the host, there was one aspect here that also helped us during our reverse engineering work. Namely, the -debug variant of vmware-vmx has a lot of ASSERT statements that help in understanding errors. The function ParseSM4 also features a shader disassembler that can dump shader code to the VMware log.
Findings
Now lets look at the issues we found during our manual reverse engineering work. After Pwn2Own, we reported these issues and PoCs to ZDI on March 17th 2017.
Heap overflow when translating dcl_immediateConstantBuffer opcodes
When parsing a VGPU10_OPCODE_CUSTOMDATA token that defines an immediate constant buffer, the following pseudo-code snippet is executed:
case VGPU10_OPCODE_CUSTOMDATA: v41 = v23 >> 11; *(_DWORD *)(_out_p_16_ptr + op_idx + 16) = v41; if ( (_DWORD)v41 == VGPU10_CUSTOMDATA_DCL_IMMEDIATE_CONSTANT_BUFFER ) { *(_DWORD *)(_out_p_16_ptr + op_idx + 32) = insn_l; custom_data_alloc = (void *)mksMemMgr_alloc(v41, 0x10009u, 4LL * (unsigned int)insn_l);// int overflow safe *(_QWORD *)(_out_p_16_ptr + op_idx + 24) = custom_data_alloc; memcpy(custom_data_alloc, bc_tmp_ptr, 4LL * *(unsigned int *)(_out_p_16_ptr + op_idx + 32)); v37 = 0; insn_start = (int *)bc_tmp_ptr; }
In this case insn_l represents a 32-bit immediate encoded in the customdata instruction. This is a special case as regular shader instructions do not use 32-bit length values. This length value denotes the number of dwords to follow within the customdata block. There are no restrictions on the length on this code path other than making sure that no out-of-bounds reads occur on the original shader bytecode.
Using the custom allocator wrapper mksMemMgr_alloc, which internally uses calloc, a heap-buffer of size 159384 is allocated. The function calloc is provided by msvcr90.dll ; interestingly we observed this library to always be mapped into the lowest 4GByte of virtual memory. Subsequently, the immediate constant data is copied into this buffer. The calloc function on Windows 10 goes through RtlAllocateHeap and ends up allocating on the NT Heap. We shall refer to allocated buffer as outbuf in the following. The constant data itself is also under control of the attacker here.
After allocation of this buffer, the translation stage is entered. Upon encountering a VGPU10_OPCODE_CUSTOMDATA token, a function is called that performs the following memcpy without further checks:
result = memcpy(outbuf + 106228, custom_data_alloc, 4 * len);
where custom_data_alloc is the buffer allocated in the parsing stage indicated above. This allows writing controlled data into adjacent heap chunks and values stored within the aforementioned internal data structure for parsed opcodes, which resides in this area as well.
Out-of-bounds heap write when translating dcl_indexableTemp opcodes
When processing a dcl_indexabletemp instruction, the shader parsing routine first uses the following pseudo-code:
case VGPU10_OPCODE_DCL_INDEXABLE_TEMP: *(_DWORD *)(_out_p_16_ptr + op_idx + 16) = *insn_start;// index *(_DWORD *)(_out_p_16_ptr + op_idx + 20) = insn_start[1];// index + value for array write operation in Trans bc_tmp_ptr = insn_start + 3; *(_DWORD *)(_out_p_16_ptr + op_idx + 24) = insn_start[2];
As you can see above, the values that are written at op_idx are part of the encoded instruction itself and reused later during the translation phase. There are no further restriction on the actual values during the parsing stage.
The following code shows the translation step:
case VGPU10_OPCODE_DCL_INDEXABLE_TEMP: v87 = *(_DWORD *)(bytecode_ptr + op_idx + 24); svga3d_dcl_indexable_temp((__int64)__out, *(_DWORD *)(bytecode_ptr + op_idx + 16),// idx *(_DWORD *)(bytecode_ptr + op_idx + 20),// val (1 << v87) - 1); // val2
As we can see, the exact same index values are reused here (20, 16, 24) when calling svga3d_dcl_indexable_temp(). The variables idx and val are directly under attacker control while the 4th parameter to the function is derived from the third dword of the original instruction ((1 << val2) - 1).
Following is the code of the function svga3d_dcl_indexable_temp().
__int64 __fastcall svga3d_dcl_indexable_temp(__int64 a1, unsigned int idx, int val, char val2) { __int64 result; // rax@5 const char *v5; // rcx@7 const char *v6; // rsi@7 signed __int64 v7; // rdx@7 *(_DWORD *)(a1 + 8LL * idx + 0x1ED80) = val; *(_BYTE *)(a1 + 8LL * idx + 0x1ED84) = val2; *(_BYTE *)(a1 + 8LL * idx + 0x1ED85) = 1; result = idx; return result;
In the above listing, a1 is a heap-buffer that comes from the translation routine. It is the same structure that is allocated and used in the aforementioned custom data case. What’s different to this bug is that this issue allows us to use a 32-bit dword as a write-offset within this buffer starting at offset 0x1ed80.
So this vulnerability gives us the capability of writing a controlled dword at an arbitrary dword index from within the aforementioned heap-structure. The next written 2 bytes will be the aforementioned val2 value based on the original shader code instruction content with one byte being 1 (and 2 bytes remaining zero).
Out-of-bounds stack buffer write when translating dcl_resource opcodes
When the translation stage is processing a dcl_resource instruction, the following code snippet is executed:
int hitme[128]; // [rsp+1620h] [rbp-258h]@196 int v144; // [rsp+1820h] [rbp-58h]@204 char v145; // [rsp+1824h] [rbp-54h]@303 bool v146; // [rsp+1830h] [rbp-48h]@14 char v147; // [rsp+1831h] [rbp-47h]@14 int v148; // [rsp+1880h] [rbp+8h]@1 __int64 v149; // [rsp+1890h] [rbp+18h]@1 __int64 v150; // [rsp+1898h] [rbp+20h]@14... case VGPU10_OPCODE_DCL_RESOURCE: v87 = sub_1403C2200(*(_DWORD *)(v14 + 32)); v88 = sub_1403C2200(*(_DWORD *)(v14 + 28)); v89 = sub_1403C2200(*(_DWORD *)(v14 + 24)); v90 = sub_1403C2200(*(_DWORD *)(v14 + 20)); sub_1402FCF10(&v107, (__int64)outptr, *(_DWORD *)(v14 + 80), v86, v90, v89, v88, v87); v11 = 0i64; hitme[(unsigned __int64)*(unsigned int *)(v14 + 80)] = *(_DWORD *)(v14 + 16);
We did not fully dive into the details of sub_1403C2200() here, but these calls hardly matter as they have no influence on the stack overwrite targeting the hitme variable. In this case, the index (v14+80) again is a dword fully controlled by the input shader bytecode, while the value written is partially controlled and can hold values from 0 to 31. This means we can write aligned dwords. We use the plural here, since the bug can be triggered multiple times with values 0–31 to addresses that are up to 4Gbytes located above the address of hitme.
Exploitability depends on target and VMWare version here as obviously the stack layout is different on different platforms/versions.
Insecure memory mapping leading to DEP bypass
When the vmware-vmx hypervisor process first starts, several memory mappings are created. Surprisingly, one of the mappings is created with read,write, and execute permissions and remains so during the lifetime of the process. This is the only memory segment for which this holds true. The mapping that is created here is the first page of the data segment of the vmware-vmx process.
Obviously, this significantly easens exploitation of vmware-vmx during a guest/host escape by providing a nice area to place and execute shellcode from.
7ff7`36b53000 7ff7`36b54000 0`00001000 MEM_IMAGE MEM_COMMIT PAGE_EXECUTE_READWRITE Image [vmware_vmx; "C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Workstation\x64\vmware-vmx.exe"] 0:018> dq 7ff7`36b53000 L 0n1000/8 00007ff7`36b53000 ffffffff`ffffffff 00000001`fffffffe 00007ff7`36b53010 00009f56`1b68b8ce ffff60a9`e4974731 00007ff7`36b53020 00007ff7`36780a18 00007ff7`36780a08 00007ff7`36b53030 00007ff7`367809f8 00007ff7`367809e8 00007ff7`36b53040 00007ff7`367809d8 00000000`00000000 00007ff7`36b53050 00007ff7`36780990 00007ff7`36780940 00007ff7`36b53060 00007ff7`367808f0 00007ff7`367808a0 00007ff7`36b53070 00007ff7`36780860 00007ff7`36780820 00007ff7`36b53080 00007ff7`367807f0 00007ff7`367807a0 00007ff7`36b53090 00007ff7`36780750 00007ff7`36780700
As visible, the memory is mapped read/write/executable. The qword dump in Windbg is just meant to show that this is indeed matching the data section as seen in IDA:
.data:0000000140B33000 _data segment para public 'DATA' use64... 0000000140B33000 FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FE FF FF FF 01 00 00 00................ 0000000140B33010 32 A2 DF 2D 99 2B 00 00 CD 5D 20 D2 66 D4 FF FF 2..-.+...].f... 0000000140B33020 18 0A 76 40 01 00 00 00 08 0A 76 40 01 00 00 00..v@......v@.... 0000000140B33030 F8 09 76 40 01 00 00 00 E8 09 76 40 01 00 00 00..v@......v@.... 0000000140B33040 D8 09 76 40 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00..v@............ 0000000140B33050 90 09 76 40 01 00 00 00 40 09 76 40 01 00 00 00..v@....@.v@.... 0000000140B33060 F0 08 76 40 01 00 00 00 A0 08 76 40 01 00 00 00..v@......v@.... 0000000140B33070 60 08 76 40 01 00 00 00 20 08 76 40 01 00 00 00 `.v@.....v@.... 0000000140B33080 F0 07 76 40 01 00 00 00 A0 07 76 40 01 00 00 00..v@......v@.... 0000000140B33090 50 07 76 40 01 00 00 00 00 07 76 40 01 00 00 00 P.v@......v@....
Disclosure Remarks
By the time we found the first two vulnerabilities, these were 0days in 12.5.3. Even after the contest these remained unfixed in 12.5.4.
Shortly after 12.5.4, VMware made another release as part of VMSA-2017-0006 that killed the first two heap-related issues in 12.5.5. As the details in the advisory are rather vague, we do not know if those issues were knowingly fixed or not. This is further the case due to an aspect that we mentioned earlier. Namely, the -debug variant of vmware-vmx has various error checks that the production version does not have. Specifically as we realized when those issues were fixed, it did have ASSERT checks for these two issues. So one theory would be to assume that those were fixed accidentally or internal findings as part of the Pwn2Own clean-up. According to ZDI, these were not clashes with other submissions and VMSA-2017-0006 only mentions ZDI reports.
As a result, we do not know if there are CVE ids for these specific flaws or if any researcher found these.
However, it is worth noting that this ASSERT pattern (or the lack thereof in non-debug) also affected other SM4 instructions. We can confirm that until 12.5.5 at least dcl_indexRange and dcl_constantBuffer had similar heap out-of-bounds writes.
The dcl_resource vulnerability remained unfixed in 12.5.5 and has been addressed after our research in 12.5.7 together with the DoS aspects. VMware ESXi 6.5 is also affected and was patched in ESXi650-201707101-SG. The memory corruption, which is CVE-2017-4924, was also covered in VMSA-2017-0015.
We currently believe that those initial fixes were due to internal code reorganization and not specifically because of reports. What leads to this belief is the fact that they were fixed with the exact same code as in the -debug version, using ASSERT statements rather than robust error handling. As a result, these could still be used to crash the VMware hypervisor.
PoCs for the issues can be found on https://github.com/comsecuris/vgpu_shader_pocs.
Other Bits and Bytes
Before closing out this post, we would like to leave a few bits that we found helpful during our work. Hopefully they will be helpful to others as well. Particularly, the following aspects.
Different Variants and Bug Hunting
The vmware-vmx-debug variant is easier for getting started with reverse engineering. Contrary, the vmware-vmx non-debug variant is more useful for vulnerability hunting.
Different Variants and Ease of RE
When reverse engineering vmware-vmx, the Linux version particularly has some oddities related to function inlining that makes RE work much more cumbersome than on Mac and Windows. Ultimately and to our surprise, we found the Windows version the easiest for reverse engineering work.
The Linux version on the flip side contains some symbols that are useful.
Settings
VMware has useful settings for interacting with shaders, specifically we found mks.dx11.dumpShaders, mks.shim.dumpShaders, and mks.gl.dumpShaders to be useful. There is likely many more.
PIE
The Linux version of vmware-vmx does not work when removing the PIE flag within the ELF binary. On Mac OS X this works when using the change_macho_flags.py script, which makes debugging a lot more convenient.
Binary Translation
Now after all of this, we were still wondering where within vmware-vmx there is code related to emulate x86 instructions. We kind of assumed that when approaching such a target, we would quickly stumble upon this by accident. Yet, we have not seen any code early on. One theory was that this is because of hardware virtualization. However, as VMware can run in multiple modes, depending on settings and the underlying host architecture, this needed to be somewhere.
At some point, we noticed something that looks like an ELF header in memory. Simply using binwalk, a tool that you would normally rather not use on a regular PE or ELF executable, turned out something interesting:
binwalk vmware-vmx.exe DECIMAL HEXADECIMAL DESCRIPTION -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 0 0x0 Microsoft executable, portable (PE)... 13126548 0xC84B94 ELF, 64-bit LSB relocatable, AMD x86-64, version 1 (SYSV) 13126612 0xC84BD4 ELF, 64-bit LSB relocatable, AMD x86-64, version 1 (SYSV) 14073118 0xD6BD1E Unix path: /build/mts/release/bora-4638234/bora/vmcore/lock/semaVMM.c 14256073 0xD987C9 Sega MegaDrive/Genesis raw ROM dump, Name: "tSBASE", "E_TABLE_VA", 14283364 0xD9F264 Sega MegaDrive/Genesis raw ROM dump, Name: "ncCRC32B64", "FromMPN", 14942628 0xE401A4 ELF, 64-bit LSB relocatable, AMD x86-64, version 1 (SYSV) 14949876 0xE41DF4 ELF, 64-bit LSB relocatable, AMD x86-64, version 1 (SYSV) 14954108 0xE42E7C ELF, 64-bit LSB relocatable, AMD x86-64 |
, things were a lot better when I started. Guys don’t do this anymore" or "Boy has this ever changed. It’s just so sad to see what the business has become." Business is always going to change and mutate and grow just like the NHL does or the NFL does.
You can’t be stuck in what things were like in 1998. Oh, the Attitude Era, everybody was over! Yeah, that’s true but there was a lot of s–t in the Attitude Era too. Plus, the Attitude Era, there were guys flying around the world and finally going into WWE. That kind of doesn’t exist anymore. So guys are basically learning on the fly on TV. And it’s harder for guys to make it nowadays. For example, "Tough Enough." A lot of people ask, "Do you not like the fact that these guys are getting a shortcut into the business?" Shortcut? Are you kidding me? The workup of guys that are new, plus being on TV under the gun, under the spotlight form the moment they get into the business — that’s really, really hard. I wasn’t in the spotlight for my first, basically, six years and by then you know a little bit. Starting from scratch, going right into the fire, it’s pretty hard. NXT, it’s so big now. You work NXT for two weeks and everyone knows who you are and making a decision on whether they like you or not, whether you have a future. You’re screwed.
Back in those days or working Japan and Mexico and the indies, you had time to make mistakes, work on your character, learn what you’re going to do. So the way things are now may be harder than the way they use to be. I’ve always kind of had the open mind to know the business evolves. It changes. The work is going to change, the characters are going to change but it’s still a very vibrant, growing industry.
I’ve always looked at it like, "Do I want to ride the wave and get in on what’s going on in the future and not kind of sit in the past?" It doesn’t matter what era I think was better. All that matters is what era is going on now and to make it the best you can. If not, then retire and don’t ever bitch and complain about the wrestling business. You know what I mean? I always try to think things forward and I think that’s why I’m still able to do this.
FS: I think one of the things that has been a theme of your career and stood out is the way that you’ve kept reinventing yourself or making different things work. You’ve had great feuds with Shawn Michaels and Rey Mysterio, but even going back to WCW and when they weren’t pushing you, you came up with "The Man of 1,004 Holds" to try to start a feud with Goldberg. Where does that mind-set come from with your creativity and finding ways to make things work and be fresh for you?
CJ: When I started, I was small and I knew I’d never be the biggest guy on the show. But I knew I could have the biggest character, the biggest personality and the biggest charisma. And that’s how I looked at wrestling. I looked at it as show business, not as an actual contact sport because, guess what, it’s not a real sport. It’s entertainment. So, I always came at it from a showman’s standpoint, from an acting standpoint, from a character standpoint. That’s one of the reasons why I always wanted to morph and mutate and change … Also, the big rock and roll influence. You look at a band like KISS or Madonna, they’re always changing, whether it’s the style of music or their look or whatever it may be. It’s still KISS, it’s still Madonna, but there’s differences to it so it’s never the same thing over and over again. Some guys can do that.
AC/DC has been the same for 40 years and thank God they have been. But, for me, I knew because I wasn’t a big guy that I had to keep people’s interest by catching them in the stories I’m telling and the characters I’m playing. If you’re on TV 52 weeks out of the year or 100 times a year when "SmackDown" started or "Thunder," if I look the same, act the same, do the same stuff, people are going to get bored with me pretty quickly. I always wanted to have different elements; different hairstyle, different beard, different costume, different catchphrases, different character. I always believe when you turn heel you should get rid of everything you had as a babyface and vice versa because if not, you’re the same thing. I always worked on that very specifically. Just always wanted to do the extra mile, wanting to be the character where if I was still sitting in the audience, that I’d be interested in watching. Knowing that when this guy comes out it’s going to be something good and something different from what else is going on.
I think that’s an interesting way of looking at it. You’re not looking at it from your perspective despite all of the experience you have. If you look at it from an audience standpoint, then you’re trying to say, what do I think is going to be entertaining to them? What is going to get them involved? That a way of looking at it that I don’t think everybody does.
Absolutely. You have to look at it that way. You always have to remember what it’s like to be a fan. You always have to remember, what am I looking for here? I remember KISS saying ‘We always wanted to be the band that we wanted to see.’ I always wanted to be the wrestler that I wanted to see. I was a big Shawn Michaels fan. I loved Ricky Steamboat. I loved Hulk Hogan. I love "Macho Man" Randy Savage. If I could be a combination of all those guys, throw in some David Lee Roth and some Paul Stanley and see what I can come up with, and that’s what I did. I recreated it, sculpted it, cut away the fat, changed this and added that.
In 2008, 18 years into my career, that’s how long it took me to find my stride as a performer. That’s when I became, to me, exactly what I wanted to be. And that was a long way in. It took me 18 years and I was working at the top, top level a lot for that time frame, before I really found what I wanted to be. It does take a long time. And anybody who says it doesn’t say it takes a long time is fooling themselves.
FS: Was there one particular moment in 2008 where you said ‘I feel like I’ve got it’?
CJ: Right off the bat when I started the program with Shawn (Michaels) and he took the power bomb from Batista and landed on his knee and we didn’t know if he was hurt or wasn’t hurt and I called him a hypocrite and people started booing. Then I called them hypocrites. You’re booing me? I’m telling the truth. I’m the honest man here. That guy’s the hypocrite, he’s the liar and you are cheering for him and booing me? You’re a hypocrite. Then I realized I got it. I’ve got the ultimate thing of what a heel looks for: a kernel of truth that I can pound down people’s throats until they get so sick of it they don’t want to hear it anymore.
That’s when I knew I had it. A combination of that, working with Shawn Michaels and Nick Bockwinkel. The company had just put out an AWA documentary. I grew up in Winnipeg as an AWA fan. Watching that documentary, I just remember how freaking great Nick Bockwinkel was with his persona, his character, his suits and ties, using big words. And then that movie "No Country for Old Men" came out where Javier Bardem played Anton Chigurh, a serial killer that was very calm, very collected, not yelling, not screaming. Just matter of factly just the way it is. Combining those things together; this is it. This is my masterpiece. That’s kind of where it all started.
FS: One of the biggest moments of your career was back in 1999 when you debuted on WWE television and interrupted The Rock. It’s become arguably the greatest debut of anyone in the company and an iconic moment. What was that day like leading up to you going out there for someone who had always dreamed of being in the WWE and debuting with the biggest star there?
CJ: For me, it was nine years before I got to the WWE, working around the world from being a main-eventer to whatever I was in WCW to having this buzz and just knowing that it doesn’t matter what I’ve done for the previous nine years. All that matters is what happens from now forward. I was smart enough to realize that. That whole promo, I wrote it by myself on the floor of my apartment at the time. No rehearsal. No writer helping me. No approval from Vince. No nothing. Just me.
One thing we talk about regarding whether things were better back then, I don’t know if it’s better or worse, but I do know now that would never happen again. That segment would be rehearsed and over-rehearsed and analyzed and changed and moved. For some ways, it might be better. For some, it might be worse. I watch that promo back now and it was pretty good. There are a million things I would change to make it better. Is it one of the best moments of my career? No. Is it one of the more memorable and most critically acclaimed because of what people remember about it? Yeah. By far. So it was a great debut. Once again, what do you follow up with? For the first six months following my debut it was pretty much down the toilet. That was a lot of politics and me not knowing as much as I thought that I knew. And there was a lot of just not being that good as some of the other guys.
Even though I had worked around the world, you hear about the WWE style. That’s a real thing and I knew nothing about it. I didn’t even know how to bump and feed when I got to WWE. No one even taught me that in WCW. They don’t bump and feed in Japan. Well, you do now but you didn’t back then. Take a move and sell it for 10 minutes. That’s not how things work when you’re a heel in the WWE. Politically, I didn’t have any friends or engage myself properly because I just came in same as always. I didn’t play any political games. I just hung out, did my thing and a lot of people took offense to that and that’s where things started falling apart from that end. But I remember that night being a pretty cool night because it seemed like most of the people knew that Jericho was coming out. Then when my name flashed on the Titantron, it was one of the bigger pops of my career and the future was in the palm of my hands at that point. That five-minute segment is definitely one of the most memorable moments of my career, for sure.
FS: You say it’s one of your most memorable moments of your career, but there are things you would change about it. I think it’s moments like that debut or championships won that fans look at as the stand-out moments. What are the moments in your perspective that stand out?
CJ: It’s funny because I just read on Twitter that today is the seventh anniversary of Michaels vs. Jericho ladder match for the world title. People ask me, what’s your favorite match of all time? That’s it. That happened exactly seven years ago in 2008. That’s a stand-out moment for me and not just the match itself, which is one of my favorite actual matches, but also the fact that it was a culmination of eight months’ work for the world title and we were supposed to work one month. It was supposed to be a one-night thing, but we both realized it was something special and worked it into seven, eight months, whatever it was, and it culminated in a ladder match for the world title, which was incredible. That one stands out for me.
WrestleMania 19 against Shawn, once again, stealing a show that’s a WrestleMania stands out to me. The whole Rey Mysterio angle was incredible. The match I had with Neville in Tokyo. The match I had this week with (Kevin) Owens. All those things mean a lot to me because I love the fact that I can still go out there and have these really great matches with innovative spots, stuff you don’t see with guys who are just like me but 15 years younger. I like that. All of those moments stand out to me. I can go through every year of my career and say there are stand-out moments. There’s too many of them. The body of work over the last 25 years, it’s really cool for me to go, "Oh my gosh, there’s this, there’s that, there’s that."
A dude reminded me last night, one of our old security guards was talking about a match Rock and I had in Honolulu in 2002 or 2003. Rock will tell you that it’s his favorite match of all time. I still remember that night. Talking about a highlight of my career, it’s a memorable one and I hadn’t thought about it in years until that guy brought it up. There are a lot of those types of things as well.
FS: I know you’re not one to dwell on the past a lot or have a lot of regrets. That being said, is there one thing over your career that you feel you missed out on or wish you’d done something different?
CJ: Not really because I think that everything that I did was a product of what my knowledge and what my experience was at the time. My first title run when I won the Undisputed Championship wasn’t the greatest, but at the time, I didn’t know any better and didn’t have the attitude and the knowledge that I do now to make it better. For example, the whole Lucy the Dog and that sort of stuff.
At the time, I didn’t think it was great but I didn’t really have any choice to go and change it. You do the best you can with what you’re given. I learned that in WCW. Whether you’re out there for a minute or you’re out there for an hour, you do the best you can with what you’re given. I don’t have any regrets about my career because I think it was exactly the way it was supposed to be. It was exactly the way where I could have these three books of stories about these first 23 years of my career because I have all of these great experiences coming from being a world traveler and learning all of these different styles.
I wish some of my friends were still alive but, once again, that’s not for me to change. I couldn’t change that. So, I think everything’s gonna happen the way it’s supposed to happen. And there’s nothing where I wish I would have zigged instead of zagged and if there is, they’re very minor things and thinking about it now, nothing pops in my head.
FS: Even when you mention different things that maybe you didn’t like at the time that were given to you, I think looking at it now you can appreciate the challenge of it. Thinking what can I do now? What can I do to make this work? And that can make you better as a performer.
CJ: Yeah. There’s nothing that I can’t take and try and make good. Sometimes they failed. I was given a really brutal segment a few years ago, some Highlight Reel segment with (Wade) Barrett, Miz and I think Brad Maddox. When it was time, Michael Cole said that it was the worst segment in the history of the business because Vince told him to say it. Afterwards, I was like, why would you have him say that? He said because it was terrible. I was like, I know it was terrible, but do you really have to say that? That was the best I could do with that s—-y thing. He was like, "If you knew it was going to be s—, you should have told me." I was like, you go out there and try to do the best that you can with that you’re given. Most times, there’s a way to make it work but sometimes there’s just no way to do it.
I remember one time I got a call from Brian Gerwirtz who was the head writer and he said "This week, you’re going to be in the thing with apes." I was like, what? "Planet of the Apes" was the new movie that had come out and the Planet of the Apes are going to be there and Vince loves apes. He decided he wants the apes involved and thought "I don’t know how to do it but put them with Jericho and he’ll figure it out." It ended up being pretty funny but it involved a pie in the face for Stephanie, a bunch of ape jokes and bananas and pulling out everything we can, every bell and whistle, and we made it good.
Talk about what the hell are we supposed to do with apes? Same thing happened with all of those guest hosts when we went through that phase five, six years ago. Guess who was in there with them every week? And some of them were great. Bob Barker, awesome. Ozzy Osbourne, great. Mike Tyson, amazing. And some of them were the drizzling s—. Those two NASCAR drivers, I don’t remember who they were. [Eds Note: They were Kyle Busch and Joey Logano.] Al Sharpton, awful, awful. Dennis Miller, terrible! But you have to go out there and try and make them look as good as you can. That’s part of what my job is as a performer.
FS: I think it’s both a blessing and a curse to have the reputation of being able to make a situation work.
CJ: Yeah. It is a blessing and a curse, but I take it more as an honor. You know, put him in there with Jericho and he’ll make it work. Sometimes I just can’t do it, but nine times out of 10 I can and I take great pride in that.
FS: Lately, you’ve been working with WWE again, but mainly just on house shows (non-televised events). How enjoyable has that been for you to still be involved in wrestling but just focusing on having fun in the ring and not having to deal with storylines?
CJ: It started about a year ago when they asked me to go to England to do a tour because somebody got hurt and I said sure. Then I thought, well, if I can do that in England, I should do it in the States. I don’t need to be on TV ever again. People know who I am. I’m Chris Jericho no matter what. Maybe it’s made me even more popular that I’m not on TV because people are surprised to see me. Even though we advertise it and I talk about it all the time on my podcast, on Twitter, etc., most people don’t pay attention and are surprised when I come out.
I usually do a quick promo with whoever it is, Cesaro or (Luke) Harper or Kevin Owens lately, and we kind of set our own little tone and set our own little story and have the match. By the end of it, people are enjoying it and having a blast watching it. Easy for me; no stress, no hassle. Don’t have to worry about what the storyline is. Don’t have to argue with Vince about something that I don’t like. Just go out there and do what we do best and that’s perform. It’s so easy and so much fun that I can’t believe they still let me do it. I pick the shows I want to do. I pick the guys I want to work with and just go out there and get the job done. It’s still fun for me to do. I really, really enjoy that. It’s what I’ve been doing since I was 19 years old. As long as I can do it at the highest of levels and know that on any given night I can walk out of there and (have) people saying it was the best match of the show, that’s all I need.
FS: You mentioned you and Vince getting into arguments over storylines. What’s the worst argument the two of you have gotten into?
CJ: The worst argument is when I got the job to host "Downfall," the game show that I had to audition for quite a few times. I didn’t tell him because I didn’t want him getting involved because sometimes the company will get involved and screw things up for you. (laughs) And when I finally got the gig, I didn’t tell him and it was on the front cover of the Hollywood Reporter, which he flipped out at. He forbid me from doing it and I was going to do it. No you can’t. Yes I can. Well, you’re fired. You can’t fire me because I quit. You can’t quit because you’re fired. I’m going to fly to Connecticut to punch you in the face. I’ll give you my address. I’ll be waiting. That sort of a thing. We kind of just hung up on each other. We ended up working it all out but that was the biggest actual argument.
Most of the time with Vince, it’s not arguments, it’s just debates or it’s a very calm "this is what you’re doing." I wasn’t supposed to be working with Fandango at WrestleMania 29. It was supposed to be Ryback and that was kind of the deal we had made. That was the promise that was made and it was changed very quickly for no real reason. I wasn’t happy about that either. Nothing against Fandango, but that spot wasn’t a really WrestleMania-worthy match, but once again, once I was told that this was my role, I made it a WrestleMania-worthy match. We had about three weeks to come up with an angle and if you go and watch that match and watch the night after, the most over guy on that show was Fandango. And I’m taking a huge chunk of the credit for that, thank you very much.
FS: WrestleMania 32 is going to be a huge show next year at AT&T Stadium in Dallas. The company hopes to have 100,000 people there in attendance. Do you see yourself being a part of that show?
CJ: Yes, no, maybe. It all depends. I came back a couple of weeks ago to do the Night of Champions thing and I don’t come back just for one-offs. There’s always a reason why I do everything that I do. That could give you some clues. It’s going to be the biggest show of all time. I haven’t done the last couple of Manias and, to me, it wasn’t that the opportunity wasn’t there or the offer, but what am I going to be doing? Who am I working with? What’s the storyline because I know that for WrestleMania, everyone comes back.
I was the main event of WrestleMania 18. It might be the only WrestleMania main event I might have; it might not be the only WrestleMania show-stealer. But I also know that if you’re not in the main event, your real estate on TV is less and less. I’m smart enough to know that if you get the right person and just given my own little world, give me my own little 10-minute segment every week like me and [CM] Punk had three years ago when we had an amazing angle that was never the main event of anything. It was just like well, here’s the crossover segment. Here’s the open segment. All right, that’s cool. Punk and I were smart enough to know that’s all we need. We don’t need 20 minutes of talking. We don’t need electrocutions or going through tables or whatever the hell they do to build up their angles. All we need is just 10 minutes of talking time, 10 minutes of TV time and we’ll do the rest. So that’s always been my mind-set. What can I figure out to do on the biggest show that’s going to kind of back door my way into becoming one of the more intriguing storylines of the entire night? If I can figure that out, then I’m always open for it.
FS: I know that you’ve said that when you’re not having fun or you’re not up to snuff in the ring, that it’s time to stop wrestling. Honestly, that doesn’t seem to be anytime soon. Can you see yourself wrestling on a part-time basis for another five, seven years?
CJ: I don’t think like that. I never have. To me, I just go day by day. Like I said, right now it’s a blast. There’s no reason not to do it, but that could change tomorrow. Or it could change 10 years from now. I don’t know. I remember when I first starting wrestling I said I wanted to be done by the time I was 30. I couldn’t envision wrestling longer than that. When you’re 19, 30 feels like an eternity away. Now at 44, why not? Like I said, everything that I’m doing right now is very easy for me. Nothing is hurting. Nothing is hard to do
FS: You’ve had so much success outside the ring as well with Fozzy, now your Talk is Jericho podcast and the different acting projects you’ve been involved in. What do you think is next? What do you want to do when it comes to entertainment?
CJ: Once again, I never had a list. All I wanted to do was be in a band and be a wrestler. Those were my two goals. All of these other things have happened as a result. I never sat down and said I have to have a podcast some day. It was just presented to me. I never thought about hosting a show with giant fighting robots. Or (that) I want to be in a "Sharknado" movie or whatever. Those things just came to me and if I think it’s a good opportunity, then I’ll do it. I’d like to do more acting if it comes my way. I don’t know. We’ll see. There are always things that come across my desk.
There’s never a shortage of that. Some of them I’ll do, some of them I won’t. "Celebrity Apprentice" three times I’ve said no to because I just don’t feel it. "Dancing with the Stars," they asked me three times and on the third time I went for it. It all depends. I know that I’ll always be doing something in the entertainment world. That’s what I am — I’m a showman, I’m an entertainer, I’m a performer. Whether I’m 75 years old in the back of a Starbucks playing guitar collecting money in a hat, I’ll be doing something entertaining people.
FS: Yeah, I think it’s going to be interesting to see this next act for you when it comes to entertainment and what projects come your way after wrestling. I’m sure you’re going to be very busy.
CJ: To me, I know that I’m not wrestling full time ever again. Those days are gone. It’s not something that I do because I have to. I do it because I want to, because I like it. But I was also smart enough to know 10 years ago that I need to start preparing for life after wrestling because I don’t want to be a guy that’s owned by the business. Something happens and you get fired or you get let go and then I have to start working in high school gyms. Nothing wrong with that but I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to be signing autographs at every legends convention that comes around. Once in a while I’ll do one if it’s the right circumstance or if it’s fun or whatever. But I never wanted to be held hostage by my career.
And that’s why I was very adamant over the last 10 years to build a lot of different roads out of wrestling. Some of them worked. Some of them didn’t. But they all combine to prepare me for what’s going to happen when I can’t wrestle any more. What happens if I have to go become a producer or an agent or what if I have to do that because it’s the only thing I know? I don’t want that. I always said I set myself up for something else afterwards and so far, so good.It’s being branded by proponents as an attempt at transparency, but critics of a new law say the United States government just got the green-light to use propaganda made for foreign audiences on the American public.
Until earlier this month, a longstanding federal law made it illegal for the US Department of State to share domestically the internally-authored news stories sent to American-operated outlets broadcasting around the globe. All of that changed effective July 2, when the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) was given permission to let US households tune-in to hear the type of programming that has previously only been allowed in outside nations.
The BBG is the independent government agency that broadcasts Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, and other networks created “to inform, engage and connect people around the world in support of freedom and democracy" - and a new law now allows the agency to provide members of the American public with program materials originally meant to be disseminated abroad.
The Smith-Mundt Act has ensured for decades that government-made media intended for foreign audiences doesn’t end up on radio networks broadcast within the US. An amendment tagged onto the National Defense Authorization Act removed that prohibition this year, however, and as of earlier this month those news stories meant for nations abroad can now be heard easily by American ears.
Back in 1972, Arkansas Senator J. William Fulbright equated those government stories with propaganda when he said they "should be given the opportunity to take their rightful place in the graveyard of Cold War relics.” A couple of current lawmakers were singing a different tune when they proposed the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012 last year, though, which became official just two weeks ago.
When Reps. Mac Thornberry (R-TX) and Adam Smith (D-WA) introduced their changes last year, they said their bill would modify “a Cold War-era law that hampers diplomatic, defense and other agencies’ ability to communicate in the twenty-first century.” Amid much debate, however, their argument quickly became one that focused less on ensuring Uncle Sam has his say within the media and more on making sure a taxpayer-funded program became available to those footing the costs.
“Effective strategic communication and public diplomacy should be front-and-center as we work to roll back al-Qaeda’s and other violent extremists’ influence among disaffected populations,” Rep. Smith wrote in May 2012 in support of his bill. “An essential part of our efforts must be a coordinated, comprehensive, adequately resourced plan to counter their radical messages and undermine their recruitment abilities. To do this, Smith-Mundt must be updated to bolster our strategic communications and public diplomacy capacity on all fronts and mediums – especially online.”
But a Buzzfeed article published days later by late journalist Michael Hastings opened a can of worms on Smith and Thornberry, and the lawmakers were forced to quickly diffuse critics who said their bill made it so that the government could effectuate propaganda on its own public. On his part, Thornberry told Foreign Policy that the BuzzFeed article and the subsequent blowback was “one level of sloppiness on top of another,” caused by an uninformed Hastings story being hijacked by pundits from other publications who were all the more ignorant. “And once something sensational gets out there, it just spreads like wildfire," said Thornberry.
"The idea that the State Department could be so effective as to impact domestic politics is just silly,” Thornberry told Foreign Policy last year. “This gives Americans the chance to see what the State Department is saying to people all over the world,” he insisted.
Weighing in to Foreign Policy one year later, BBG spokeswoman Lynne Weil said that the maneuver is nothing more than to show Americans how their money is being spent abroad. "Now Americans will be able to know more about what they are paying for with their tax dollars - greater transparency is a win-win for all involved," she said.
In the wake of others’ comments, though — and the actual text of the legislation itself — critics can’t help but suggest that the latest amendment courtesy of Smith and Thornberry have opened the door for the use of propaganda to persuade the American public at a time when the popularity of both Congress and the president are lower than what either would prefer.
Those opinions and others could change, of course, if the American government can infiltrate the radio waves and introduce news aimed at specific demographics that has previously only been pushed outside of the US. The statement from Smith and Thornberry last year suggested that the Cold War-era legislation previously prevented a Minneapolis, Minnesota-based radio station with a large Somali-American audience from broadcasting a piece produced by the BBG’s Voice of America that rebutted efforts from Somalia’s al- Shabaab extremist group to recruit members within the US.
“Even after the community was targeted for recruitment by al-Shabaab and other extremists, government lawyers refused the replay request, noting that Smith-Mundt tied their hands,” wrote the lawmakers.
"Somalis have three options for news" a former US government source with connections to the BBG told Foreign Policy. The source added that those three options are word of mouth, al-Shabaab or VOA Somalia.
"Those people can get al-Shabaab, they can get Russia Today, but they couldn't get access to their taxpayer-funded news sources like VOA Somalia," the source said. "It was silly."
“Previously, the legislation had the effect of clouding and hiding this stuff," the source said. "Now we'll have a better sense: Gee some of this stuff is really good. Or gee some of this stuff is really bad. At least we'll know now."
According to a document from the Office of the Federal Register published this week by Cryptome, the Smith-Thornberry act “does not require or prompt the public to take any action; rather, it functions to relieve the prohibition that prevented the Agency from responding to requests for program materials from the US public, US media entities or other US organizations.”
“This rule benefits the public, media, and other organizations by allowing them to request and access BBG program materials, which previously could not be disseminated within the US,” it reads.
The rule applies only to media published by the State Department and does not involve any initiatives created or funded through the Pentagon.The deep-water wharf that will serve as a refuelling hub for Canadian sovereignty patrols in the Arctic is slowly sinking for reasons that only became apparent several years after Ottawa announced Nanisivik would be this country's northernmost naval facility.
In 2010, measurements showed the Baffin Island wharf had sunk about two metres since construction in the mid-1970s. Engineers went "searching for plausible ways to explain why the structure had settled so much," says a technical paper on the matter presented to a 2013 civil engineering conference in Alaska.
In 2011, exploratory drilling at Nanisivik – 700 kilometres north of the Arctic Circle – discovered a surprise: a deep layer of clay far below the wharf. The clay is believed to be compressing, which would account for the sinking.
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"Survey results and 2011 geotechnical investigations revealed the stability of the wharf is in question," says the engineering paper, Stability Challenge for a Wharf in the High Arctic, whose authors include a Department of National Defence employee.
The stability problem facing Nanisivik wharf raises questions about its suitability as a naval facility and suggest the Canadian government could be facing big bills to address the matter.
DND says it cannot say whether the wharf is settling at a slow and steady rate, or an increasing rate, because it lacks sufficient accurate data.
The settling is among the reasons why the military scaled back plans for upgrading Nanisivik wharf, which in 2007 Prime Minister Stephen Harper made a keystone of his strategy for increasing Canada's presence in the Far North. The facility will offer yet-to-be-built Arctic patrol ships a northern filling station so the Royal Canadian Navy can make extended visits to the region.
Engineers have since warned against adding a lot of weight to the dock as part of a refurbishment unless action was taken to stabilize it. "Scenarios that add load will likely result in accelerated movement of the structure," the engineering paper says.
DND is playing down the risk to the wharf. Rodney Watson, a department spokesman and one of the authors of the 2013 engineering paper, said the military doesn't believe the problem will affect operations. The first Arctic patrol ships are expected to begin operations in the 2019 summer shipping season.
"I think sinking is probably not the word we would use for that. That sounds a little dramatic," he said. "There's absolutely no impact on the intended function of the site or planned use of the facility."
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He said experts consulted by DND think the majority of the settling took place between 1975 and 2000, the first 25 years after the wharf was constructed. Nearby mining operations ceased in 2002.
The 2013 paper on Nanisivik, however, says experts lack enough information to discern how fast the wharf is sinking or what stage of settlement it has reached. "The data are insufficient to determine whether the soils are in primary, secondary or tertiary (approaching failure) creep," it says, referring to downward movement.
A bigger refurbishment of Nanisivik was scaled back in 2012 because of cash constraints. DND's budget for the project remains the same but it ratcheted back redevelopment because plans proved more expensive than expected.
A major redo of the wharf that would have used a lot of cement is also shelved. DND had considered renovating the jetty, which consists of three, separate circular docks, by filling in the area between them.
DND says it will keep monitoring the wharf "until we get a better understanding of the conditions of the soil."
One option to reduce settlement would be using devices called thermosyphons to make the surrounding ground even colder. Mr. Watson says this would be very costly. Another option – not one DND has mentioned – would be building a new wharf. Mr. Watson says that would be "very, very expensive."
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Asked how long the wharf is rated for in its current state, National Defence officials said it was determined the wharf would "c |
and a good football player.... I know he's a good guy. I know the other guys on our team are good guys and that's another interesting part of watching these guys figure it out. I know, personally, when it comes to me, and I got in quite a few scrapes growing up, most people... have had some run-ins at some point in time, and usually you're better friends after, because of it.... He's got the license and he's got the ability and from my experience being around him, I think he's a guy that's about us and about the team being successful.While the nation awoke to the shocking news of the slaughter of over 50 people at an Orlando LGBT club early Sunday morning it was only a matter of time until Democrats exploited the tragedy for political gain in an election year.
The bodies of the victims weren’t even cold before raging socialist crank Bernie Sanders blamed the slaughter not on the shooter – who appears to hew to radical Islamic ideology – but on the failure of the government to implement gun control.
While speaking with NBC’s Chuck Todd on Meet the Press, old Bernie claimed that the lack of a ban on the sale of automatic weapons was at fault for what is clearly a terrorist act.
Considering that there are as yet no details on where the shooter
Omar Mateenpurchased the gun used in the massacre it’s obvious that he is pushing the agenda of the gun-grabbers and that of his
new partnerHillary Clinton.
As reported by The Hill “Sanders: Orlando nightclub attack ‘horrific,’ ‘unthinkable’”:
Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders early Sunday described a nightclub attack that left 50 people dead in Orlando, Fla., as “horrific” and “unthinkable” before turning to gun control. “Hopes go out to all those who were shot that they can recover,” he said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “And I’ve got to tell you … I believe that in this country, we should not be selling automatic weapons which are designed to kill people,” he added. “We have got to do everything that we can on top of that to make sure that guns do not fall into the hands of people who should not have them — criminals, people who are mentally ill. So that struggles continues.” Sanders said he thinks there is a “very broad consensus” in the U.S. “that we have got to do everything that we can to prevent guns from falling into the hands of people who should not have them. “That means expanding the instant background check; it means doing away with the gun show loophole; it means addressing the straw man provision. I think there is a wide consensus to move forward in that direction,” he said.
Sanders’ remarks not only show a callous disregard for the victims and their families but are an early sign of just how the Clintons and their lackeys in the media are going to spin the terrorist attack to fit their political needs.
Reports are already surfacing that Mateen had beeen considered to be a “person of interest” by the FBI on more than one occasion. The failure to call a spade a spade when it comes to terrorism was also evident when Hillary spoke
to a crowd in San Bernardino last week.
She refused to acknowledge that the holiday party massacre perpetrated by a pair of ISIS groupies last year was simply an act of gun violence not terrorism despite evidence to the contrary.
President Obama has been briefed but has yet to deliver an official statement nor has Hillary but look for their remarks to mimic those of Sanders by reinforcing the liberal meme that guns are the root of all evil and that the Second Amendment is no guarantee of the right to bear arms.
Facebook has greatly reduced the distribution of our stories in our readers' newsfeeds and is instead promoting mainstream media sources. When you share to your friends, however, you greatly help distribute our content. Please take a moment and consider sharing this article with your friends and family. Thank you.The natural world offers many curiosities, but hermaphroditism—the presence of both male and female reproductive organs—may be among the most peculiar.
Take the chalk bass (Serranus tortugarum), for instance. New research published in Behavioral Ecology suggests that the small reef fish, no more than three inches long, may switch sex roles with their partner up to 20 times each day.
Chalk bass use a reproductive strategy known as “egg trading,” wherein they subdivide their daily egg clutch into “parcels” and alternate sex roles with their mating partner throughout a sequence of spawning bouts.
The fish demonstrated a remarkable commitment to varying their sex roles, explained Mary Hart, an evolutionary ecologist at the University of Florida and the lead author on the study.
Hart found that individuals would rarely produce more than two egg parcels consecutively before switching roles to ensure reciprocation from their partner. This attention to reciprocity helps to maintain cooperation among the partners and reduces the temptation of cheating.
Simultaneous Hermaphrodites
Most hermaphrodites transition from one sex to another at some stage in their development, a strategy known as sequential hermaphroditism. The transformation is usually prompted by a social or behavioral trigger, like the loss of a dominant male from the social group. The chalk bass, however, is capable of producing both male and female gametes (sperm or eggs) simultaneously.
Though simultaneous hermaphroditism is not unique to chalk bass, it is rare, particularly because the fish do not self-fertilize. The frequency at which the fish switch sex roles is especially uncommon. Hart said it still remains a mystery why they switch so many times.
However, she hypothesized that as long as the benefits outweigh the costs, this form of reciprocity may yield a reproductive advantage for the chalk bass. The sex switching offers each fish a return on their investment on eggs by allowing them to fertilize their partner’s eggs. Acting as both male and female improves their chances of passing on their genes to the next generation.
It is estimated that about 2 percent of fish species are hermaphroditic, but simultaneous hermaphrodites are uncommon and are limited to only a handful of subfamilies, said Eric Fischer, an expert in evolutionary ecology now with the Congressional Research Service. Additionally, many of the other simultaneous hermaphroditic fish are deep-sea species and difficult to study, he added.
This study is one of the first to quantify the mating habits of the chalk bass and other simultaneous hermaphrodites, and also provides evidence to corroborate some long-held theories on sexual cooperation among fish.
Tight Bonds
Hart spent six months researching the chalk bass at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama, observing the fish through daily dives on coral reefs. During the course of the research, she was also surprised to learn that the chalk bass displayed admirable devotion to their partners.
“All of the fish that I marked in the first month were together for the entire six months until one or both of them disappeared from the social group,” said Hart.
Though not fully monogamous—mating is often interrupted by male streakers that try to shoot between the mating couple—the fish returned to their partners day after day, for months at a time.Hoo boy, here we go. Welcome to prime hot-stove season, everyone. Ian Desmond is going to the Colorado Rockies, and he’s going to be paid $70 million to play there for five years. And, according to various reports, the Rockies may be looking at him as a first baseman. This move is the equivalent of the Denver Broncos signing Lionel Messi. It’s unexpected. It’s bonkers. It’s newly legal in Colorado, and Jeff Bridich is into it.
Man, let’s think about this for a minute. Ian Desmond was a lost cause a year ago. He had imploded in glorious fashion in Washington and then took a pillow contract with the Rangers to play a super-utility man. He wound up moving the outfield and recorded roughly average overall defensive numbers there. He also put together a 106 wRC+ for the year… but just a 65 wRC+ in the second half. Did he go back to being his 2015 self? Was it just a prolonged slump. Was he really a decent hitter once more?
We’re going to find out. We’re also, apparently, going to find out if he can play first base. Or… are we?
I mean, is Ian Desmond really going to play first? Committing $70 million to a guy to play a position entirely foreign to him seems strange. Asking him to play first base after he’s just finished a roughly average offensive season is also strange. If the Rockies wanted to move an outfielder to first base, they could’ve just done so with Carlos Gonzalez, whose defensive skills have been declining for some time now. Instead, the Rockies are going to stick Desmond there and cross their fingers.
Or perhaps they won’t. Consider: the Rockies have a colorful history when it comes to this sort of decision-making. A few years ago, for example, the club added Gerardo Parra to a roster that already included three starter-type outfielders. The size of the commitment to Parra (three years, $27.5 million) also seemed large, given the club’s other weaknesses. So, if the current edition of the Rockies followed the acquisition of Desmond with a reliever or two and called it an offseason, then yeah, this would continue that lovely tradition. But if they do more than that, the Rockies are in business. And I think that’s precisely what’s about to happen.
About a month ago, I wrote an article about the Rockies’ place on the brink of contention. Paul Swydan, who wrote the InstaGraphs version of this article, got mad at me for stealing his biannual article shtick. In my piece, I concluded that because the Rockies were flush with prospects, impact big-league talent, and intriguing pitching, that they should begin the process of pushing their chips towards the center of the table. Part of what I proposed was signing Edwin Encarnacion to play first base. The need was there, the fit was there, the dreams of Encarnacion mashing dinger after dinger at Coors Field were there.
That was before there were reports of Encarnacion’s price falling, and before there were whispers of the Rockies speaking to him. Desmond’s signing should not preclude the Rockies from going after Encarnacion. If anything, it should encourage it.
By signing Desmond, the Rockies have just punted the 11th-overall pick in the draft. That’s a big deal. And it’s quite a pill to swallow in the name of adding Ian Desmond to your ballclub. So why stop here? Losing the 11th-overall pick is a signal that the Rockies should be ready to stop rebuilding and to start winning. Not in some hazy future, but now. So if you’re going to punt the 11th-overall pick, let’s punt the second round, too. Go all in. Push the chips to the middle of the table. Go sign Encarnacion.
Or, if the Rockies still want their second-rounder, Jose Abreu is available, isn’t he? The White Sox raised the white flag (possibly made of white socks, who knows) when they shipped Chris Sale to Boston. Abreu will probably be following him out the door at some point soon. He’d be a lot of fun at Coors Field, and the Rockies could also grab a good reliever in the process by taking David Robertson along for the ride. Colorado has more than enough young talent to pull such a move off.
They could get even more young talent with another trade. If Desmond is going to play the outfield, the Rockies will need to make room for him. Given how many teams are looking for center fielders, and that the best non-Andrew McCutchen option on the trade market might be Jarrod Dyson, imagine what could happen if the Rockies were to dangle Charlie Blackmon out there. Blackmon is coming off a 3.9 WAR season and is still relatively young at 30. He could be an important part of a contending club next year. The Rockies could turn him into a big-league-ready arm or two, which would make room for Desmond. So, let’s recap and look at the potential lineup.
I’ll buy that. This would be an expensive undertaking, and one that will cost the Rockies more than a few prospects. But that’s a price worth paying for a shot at the playoffs, and the Rockies are ready to win. If Desmond is their big buy of the winter and he really does play first base, it will be a ridiculous move worthy of derision, unless he morphs into a plus first baseman and hits like a first baseman.
That’s the most likely outcome here. But, if this is the first step in the Rockies going all-in, then I hope you enjoyed Rocktober. Because if Bridich plays this well, it might just be coming back.More about Hewlett Packard
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EverSector is one of few space-themed roguelikes, set in a large yet finite universe. Unlike similar roguelikes, EverSector puts you in control of a starship itself. The universe you will navigate is divided into sectors, filled with planets, space stations, and other ships. These ships are no different than yourself: competing for resources and waging war for their respective factions. With enough hard work, any ship can rise to power over their faction, through noble or despicable means.
Now go forth, and shape the future of your galaxy!
About
EverSector is written in pure Java and displayed with AsciiPanel by Trystan Spangler. It uses SquidLib for certain calculations, as well as my own libraries, APWT and MaugriftUtils. Being made in Java, the game is available as a cross-platform jar file. There is, however, an exe-wrapped version for Windows, in case you do not have Java installed.
Note that there is a bug in this version where attempting to land on a nonexistent planet crashes the game. This is fixed in the latest experimental build.
Support
EverSector is provided for free, but donations are much appreciated. By buying the game, you'll get a special Supporter role in the Discord server and, if you want, be credited in the game's README. If you want to support EverSector but can't give a donation, you can tell your friends or share a link to this page on social media! Feel free to mention @Maugrift or u/DarklordMogrithe.
YouTubers, press, and other content creators: feel free to cover the game in its current state, but know that it does not accurately represent what the final product will be. Please take this into account when rating the game as well. If you do choose to make something about the game, I would love to see it! You can share it with the game's community at many of the sites linked below.
Links- A 65-year-old Wisconsin man is facing charges after firing bowling balls and bowling pins from a cannon. One of the balls went through a neighbor’s barn, and the owner found her 10-month-old horse dead.
Lisa Kroll felt her house shake on the 4th of July, but she thought it was one of her neighbors lighting off fireworks. It turns out, they were shooting bowling balls out of a homemade cannon and several of them landed on her property.
Kroll says when she went to feed her horses the next day, she noticed a bowling ball had gone through the roof of her barn. She also found one of her horses dead with a head wound that she believes was caused by the flying objects, and six more balls and three bowling pins in a field by her house.
"At least it was a horse not a human, but it was a very nice horse that got killed, very unfortunate," Kroll said.
It turns out, the brother of one of Kroll's neighbors brought a homemade cannon to the house to celebrate the 4th of July. He admitted to police he shot a total of 10 bowling balls and 10 bowling pins out of the cannon, and he was sorry they made it to Kroll's property nearly half a mile away.
"Been prosecuting 34 years, this is the first case we've had where someone was shooting bowling balls out of a cannon,” St. Croix County Attorney Eric Johnson said.
Ricky Thorne, of Spring Valley, Wis., is being charged with recklessly endangering safety and negligent handling of a weapon.
Kroll said she's troubled by the fact that she had guests sleeping in camper trailers outside her barn. She said the horse was worth $10,000 and the damage to her barn was estimated at $4,000.Georgia Tech coach Paul Johnson was hopeful that the injured players who sat out or left the team’s win over North Carolina on Saturday will be ready for the Yellow Jackets’ next game against No. 13 Miami on Oct. 14. Tech has an open date this week.
“We’re hopeful they’ll all be back,” Johnson said Tuesday after his team’s first practice of the week.
The players who sat out of the North Carolina game were offensive linemen Jahaziel Lee, Andrew Marshall and Brad Morgan, A-back J.J. Green and linebacker David Curry. Curry and Marshall have yet to play this season because of leg injuries. Right guard Shamire Devine also left the game with an upper-body injury.
Their return would be a lift for the offensive line. The unit was stretched thin against the Tar Heels. Bailey Ivemeyer, who might be the No. 5 tackle with every lineman healthy, logged heavy playing time after Devine left the game. Johnson also burned the redshirt of guard Connor Hansen and considered doing the same with two more freshman offensive tackles, he said.
Having Marshall, an expected starter when the preseason began, and Devine, who has been effective in a rotation with Will Bryan, would be particularly helpful as the Jackets prepare for an important Coastal Division matchup with the Hurricanes.10:21 p.m. Supervisors are telling Troopers to terminate the pursuit. Officers are turning around and will no longer chase the car.
10:15 p.m. Officers asking for assistance from Winslow Police and Navajo County SO
10:13 p.m. Pursuit is nearing mile marker 240 (40 miles east of Flagstaff) at 111mph
10:12 p.m. Vehicle has hit the spikes
10:09 p.m. 18 wheelers are attempting to assist by boxing in the vehicle. Speeds now 118 mph.
10:07 p.m. Listen to this pursuit LIVE from our scanner feed page at http://flagscanner.com/live-scanners/public-feeds/
10:04 p.m. : State Troopers have set up spike strips near mile marker 228. Clearing the roadway. Speeds are now 106 mph. Driver appears to be impaired and is weaving in and out of traffic.
DPS and CCSO are in a high speed pursuit along east bound interstate 40 20 miles east of Flagstaff. Speeds are nearing 110 mph. This page will auto update.
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"[Pittsburgh is] where I would like to be, but we all know that it is a business and you have certain things you have to handle," Wallace told Sirius NFL Radio, via the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. "So if I have to go elsewhere, you know Pittsburgh will always be in my heart, but I have to do what I have to do."
The debate on Wallace has been whether the Steelers should put the first-round tender on him or the franchise tag. But the best way for the Steelers to keep Wallace is signing him to a new contract.
Reaching a new deal with Wallace would eliminate any team from prying him away (which could happen with the first-round tender) and would result in a much lower cap hit than the franchise tag ($9.6 million).
Wallace said that his agent Bus Cook has been talking about a new contract.
"Yeah, we are talking, but I don't know how far they are going to get right now because of the situation," Wallace said. "I know that they are working hard trying to take care of it, but I don't know. We'll see."
This wouldn't be unprecedented for the Steelers. It was February 2010 when Pittsburgh signed nose tackle Casey Hampton to a new deal when it appeared that the Steelers were going to put the franchise tag on him.
But the situation with Wallace is more complicated than the one with Hampton two years ago. The Steelers just have to determine how much money they're willing to give Wallace considering what lies ahead. Pittsburgh could be facing a similar situation next season when wide receiver Antonio Brown, the team's Most Valuable Player last season, will be a restricted free agent. So we could be having this same conversation in 2013.WASHINGTON – Borrowing a line from ousted FBI director James Comey, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee said Sunday he’s “queasy” about the possibility of former Attorney General Loretta Lynch meddling in the FBI’s investigation of Hillary Clinton’s emails.
“It does give me a queasy feeling as well,” said Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
Schiff was siding with Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) who also aid she felt “queasy” over the thought Clinton’s email investigation may have become politicized by Lynch. The
Senate Judiciary Committee has launched an investigation whether Lynch tried to stifle the Clinton probe.
Former FBI Director James Comey told Congress earlier this month Lynch asked him to downplay his Clinton “investigation” by calling it a “matter.”
He said the request gave him a “queasy feeling.”
While Lynch may have a “perfectly accurate explanation” for using that term, Comey’s testimony shouldn’t be the last word, Schiff said.
“I’d like to hear what Loretta Lynch’s explanation for that is, either by having her come to the Hill or by having her speak publicly,” Schiff said.
Schiff, who has been aggressively pursuing the Russia probe in the House, also believes President Obama should have done more to alert the public before the election and should have imposed stronger sanctions.
“I think what he should have done — and what I urged at the time — was he should have spoken out to the American people and said: ‘This is what Russia is doing,’” Schiff said. “’Russia has better stop it.’”
Obama should have partnered with European allies “to embark on a new round of sanctions. And I think those sanctions should have been not only imposed earlier but far stronger than the sanctions the Obama administration would ultimately imposed after the election.”
Obama, who had been campaigning for Clinton, and his Administration were hesitant about acting too aggressively against Russia over concerns they might damage the integrity of the 2016 presidential election.
One former Obama official put it bluntly in the Washington Post: “I feel like we sort of choked.”India’s total greenhouse gas emissions in 2010 was 2.13 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent, rising 40 per cent from its 2000 levels, the latest official data shows. India reported this figure on Friday to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change as part of its first Biennial Update Report (BUR) which every country has to file.
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The energy sector that includes electricity production, fuel combustion in industries, and transport continues to be the biggest contributor to India’s emissions, accounting for 71 per cent of the total. Industrial processes and product use contributed eight per cent, agriculture 18 per cent while waste sector contributed the remaining three percent, according to the BUR.
Forests and croplands, which absorb carbon dioxide, offset the total emissions by 12 per cent, thereby bringing down India’s net emissions to 1.88 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent.
India counted emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (NO2), Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), Perfluorocarbons (PFCs) and Sulfur hexafluoride (SF6) for calculating its total greenhouse gas emissions.
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India is the third largest emitter of greenhouse gases after China and the US. It becomes the fourth when European Union is considered as one block. But it has a much lower per capita emission as compared to the other countries.People can't stop talking about the big Oscars oops when "La La Land" was mistakenly announced as the winner for Best Picture instead of "Moonlight." But there was another "uh-oh" moment that some people probably didn't catch.During the "In Memoriam" segment, the Oscars meant to include Janet Patterson, an Australian costume designer that passed away in October of 2015, in the tribute montage. But instead, a photo of Australian producer Jan Chapman was used. That's not the worst part. Not only did they use the wrong photo, they used a picture of a woman who is still alive.Patterson's name and occupation was correct on the graphic.Chapman told Variety, "I was devastated by the use of my image in place of my great friend and long-time collaborator Janet Patterson. I had urged her agency to check any photograph which might be used and understand that they were told that the Academy had it covered. Janet was a great beauty and four-time Oscar nominee and it is very disappointing that the error was not picked up. I am alive and well and an active producer."Patterson was a four-time Oscar nominee who is known for her work in "The Piano," "Portrait of a Lady," "Oscar and Lucinda," and "Bright Star." Chapman and Patterson both worked together in "The Piano."The Academy has yet to release a statement about the mistake.Microsoft unveiled their vision of a mixed reality world today at Computex in Taipei.
When Microsoft first announced their HoloLens augmented reality headset, they also showed off their Windows Holographic platform, which let developers build Windows 10 apps and experiences for the device.
Now Microsoft has announced that they want to be a major part of virtual reality too. The company is opening up its Windows Holographic operating system to VR headset manufacturers, giving us a glimpse into their vision of VR headsets interacting with the HoloLens.
The latest concept demo video (above) shows three users, one wearing a HTC Vive, collaborating remotely to design the interior of a retail store. It’s not clear how closely involved HTC will be with Microsoft or whether or not there is any plan to use Windows Holographic software with the VR headset, but it was a surprise to see the Vive make an appearance.
The key to today’s keynote announcement is Microsoft’s focus on compatibility and collaboration with the HoloLens and other VR headsets. Microsoft’s Windows head Terry Myerson and HoloLens architect Alex Kipman emphasized this point even further while on stage, showing a HoloLens user interacting with another person donning a HTC Vive. Since the Vive already has a built in front-facing camera and room-scale sensors, it seems like an obvious choice to show this type of mixed reality collaboration.
Microsoft is inviting manufacturers to “build PCs, displays, accessories and mixed reality devices with the Windows Holographic platform,” and the company announced they are already working with Intel, AMD, Qualcomm, HTC, Acer, ASUS, CyberPowerPC, Dell, Falcon Northwest, HP, iBuyPower, Lenovo and MSI.
With headsets like Rift and Vive already requiring Windows PCs to run VR experiences, you would think integrating Windows Holographic makes sense. But considering VR developers don’t use Microsoft tools or distribute content through Microsoft stores, we’ll just have to wait and see how collaborative everyone chooses to be.
As Microsoft pushes to be the operating system for PC-powered VR and AR headsets, their lack of a mobile platform leaves the gates wide-open for Google VR to take the untethered crown with Daydream VR that is expected to be released this Fall.
Microsoft is planning to outline more software and hardware details at a WinHEC developer conference later this year.Dear Reader, As you can imagine, more people are reading The Jerusalem Post than ever before. Nevertheless, traditional business models are no longer sustainable and high-quality publications, like ours, are being forced to look for new ways to keep going. Unlike many other news organizations, we have not put up a paywall. We want to keep our journalism open and accessible and be able to keep providing you with news and analysis from the frontlines of Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish World.
As Gazans continue to rain rockets on Israel, a much greater “security issue” exists in the drastic population rise in both Israel and around the world, an American environmental expert warned in Tel Aviv this week.
“People don’t understand that there are much greater security problems than who you are fighting next door,” said Prof. Paul Ehrlich, Bing Professor of Population Studies at Stanford University’s biological sciences department and president of the school’s Center for Conservation Biology.
The Population Bomb
Ehrlich was speaking at a seminar on “Population Increase and the Impact on Environmental Resources” on Tuesday night – hosted by Tel Aviv University’s Porter School of Environmental Studies, together with the Israeli Society of Ecology and Environmental Sciences and Ben-Gurion University’s Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research.The global population is more than 7 billion, a number that has doubled since the publication of Ehrlich’s bookin 1968, noted Prof. Marcelo Sternberg, of the Israeli Society of Ecology and Environmental Sciences.Ehrlich argued that while most people are worried about issues such as the debt crisis in the United States – issues that “could be solved with pencil and paper” – politicians are “utterly ignorant of how the world works.“We just had an election in the US where no single important issue was touched,” he said. “You can’t just tell nature we’re going to blow through 2 or 3 degrees [of temperature rise] and negotiate without you.”As the population rises both in Israel and around the globe, sprawling urbanization brings continual land degradation and changes in precipitation patterns arise from the greenhouse gases that “we have injected into the atmosphere,” Ehrlich said. Meanwhile, not only is explosive population growth a crisis in and of itself, but the “non-linearity” of the results of said growth are disturbingly problematic, he explained.“Every person you add of this next 2.5 billion is going to do infinitely more damage than the last 2.5 billion,” he said, stressing that the additional people must move to more marginal lands that require extra development and further transportation of water and other natural resources “We’re already seeing the edges of that disaster,” Ehrlich said.In Israel, examining the repercussions of population growth involves “juxtaposing two sets of values that many of us hold dearly” – those of Zionist population expansion and those of environmental concerns, according to Dan Rabinowitz, from Tel Aviv University’s sociology and anthropology department.“When they are brought together they make us feel uneasy and maybe push us toward a debate and toward conclusions that are not easy ones,” Rabinowitz said. “I think that the population policy in Israel and its nemesis – demographic driven Palestinians – are examples of this.”Territorial concerns often overshadow larger issues such as long-term viability in situations like the Israeli-Palestinian case, Rabinowitz explained.“Nationalism generally and nationalizing projects of state building in particular might [generate] an inherent tendency to use resources in uncalculated and unsustainable ways,” he said.Both immigration and pronatalism emanate from the nationalist nature of the Zionist and Palestinian national projects, Rabinowitz said.More than 11 million people now live in Israel, including inhabitants of the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip, five times the population before the 1948-49 War of Independence, he added. During that same span, the Jewish population jumped from 600,000 to 6 million.“Zionism was and still is powerfully linked to the modernizing mission of Europe, bringing process to the dormant East if you like – with technological development and a constant growth, exponential growth, in the standard of living serving as a very compelling medium, almost a mantra, a fetish,” Rabinowitz said.Due to pro-natalism policies, discussion of the dangers of population growth rarely enters the environmental debate in this country, according to Rabinowitz.Despite the ever-increasing population, Prof. Uri Shamir, of the Israel Institute of Technology- Technion’s civil and environmental engineering department, said that a new master plan of the Water Authority will allow Israelis’ thirst to be quenched for the next several decades.“Israel can meet the water needs of the increasing population until 2050,” Shamir said. “Many places in the world are facing mounting water challenges, so Israel’s experience is relevant as an indication of what does and will happen, what can and should be done, and what should be avoided, and what some of the responses and solutions might be.”With population increase, Israel’s rich biodiversity also faces increased risks and will continue to be degraded, warned Prof. Tamar Dayan, of Tel Aviv University’s zoology department.“The ultimate reason for threats to biodiversity worldwide and in Israel is population growth,” she said.Some of the effects of the population explosion can be mitigated, however, by policy and lifestyle changes in arenas such as planning, construction, transportation, agriculture, afforestation, pollution control and natural resource management, Dayan said.“They can actually be managed intelligently if we so choose,” she said. “If our government so chooses there is an opportunity for real action at a national level that can mitigate these effects.”Lifestyle changes and altering “paradigms in areas of technologies” is also crucial, as is looking upstream in addition to downstream – examining what kinds of waste are being produced, in addition to what to do with that waste afterward, said Sinaia Netanyahu, chief scientist at the Environmental Protection Ministry.Although Ehrlich said there is a very small chance that world society can avoid collapse due to its booming population, he stressed that it was still worthwhile to try combating the damage that has already occurred.“My view is 10 percent [chance of salvation], but I think it’s more worthwhile to make it 11 percent,” he said.“One of the things we do know is that human societies can change in complex ways and extremely rapidly in ways we don’t understand.”
Join Jerusalem Post Premium Plus now for just $5 and upgrade your experience with an ads-free website and exclusive content. Click here>>After shipping the show off to Fridays, ABC is asking that you do just that. Seriously.
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assault are crimes and will be treated as such.’
‘We have a ways to go,’ she added. ‘It is clear there is still too much violence and too many are fearful to report it’
KEY JUSTICE DEPARTMENT STUDY FINDINGS ON SEX ASSAULTS: In 2010, women and girls in US experienced about 270,000 rapes or sexual assaults, compared with 556,000 in 1995
Rates declined from a peak of 5 per 1,000 women in 1995 to 1.8 per 1,000 women in 2005, and remained unchanged in 2010
In 1995, only 29 per cent of rapes and sexual assaults were reported to police. Reporting peaked at 56 per cent in 2003 and then declined to 35 per cent in 2010
Out of the 283,200 annual average rapes or sexual assaults from 2005 to 2010, only about 12 per cent resulted in an arrest
On Thursday, President Obama will sign legislation updating the Violence Against Women Act, which funds training for police and for judges, strengthening the criminal justice system's response to crimes against women.
The plateauing of rapes and sexual assault rates involving women is occurring while violent crime rates overall have been heading down.
‘The rate of rape has stopped declining, while the rate of other violent crimes has continued to decline,’ said Mary P. Koss, a professor of public health at the University of Arizona.
Overall, violent crime has fallen by 65 per cent since 1993, from 16.8million to 5.8million in 2011.
The drop has been attributed by experts to a variety of factors — from better policing to a reduction in the segment of the population that is most crime prone, ages 15 to 24.
Koss says some of the same factors explain the stabilizing trend in rapes and sexual assault.
Authorities regard the reporting of rape and sexual assaults to police as an important deterrent. But the reporting trend has been uneven.
Reporting occurred in 29 per cent of rapes and sexual assaults in 1995, went up to a high of 56 per cent in 2003 and then declined to 35 per cent in 2010.
Law of the land: President Obama will sign Thursday legislation updating the Violence Against Women Act
The statistics bureau was able to calculate the percentage of these crimes reported to police because its victimization studies are based on interviews with citizens about both reported and unreported crimes. That data can then be compared to police reports of crimes.
Out of the 283,200 annual average rapes or sexual assaults in the period from 2005 to 2010, only about 12 per cent resulted in an arrest. That was for both incidents reported to police and those that were not reported.
‘The 12 per cent figure should puncture the public's illusion that rape victims can achieve justice through reporting to law enforcement,’ said Koss.
Koss said many people think that this low percentage of arrests stems from false reports — alleging an incident that did not happen. It isn't a result of that, said Koss. She said the actual rate of false reports ranges from 2 per cent to 4 per cent.
Public support: Demonstrators rally in Washington, DC, in support of the Violence Against Women Act, or VAWA, which funds training for police and for judges, strengthening the criminal justice system's response to crimes against women
One commonly held notion about sexual violence proved to be accurate. In three out of four incidents of sexual violence, the offender was a family member, intimate partner, friend or acquaintance, the survey found.
The report focuses on sexual violence that includes completed, attempted and threatened rape or sexual assault. The study was compiled from the National Crime Victimization Survey, which collects information on nonfatal crimes from a nationally representative sample of people age 12 or older.Over the last few weeks, the PLA has simulated an invasion of Taiwan using both military and civilian ships.
China’s military is practicing invading Taiwan, IHS Jane’s notes.
In a new analysis by Richard Fisher and James Hardy, IHS Jane’s reports that “A series of Chinese military exercises between late May and early June showcased the ability of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) to project land, air, and naval power into the area around Taiwan.”
The exercises demonstrated the People's Liberation Army’s plan to use civilian ships during emergencies to help boost its forces.
“To compensate for the relatively small size of its formal naval amphibious transport fleet the PLA has co-funded construction of a large number of ferries used by civilian companies. They will be made available to the PLA during emergencies and are a frequent element in civil-military transport exercises,” Fisher and Hardy write.
(Recommended: Why America Should Fear China's Hypersonic Nuclear Missile )
Included in these drills, for example, was a 20,000-ton roll-on/roll-off (ro-ro) ferry that was assigned to the Transportation Department of the People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF). During the drill, the ferry helped transport troops and trucks from the Bohai Sea to the South China Sea.
Fisher and Hardy, citing an Asian government source, assess that in the event of an invasion, a combined military and civilian effort could transport between 8-12 PLA divisions to Taiwan.
The National Interest had previously reported on the drills, noting last week that China announced that the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) and People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) were conducting a joint exercise near the Bashi Channel. The channel sits near islands owned by the Philippines and Taiwan, and the drills were conducted near both of those countries’ Air Defense Identification Zones (ADIZ).
(Recommended: China Sends Most Lethal Bombers Near Taiwan, Philippines )
TNI noted at that time that as part of that exercise, the PLAAF had sent its most advanced H-6K bomber near the channel, along with other aircraft like the H-6G and J-11 air superiority fighter. TNI also wrote at the time:
The apparently now routine joint air-sea exercises China is conducting in the area are likely to greatly unnerve Taiwan. One perceived weakness of China’s military forces are their lack of training, particularly joint training among China’s different military services. An assault on Taiwan would require the seamless integration of Chinese naval and air assets along with amphibious forces. Thus the drills, which China’s defense ministry claimed were not directed at any specific country, will enhance the PLA’s preparedness for an attack on Taiwan.
The drills appear to be aimed squarely at developing these capabilities. Indeed, besides the civilian ships used in the exercises, IHS Jane’s notes that a naval formation consisting of the Type 052B destroyer, a Type 054A frigate, and a Type 904 underway replenishment ship also took part in the drills. The Type 052B destroyer, in particular, would be used as part of an invading force to help provide air defense for the amphibious forces.
China's sole aircraft carrier is also participating in a drill this week. It is unclear if that exercise is related to the ones simulating an attack on Taiwan.
The PLA drills coincided with Tsai Ing-wen, the head of Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), visiting the United States. The DPP has traditionally been the Taiwanese political party that is most opposed to the People’s Republic of China, as well as reunifying Taiwan with mainland China. It has also traditionally opposed the “one China principle” as the starting ground for diplomatic relations with mainland China.
(Recommended: Taiwan's Master Plan to Defeat China in a War )
Tsai is likely to run for president in Taiwan’s 2016 elections. The DPP scored a landslide victory in Taiwan’s local elections last year, leading many to believe it could take the presidency in 2016. This would likely great irk the PRC and its president, Xi Jinping.
This isn’t the first time the Chinese military has simulated an invasion on Taiwan. As The Washington Times reported back in the fall of 2013, “More than 20,000 Chinese soldiers, sailors and airmen carried out a boisterous joint-operation exercise this month, with Taiwan as the apparent simulated target of a Normandy-style invasion.”
Zachary Keck is managing editor of The National Interest. You can find him on Twitter: @ZacharyKeck.KOIN 6 News Staff - PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) -- People fled Portland International Airport on Friday night after airport police attempted to arrest an individual with a warrant who struggled with police and reached for an officer's gun, the Port of Portland confirmed.
Copyright by KOIN - All rights reserved Alexander F. Plata, 25, was arrested Friday, Dec. 29, 2017 after he allegedly resisted arrested and attempted to grab an officer's gun. (MCSO)
Copyright by KOIN - All rights reserved Alexander F. Plata, 25, was arrested Friday, Dec. 29, 2017 after he allegedly resisted arrested and attempted to grab an officer's gun. (MCSO)
An unauthorized evacuation announcement over the loudspeaker, isolated to the baggage claim-area, caused people to run from the airport.
Joshua Frank was outside of arrivals with his wife at the time, waiting to be picked up by his in-laws. Then, he said, a big storm of people came out of the doors.
"It kind of almost looked like a stampede," Frank said.
Frank said an officer told him and others to get to the parking garage. He also said the officer told him someone had allegedly taken a firearm from a police officer. He called the situation "frantic."
"It seemed top be a little bit of chaos, and of course in our day and age, anything like that can spark a lot of anxiety in people," Frank said. "Fortunately it seemed like everything was taken care of pretty quickly."
An additional announcement was made minutes later indicating that there was no emergency and the airport was clear.
The Port of Portland said the person -- later identified as 25-year-old Alexander F. Plata -- reached for an officer's gun, but never actually touched it. Backup was also called, however Plata continued to "violently resist" arrest, according to authorities. The Port of Portland said no one was injured and Plata is now in custody.
Plata had a misdemeanor warrant out of Marion County. After Friday's incident, he is also charged with resisting arrest and assault on a police officer.
No flights were affected by the incident.
Plata pleaded not guilty on Tuesday afternoon. His next court appearance is scheduled for Jan. 10.Topics
Raven Soars Through First Light and Second Run
August 26, 2014
Raven, a Multi-Object Adaptive Optics (MOAO) science demonstrator, successfully saw first light at the Subaru Telescope on the nights of May 13 and 14, 2014 and completed its second run during the nights of August 9 and 10, 2014. Developed by the Adaptive Optics Lab of the University of Victoria (UVic) in partnership with the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ), the National Research Council of Canada (NRC Herzberg), and Tohoku University, Raven is the first MOAO science and technical demonstrator to be installed and tested on an 8 m class telescope. It marks a technological advance in the number of science targets available for adaptive optics; it uses measurements from multiple guide stars to provide corrections for atmospheric turbulence in any locations of the field of view of the telescope.
Figure 1: Raven, a MOAO science and technical demonstrator (Credit: Lardière/UVic)
The project's goals were to demonstrate the performance of a new type of adaptive optics (AO) system and provide scientific verification of its application. What makes this MOAO special is its ability to measure wavefronts from three natural guide stars rather than one over a field with a 3.5 arcmin diameter and derive correction for any other location in the field of regard. As a science demonstrator, Raven applies the MOAO correction towards two science targets and can reimage them side-by-side on a single imaging camera or on the slit of Subaru Telescope's Infrared Camera and Spectrograph (IRCS). Its ability to conduct spectroscopy of two targets at once with the required performance makes it a useful scientific instrument as well as a technical demonstrator of MOAO.
The first and second runs of Raven complemented each other. The first run focused more on confirming that everything worked to acquire stars. As Co-Investigator Shin Oya (Subaru Telescope/NAOJ) and Co-Principal Investigator David Andersen (NRC) agreed, "Things work differently in the sky than in the lab." Did Raven actually work using the calibration unit? On-sky observation is essential for answering this question, and the answer was "yes". They found that the atmospheric profile of turbulence was more complex than in the lab. The team planned for adjustments during the first run and was grateful to have a second run to continue to test the instrument with different degrees and kinds of turbulence.
Figure 2: Images taken with Raven on the night of May 14, 2014 at the Subaru Telescope. Raven is equipped with five probe arms that can patrol the field of regard (FoR) of Subaru Telescope. Left: Three arms pick up the light of three natural guide stars (NGS) to measure the atmospheric turbulence, while two arms collect the light of two distinct science targets. Top right: Without AO correction, atmospheric turbulence blurs the images of the stars. Bottom right: After correction of the atmospheric turbulence by a deformable mirror, the two science channels (Ch.#1 and Ch.#2) are reimaged side-by-side on the slit of IRCS spectrograph, and the image is improved. (Credit: Lardière/UVic)
During the second run, the team devoted several hours to concentrating on a true science target, two metal-poor stars in the Milky Way. Their success in obtaining good spectra of two stars and determining their chemical abundances confirmed the team's conviction that MOAO can be used for a variety of science applications.
Figure 3: Scientists watching Raven's performance during the second run on the night of August 9, 2014 at the Subaru Telescope (Credit: Oya/NAOJ)
Raven's role as a science demonstrator has many advantages--for its developers, for Subaru Telescope, and for 30 m class telescopes of the future. Olivier Lardière, a Co-Principal Investigator who had helped design the instrument, concluded, "I was so happy. It was a complete experience, from preliminary design to figuring out the challenges to the observations."
Andersen continued, "We really enjoyed working with the Subaru staff. It was interesting for us to work together since we hope to collaborate on TMT." Staff at Subaru Telescope gained experience with wide-field, multi-object AO techniques, which offer some advantages over the current A0 188, which uses only one guide star near a target to correct for atmospheric turbulence. And, as Oya added, "It can increase the number of objects we can observe as well as the amount of information we can obtain about them."
Finally, as a type of wide-field AO, a MOAO system like Raven offers considerable advantages for larger telescopes, such as TMT. It can realize simultaneous observations of objects from the field of regard of several arcminutes (5 arcmin or more), which increases with the telescope's aperture. On-sky verification by an 8 m class telescope, such as Subaru Telescope, is an important contribution to future development.
Raven will be available for science use as a carry-in instrument in 2015. Go to the Call for Proposals at Subaru Telescope to submit a science case proposal.
The team would like to thank the following funding agencies for their support of project:
Canadian Fund for Innovation
British Columbia Knowledge Development Fund
More Information:
Raven Home Page: http://web.uvic.ca/~ravenmoa/
Raven Blog: http://web.uvic.ca/~ravenmoa/Blog.html
References:Check your lottery tickets!
A winning Lotto ticket worth $24 million was bought on May 25, 2016 at Renu Corp Grocery & Tobacco at 158 Church Street in Tribeca and has yet to be claimed.
The winnings may be claimed up to a year after the drawing,which means the prize expires at the end of the day next Thursday.
“A lucky New Yorker has a $24 million Lotto payday just waiting – but the winner has to act fast as time is running out,” said Gweneth Dean, Director of the Commission’s Division of the Lottery. “We urge New York Lottery players: Check your pockets. Check your glove box. Look under the couch cushions. If you have this winning ticket, we look forward to meeting you.”
Lottery officials recommend that the ticket holder sign the back of the ticket and contact them immediately. The winner may claim the ticket at any one of the Lottery’s Customer Service Centers across the state.
Click here to learn how to redeem a prize or call New York Lottery’s Prize Payments Office at 518-388-3370.
If the prize is not claimed by May 25, 2017, the prize money will be returned to the prize pool for future winners.
It is sometimes used to subsidize prizes for large jackpots, promotions and/or special one-time games.As business and civic leaders picked at their fruit bowls in the Sandton Convention Centre on Tuesday morning, Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies highlighted the extent of inequality between rich and poor in South Africa.
There are "super salaries at the top, and very meagre livelihoods at the bottom," said Davies.
In 2012, "the highest-paid chief executive earned 51 000 times what someone earns on the child support programme. That's the level of in-equality that we have in South Africa."
The disparity highlighted by this figure is astounding, and yet the calculations determining the biggest salary – which was R190.7-million, awarded to Graham Mackay, then still the chief executive of SABMiller – still do not fully represent the exorbitant incomes of some of our biggest earners.
Executives who play a role in listed companies and own numerous shares in the same entities not only walk away with top-tier salaries, but also compound their earnings with dividend payouts.
True chasm
Dividend payouts are not generally included when calculating an executive's earnings, but doing so gives a more accurate picture of the true chasm between South Africa's richest of the rich and its poverty-stricken.
Calculations that include dividend payouts, provided by independent research organisation Who Owns Whom, show a trebling of top earnings in South Africa.
The biggest South African earner in 2012 was Glencore Xtrata's chief executive, Ivan Glasenberg. The billionaire drew a comparatively modest salary of $1.5-million (R15.6-million).
But he took home dividends of $173-million (R1.8-billion), thanks to earnings the commodities giant made from listings abroad.
Glasenberg is followed by Patrice Motsepe, whose take-home earnings, including salary and dividends, were R630-million. His salary made up R11.06-million of that, and R618.9-million was thanks to dividends paid out on shares he and his family own in two largely South African companies: African Rainbow Minerals and Sanlam.
In 2010, Shoprite's chief executive Whitey Basson took home R627.5-million. His salary and benefits constituted only R33.1-million of that amount; the almost R600-million remaining was thanks to his decision to exercise a vast swathe of share options.
Glasenberg's R1.8-billion would be 486 000 times that of the earnings of one with a child support grant; Motsepe's two-thirds of a billion rand would be 168 000 times that.
Rising inequality is coming under increasing scrutiny around the globe. This year's meeting of economic leaders in Davos put the spotlight on an Oxfam report that claimed the world's richest 85 people controlled the same amount of wealth as its poorest 3.5-billion people.
In his recently published book Capital in the Twenty-First Century, French economist Thomas Piketty draws on extensive research to argue that the main factor driving inequality in the United States is the exorbitant salaries large companies award their top executives.
Piketty says that "supermanagers" account for up to 70% of the top 0.1% of the income distribution in the US, a group that earns at least $1.5-million (R15.6-million) each annually.
"The law is simple," writes the New Yorker's John Cassidy in his review of the book. "When the rate of return on capital – the annual income it generates divided by its market value – is higher than the economy's growth rate, capital income will tend to rise faster than wages and salaries, which rarely grow faster than gross domestic product."
So, earnings in the form of dividends, rents and vested share options are likely to accumulate at a rate much higher than a person who does not own capital is able to increase their salary.
Astronomical earnings
The astronomical earnings of South Africa's business elite are largely attributable to these forms of capital, rather than the executives' guaranteed package.
Business mogul Christo Wiese, who holds director and chairperson positions in five listed companies in which he owns shares, took home a R8.69-million combined salary from his duties in 2012. But, according to the Who Owns Whom calculations, dividends from his various shares in Shoprite, Brait, Invicta and Tradehold earned him another R265-million.
Naspers's Koos Bekker is lauded in some circles for taking home no salary at all. But, as observed by the authors of Executive Salaries in South Africa: Who Should Have a Say on Pay?, the media boss is actually earning a colossal amount.
"One would think from looking only at the cash and benefits package of Bekker that he is working for free," they write. "However, when the value of long-term investments vested during the year is included in the calculation of his package, the amount of money he received during 2012 is astronomical. The pretax face value of [Bekker's] options that vested in 2012 alone was over R1-billion on the date of vesting."
"If we are to reduce inequality in South Africa, we must shift the balance of opportunity towards those for whom work, regular income, decent shelter and adequate nutrition are still aspirations," said Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan in his foreword to the book.
The private sector had a "big role to play" in this, Gordhan said. "Rather than rely on economic rent and endeavouring to accumulate the bulk of the rewards of improved productivity … the private sector should embrace entrepreneurship, innovation and an equitable sharing of the fruits of prosperity."
What you see is not what an executive gets
Although it is a reporting requirement for listed companies, many people are unaware of how much money is transferred into the well-fed bank accounts of the country's most senior executives.
In their book, Executive Salaries in South Africa: Who Should Have a Say on Pay?, Kaylan Massie, Debbie Collier and Ann Crotty give a breakdown of how the average executive is paid.
In addition to a cash and benefit package, executives make gains by exercising or vesting short and long-term incentives (LTIs). These gains in one year alone "can reach two to three times the cash and benefits package", the authors say.
Companies are often vague about disclosing the LTIs granted to an executive, the researchers say. "Typically, the value of LTIs granted during the year is not included in calculating an executive's pay package. This omission is to the detriment of shareholders and others in the public, who are left in the dark as to the actual value … provided.
"A shareholder will have no idea what value these LTIs have been until three or five years later. At that point, it is too late for [them] to voice their concern about the grants being made."
A typical executive's pay cheque includes the following:Electric vehicles have long been a promising option for sustainable transportation. They come with practical headaches like expensive, bulky batteries that often need recharging, however. Israel is tackling those hurdles by investing in roads that power electric buses—as they ride down the street. The government is collaborating with Israeli start-up ElectRoad to install a public bus route in Tel Aviv, using an under-the-pavement wireless technology that eliminates the need for plug-in recharging stations.
Although still in its infancy, the technology could clear the three biggest hurdles—cost, weight and range—that have held back the widespread adoption of battery-powered vehicles for more than a century. First, though, ElectRoad will have to demonstrate that its “inductive charging” technology can be scaled up cheaply enough to be adopted on roadways worldwide. “It’s exciting because it’s charging without wires,” says Tim Cleary, director of BATTERY, an energy-storage research laboratory at The Pennsylvania State University, who is not involved in the project. “But unless it’s affordable and cost-effective it’s not going to take off.”
ElectRoad is betting it will. Wireless charging means the electric buses can carry a light, inexpensive battery instead of a bulky, costly one—and never have to stop for recharging. And once a roadway is outfitted with the technology, it can continuously power properly equipped vehicles. “You only need to pave for the infrastructure one time, and that’s it. You can use it for all kinds of vehicles, so that’s a big advantage,” says Oren Ezer, chief executive and co-founder of the four-year-old company.
So far, the firm’s only proving ground has been an 80-foot test route at its headquarters in Caesarea. But the technology performed well enough for the company to win a $120,000 grant from Israel’s Ministry of Transport and Road Safety and approval to outfit a portion of a Tel Aviv bus route with their technology, says Shay Soffer, chief scientist at the ministry. The route will be around half a mile long and is slated to open in 2018. If all goes well, the government plans to deploy the technology more widely, starting with an 11-mile shuttle between the city of Eilat and the Ramon International Airport. “Tel Aviv is the biggest city [in Israel], like New York on a small scale. If it will work in Tel Aviv, it will work anywhere,” Soffer says.“I think in 10 years you’ll see a lot of solutions like ElectRoad in our transportation.”
ElectRoad’s Ezer declined to give the price of the Tel Aviv project but says the total cost of construction will be shared by the transport ministry, the city and the company. The cost per kilometer of roadway will be a crucial factor in future years as the company attempts to scale up. Israel joins a growing number of nations exploring the technology. South Korea, for example, already has several wireless bus routes around the country. The European Union is studying the feasibility of widespread wireless charging, too. ElectRoad’s technology is different, Ezer says, because the transformers are less expensive and the installation process is faster and more efficient.
Inductive charging has been around since the 1890s, when inventor Nicola Tesla first discovered he could wirelessly power lightbulbs. Since then it has been used in an array of devices ranging from phones to toothbrushes—but only recently on the scale of a 13-ton bus. The buses are charged and propelled by power from the interaction of two electromagnetic fields. Inverters installed along the side of the road provide power to plates of copper embedded in the road. Similar copper plates are installed on the bus’s underside. As the vehicle passes over the charged roadway, the two fields interact and generate power.
ElectRoad says it can install the technology in an existing road with minimal disruption, using two tractors that can fully equip one kilometer of roadway in a single night. Each bus still needs a small onboard battery for a couple of reasons: The first is to accelerate, because the jolt of energy required to propel a stationary bus is far more than the energy it needs to coast down the street. The second is to provide power on short stretches of road that are not fitted with the technology. ElectRoad’s buses can travel off the charging road for about three miles.
The biggest advantages of wireless charging are that it allows for significantly smaller batteries or the ability to travel longer distances with a larger battery. Both are convenient, says Burak Ozpineci, who works on wireless technologies at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. However, the cost of the infrastructure and materials, especially copper, will likely be expensive, he says. Currently, the metal costs about $2.60 per pound. In addition to costing more, wireless power might not be as straightforward as simply plugging into a socket—the bus could stray from the main strip, becoming misaligned and delivering less power, according to Penn State’s Cleary.
In addition, the advantages of ElectRoad’s technology may become less important as electric vehicle batteries get cheaper, lighter and more efficient. Breakthroughs in engineering and chemistry have made batteries much more cost-efficient over the past 15 years, says Dustin Grace, director of battery engineering at Proterra, an electric bus company. A few years ago a typical electric vehicle battery cost about $1,000 per kilowatt hour. But now many companies are down to $200 to $300 per kilowatt hour, and a few, including Tesla, General Motors and Nissan, are even lower, according to Grace. “I’m in the camp where I see the cost of lithium ions and energy storage just plummeting,” Grace says. “What these auto manufacturers are finding when they’re getting into the $100-to-$200-per-kilowatt-hour range is these vehicles are really on parity with other vehicles. They’re no longer looking at batteries as this challenge that has to be solved.”
Ezer acknowledges battery prices are falling but emphasizes ElectRoad’s solution is not for individual vehicles but for all-encompassing infrastructure that can eventually serve entire cities. That’s where the savings are, he says. And remember that small, light battery onboard? It is only used about 6 percent of the time the vehicle is running, and thus can last as long as 25 years, Ezer asserts. By contrast, conventional batteries in electric buses, like those made by Proterra, last around six years.
Despite the challenges of scaling up, ElectRoad is optimistic about the growing synergies between its vehicles and electric grids that are transitioning to renewable energy sources like solar and wind, instead of fossil fuels. Eventually, the company even hopes to make wireless charging a two-way street: not only from road to bus but vice versa with the energy generated from braking, according to Ezer.
And down the road, the start-up’s dreams are even bigger, Ezer says. “We plan to start with buses, of course, but we believe in revolutionizing the entirety of transportation.”Only a little more than a handful of Tight Ends changed teams since the end of the 2016 NFL season. I’ll focus only on the “handful” and not the “little more”. The biggest free agent signing among this group was Martellus Bennett leaving the New England Patriots after one season to sign with the Green Bay Packers. This, in turn, lead Jared Cook to leave the Packers and sign with the Raiders. There were also a couple of trades at this position with Julius Thomas being traded from Jacksonville to Miami, and Dwayne Allen moving from the Colts to the Patriots. I’m sure most won’t agree with the way I rank this group, but in the end, I wouldn’t want any of these guys as my starter headed into the new fantasy season.
Julius Thomas (Miami Dolphins) – Thomas is coming off two injury-plagued seasons in Jacksonville. Over his 21 games played with the Jags, he had 76 receptions for 736 yards and 9 TD’s, which would be well above average tight end stats if it were only over one full season. During the two years prior in Denver, he had 12 TD’s each season and is now reunited with his old offensive coordinator, Adam Gase. The Dolphins did not have a tight end with the talent of Julius Thomas in Gase’s first season and only targeted the tight end 73 times for 55 receptions and 6 TD’s. These numbers will go up with Thomas as long as he stays healthy. He has never played a full season; in his two best seasons in Denver, he played 14 games. If he can get close to that 14 game mark he should be able to provide 600 yards, around 60 receptions and 8-10 TD’s. This would likely put him among the top 10 tight ends but there is a big injury risk with Thomas. Martellus Bennett (Green Bay Packers) – Bennett is coming off a really good season with the Patriots that put him out of the Patriots price range this offseason. Green Bay is typically a team where you’d never want to own their tight end in fantasy football leagues. Even with an above average athlete and a big target like Jared Cook last season this trend did not change – Cook finished 36th in tight end scoring. Green Bay is rumored to be moving to a two-tight end system. They brought in not only Bennett but Lance Kendricks from the Rams. These two could definitely change the trend in Green Bay, for tight ends, if the offense commits to the two tight end system. My question is which of these two would play more of the blocking tight end role and will there be enough volume to make either one fantasy relevant. I know once upon a time New England had two fantasy relevant tight ends but they didn’t have the quality receivers Green Bay currently has on their roster. I’d rank Bennett well outside the top 10 tight ends headed into the 2017 season. Dwayne Allen (New England Patriots) – The Patriots gave up a 4th round pick to the Colts for Allen and the Colts’ 6th round pick. While not quite as big of a target as Martellus Bennett was last season for the Patriots (6’2″ vs 6’6″), Allen is the faster player and knows how to get open. Bennett ranked as the 6th best Fantasy TE in standard scoring last season and benefited from more than expected playing time due to Rob Gronkowski’s injuries. While Gronkowski has had many injuries over the years there is no guarantee, but I still expect Allen to get a lot of playing time in New England’s system as above average end zone target. If Gronkowski has to deal with another injury then Allen would easily vault up to number two on this list. Jared Cook (Oakland Raiders) – While Jared Cook possibly had the more memorable season in Green Bay, catching the sideline pass from Rodgers with the clock expiring and knocking Dallas out of the playoffs, Clive Walford put up the better stats in Oakland. Granted they weren’t better by much but: Cook the answer at tight end for the Raiders where the tight end has not played a significant role under Jack Del Rio? Bill Musgrave is out as offensive coordinator and Todd Downing is in. Downing previously served as the Raiders Quarterback’s coach. Del Rio was unhappy with the play calling at times throughout the year, specifically with running back usage, and decided to make a change. I don’t see the tight end role changing much this season in Oakland. There may be a small increase,but not enough to target Cook in Fantasy drafts as more than a flier at the end of the draft.
Sleeper – Well, if I stuck with the theme I’d have to give you Mychal Rivera as the sleeper, but I can’t do that so instead I’ll take a bit of liberty with the theme and give you someone who was forgotten last season and played only limited snaps. Austin Sefarian-Jenkins (NY Jets) – Jenkins admitted to having a problem with alcohol and has switched to a healthier lifestyle. He is down twenty pounds and has not had a drink since January 2017. In OTA’s he was called “the most impressive player on the field” by NJ Advanced Media’s Connor Hughes. The Jets have a new Offensive Coordinator, John Morton, previously a position coach for the Saints. We don’t yet know his philosophy but he has said the tight end will be more involved. Jenkins is suspended for the first two games but could make a real difference for this Jets team. There are no big-name wide receivers on the team and we don’t yet know who will be at quarterback week 1, but on this team, the tight end could end up being the best friend of whoever starts.
Again, I wouldn’t draft of any of these guys as your true starter. I believe Julius Thomas is the safest pick among them, but if you’re looking for a late tight end with upside, Austin Safarian-Jenkins could be that man.
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WhatsAppCity Councilor Matt O'Malley (Jamaica Plain, West Roxbury) wants to give Bostonians a safer way to complete transactions arranged on Craigslist and other online sites.
In a proposed ordinance to be discussed at the City Council's regular meeting on Wednesday, O'Malley proposes using spaces in city police stations for "e-commerce exchange zones:"
"E-commerce Exchange Zones would provide residents with a safe, well-lit and neutral location to conduct exchanges of goods or money such as the sale of event tickets or other items," he writes. Because Boston police stations are already open 24 hours a day, these zones could be created at little cost.
The council will likely send the proposal to a committee for a hearing before voting on it.
The council's meeting begins at noon in its fifth-floor chambers in City Hall.[/caption]
Does Earth have a dust build-up problem?
Estimates vary of how much cosmic dust and meteorites enter Earth’s atmosphere each day, but range anywhere from 5 to 300 metric tons, with estimates made from satellite data and extrapolations of meteorite falls. Thing is, no one really knows for sure and so far there hasn’t been any real coordinated efforts to find out. But a new project proposal called Cosmic Dust in the Terrestrial Atmosphere (CODITA) would provide more accurate estimates of how much material hits Earth, as well as how it might affect the atmosphere.
“We have a conundrum – estimates of how much dust comes in vary by a factor of a hundred,” said John Plane from University of Leeds in the UK. “The aim of CODITA is to resolve this huge discrepancy.”
Even though we consider space to be empty, if all the material between the Sun and Jupiter were compressed together it would form a moon 25 km across.
So how much of this stuff – leftovers from the formation of the planets, debris from comets and asteroid collisions, etc. — encounters Earth? Satellite observations suggest that 100-300 metric tons of cosmic dust enter the atmosphere each day. This figure comes from the rate of accumulation in polar ice cores and deep-sea sediments of rare elements linked to cosmic dust, such as iridium and osmium.
But other measurements – which includes meteor radar observations, laser observations and measurements by high |
markets are important to game publishers. “Foreign giants like EA and Ubisoft have had Indian presence for a long time, helping nurture the local talent. So the ecosystem is building up,” he explained. This coming-of-age story for Indian gaming, however, is not without complications. Designers who are poorly acquainted with Indian culture often take artistic liberties that mix up or flat-out ignore important nuances. The results can easily come off as offensive and even exploitative. Despite its best attempts, Chronicles: India is not above reproach in regards to cultural marginalization. By casting the Sikhs as the antagonists of the story, some argue the game unwittingly plays into pre-existing stereotypes that paint this religious minority as villainous.
According to Gurinder Mann, the director of the Sikh Museum Initiative, “There is a long way to go before a Sikh character with a turban and beard is seen as being the hero. Only then will we see a true representation of Sikhs in the gaming world.” An example from comic books is already showing a way forward. Last year, Silicon Valley executive Supreet Singh Manchanda launched a Kickstarter project called Super Sikh. The goal was to reboot the modern-day superhero. Not with a reimagining of Superman, Ironman, or Spiderman, but with a secret agent who also wears a turban. The message? Looks don’t define a hero—actions do.
Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: India might best be thought of as two steps forward coupled with an unfortunate step backward. Yet, despite its more shallow depiction of Sikhs, the game avoids the common pitfalls of other major franchises, which treat India like exotic wallpaper, according to Yadav. The next step, perhaps, would be a blockbuster game that not only features India, but is created by Indians too. “I understand that the Chronicles series is a low-risk way for Ubisoft to explore new settings [but] I’m happy about it, slightly,” said Yadav. If nothing else, the game comes across as a compelling argument for further exploration of the Indian identity in games—as long, of course, as the question of cultural sensitivity isn’t forgotten.Trifluoperazine, a molecule long used to treat anxiety has been found to interfere with the activity of a protein involved in the pancreatic cancer development process. A study by the Nanotechnology Institute of CNR, unit of Rende, in collaboration with a team of French and Spanish researchers, identified the molecule.
Pancreatic cancer is one of the most lethal tumors. Up until now, the only drugs available to fight it are generic chemotherapy treatments.
The protein Nupr1 belongs to the special class of intrinsically disordered proteins and its involvement in pancreatic cancer pathology was demonstrated in the 1990s by a French team at the National Institute of Health in Marseille. Now, trifluoperazine has been found to be capable of inhibiting this protein.
Ductal carcinoma is the most common pancreatic tumor. Its recovery rates are low, not only due to difficulties of early diagnosis, but also because of the absence of a specific pharmacological treatment.
Completely Arrested Disease Development
Bruno Rizzuti of Cnr-Nanotec in Rende, said:
“The research has been performed starting from the screening of more than 1000 drugs already approved for various therapeutic indications. The combined use of experimental techniques and computer simulations has allowed us to identify some of those drugs capable of interacting with the protein Nupr1. In vitro experiments have afterwards shown that the selected compounds were able to lower the vitality of tumor cells, reduce the ability of migration, and completely suppress the possibility of colony formation. The most effective compound has been tested in vivo on human pancreatic cancer cells transplanted on mice, and proved to completely arrest the development of the disease. The molecule– known as trifluoperazine, and used until now only for its anti-psychotic action – has demonstrated an antitumor efficacy even higher than the most powerful chemotherapy treatments available. Furthermore, this study shows that this new molecule constitutes not only an alternative to such previously known drugs, but can be combined with them to increase the overall therapeutic effect.”
Disordered Proteins
Additionally, this work is an important step on the research into proteins with disordered structure.
“According to one of the dogmas of classical biology,” says Rizzuti, “the conformation of a protein should be unique and well defined to allow each of these ‘molecular machines’ to carry out a specific function. Disordered proteins overturn the validity of this principle, and due to their flexible structure, are able to perform multiple functions of cell communication and regulation. However, the absence of well-defined structural elements appeared to be an insurmountable obstacle to proceed to a rational design of selective drugs to hinder their action.”
The demonstration of the possibility of identifying active molecules that inhibit disordered proteins is an important step forward from the point of view of basic research, because it changes completely the scenario in the fight against numerous pathologies.
In fact, it opens up the concrete possibility of multiplying the number of molecular targets that could be hit through a focused use of pharmaceuticals.
José L. Neira et al.
Identification of a Drug Targeting an Intrinsically Disordered Protein Involved in Pancreatic Adenocarcinoma
Scientific Reports (2017). DOI: 10.1038/srep39732
Top Image: Anne Weston, LRI, CRUK, Wellcome Images. Scanning electron micrograph of a cluster of pancreatic cancer cells grown in culture.Grassroots Liberal Democrats are to press for government guarantees that greater involvement from faith-based groups in the provision of public services under the "Big Society" will be subject to strict safeguards to protect secularism and prevent proselytising.
The move comes against the backdrop of recent tie-ups between local government and faith groups. seeking to play a role in provision of services in potentially sensitive areas, such as advising on sexual health.
In east London, a new website aiming to promote sex education for young people "using a faith sensitive approach" has been launched after receiving funding from health authorities. It follows a recent controversy in south-west London over Richmond council's awarding of a £89,000 contract to the Catholic Children's Society, which will be involved in advising pupils on issues including contraception and teenage pregnancy.
Evan Harris, the former Liberal Democrat MP and an increasingly influential voice on behalf of the party's grassroots, is among those involved in pushing to for strict guidelines to govern involvement of faith groups in public services. He said: "The party has made clear that it does not want the government to sanction 'proselytising on the public purse' when local councils or health bodies award a contract to a faith-based group."The Faith, Relationships and Young People (FRYP) website was set up by Alternatives, a charity in Newham which also provides crisis pregnancy counselling and is linked with a national network of independent centres through the Christian organisation, CareConfidential.
A spokesperson for the East London NHS Foundation Trust, which provides services to the City of London and the London Boroughs of Hackney, Tower Hamlets and Newham, said there was a "high level of joint working and partnership work between statutory sexual health services and the charity."
Despite being the focus of suspicion by pro-choice groups and others, Julia Acott, CareConfidential's Counselling Services Manager, insisted they were a fully pro-choice organisation.
She added: "The [FRYP ]website aims to provide young people from faith backgrounds with good quality information about sex and relationships that they may not get in their home or community situations in a way that is sensitive to their backgrounds, and came under the funding scheme's aim of reducing the incidence of sexually transmitted infections in young people."
The website sets out the views of a range of faiths on issues including homosexuality, abortion, contraception and homosexuality although an FAQ section is not working yet.
Newham has consistently had one of the highest rates of teenage pregnancies in the country although it recorded a major drop last year. According to figures released last week, it had the highest rate of abortions in the country – 39.9 per 1,000 women.Harris, vice-chair of the Lib Dem Federal Policy Committee, added: "Any increased use of faith-based organisations delivering essential public services will need stricter safeguards to prevent discrimination against vulnerable and captive populations on the basis of religion or sexuality, as well as to prevent employees needing to pass 'faith tests'.
"The Lib Dems have made clear that religious organisations have as much right as anyone else to provide services, but until legal loop-holes are closed we expect the Government to ensure that contracts contain non-discrimination clauses."Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Alastair Leithead reports: ''The staff were terrified''
Police in the US state of Texas say nine people have been killed and at least 100 arrested after a shoot-out between rival biker gangs in Waco.
The incident happened at the Twin Peaks Sports Bar and Grill in a shopping area called the Central Texas Market Place.
Police said eight had died at the scene and a ninth in hospital - all were bikers. At least 18 others were hurt.
One witness quoted by the Waco Tribune-Herald said the car park of the restaurant resembled "a war zone".
"There were maybe 30 guns being fired in the parking lot, maybe 100 rounds," Michelle Logan said.
Diners at the Twin Peaks cafe said they and the staff had locked themselves in a freezer room for safety before being escorted off the premises by armed police.
'Dangerous and hostile'
Waco police said the shooting happened shortly after midday when rival gangs got into a fight, apparently over parking space near the restaurant. Up to five gangs were involved.
Police spokesman Sgt W Patrick Swanton said the fight started with punches and then escalated to chains, clubs, knives and finally firearms.
Image copyright AP Image caption Police sealed off the area around the Twin Peaks restaurant in Waco
Image copyright AP Image caption Police stood guard near a group of bikers in the car park of the restaurant
"This is probably one of the most gruesome crime scenes I've ever seen in my 34 years of law enforcement,'' he said.
Police knew the meeting was going on, and officers moved in as soon as the shooting started.
McLennan County Sheriff Parnell McNamara later said all nine who were killed were members of the Bandidos or Cossacks gangs, according to the Associated Press news agency.
"These are very dangerous hostile biker gangs," Sgt Swanton said. "A lot of innocent people could have been injured today."
One witness said he and his family had just finished their lunch and walked into the car park when they heard gunshots.
"We crouched down in front of our pick-up truck because that was the only cover we had," the witness - who asked not to be named - was quoted as saying.
Sgt Swanton said there were concerns that groups involved in the shooting may have moved to other locations in and around Waco.
Several nearby roads were closed, and police asked residents to avoid the area until an all-clear was issued.
Waco police said no officers had been injured in the shooting.Election 2016: Herbert called for Labor, but close vote means recount to follow
Updated
The ABC election computer has called the seat of Herbert as a gain for the Labor Party, but the incredibly close vote count means there will be a full recount in the seat.
Both parties have been saying the contest is too close to call.
Labor's Cathy O'Toole leads incumbent Liberal MP Ewen Jones by just eight votes.
A recount is triggered if the final result has a margin of fewer than 100 votes.
Ms O'Toole said she faced a nervous wait.
"Eight votes is not a lot but as they say, a win is a win, and this stage that is where we are but we have a long way to go," she said.
"It is quite an enormous feat to knock off a margin of 6.2 so people are really excited about that."
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull previously said he was confident the Coalition would secure the Townsville-based seat.
It is the last undecided seat in the federal election.
Topics: federal-elections, elections, government-and-politics, townsville-4810
First postedThe Great Loot Box Fire of '17 received an additional slosh of gasoline yesterday when Belgium announced that its Gaming Commission, which regulates gambling in the country, had begun an investigation into whether loot boxes in games like Star Wars Battlefront 2 and Overwatch constitute a form of gambling. The consequences of a "yes" decision are potentially enormous, which is why it's not at all surprising that Electronic Arts says "nuh uh."
"Creating a fair and fun game experience is of critical importance to EA. The crate mechanics of Star Wars Battlefront 2 are not gambling," the company said in a statement sent to Gamespot. "A player’s ability to succeed in the game is not dependent on purchasing crates. Players can also earn crates through playing the game and not spending any money at all. Once obtained, players are always guaranteed to receive content that can be used in game."
The final sentence in that statement is the real crux of the argument: Unlike lottery tickets, for example, where the great likelihood is that you'll end up with nothing, money spent on loot crates will, without exception, get you content that can be used in-game. So the question is whether the randomness of loot box contents is sufficient to put it over the line into gambling—and if so, what other kinds of purchasables that rely on similar "luck of the draw" might also fall under scrutiny? That's where things get interesting.
Despite EA's protest, it appears that regulatory interest in the matter is growing: As reported by Nu.nl (via Eurogamer), the Netherlands has also launched its own investigation into whether loot boxes are a form of gambling.George Soros and other rich liberals who spent tens of millions of dollars trying to elect Hillary Clinton are gathering in Washington for a three-day, closed door meeting to retool the big-money left to fight back against Donald Trump.
The conference, which kicked off Sunday night at Washington’s pricey Mandarin Oriental hotel, is sponsored by the influential Democracy Alliance donor club, and will include appearances by leaders of most leading unions and liberal groups, as well as darlings of the left such as House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Congressional Progressive Caucus co-chairman Keith Ellison, according to an agenda and other documents obtained by POLITICO.
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The meeting is the first major gathering of the institutional left since Trump’s shocking victory over Hillary Clinton in last week’s presidential election, and, if the agenda is any indication, liberals plan full-on trench warfare against Trump from Day One. Some sessions deal with gearing up for 2017 and 2018 elections, while others focus on thwarting President-elect Trump’s 100-day plan, which the agenda calls “a terrifying assault on President Obama’s achievements — and our progressive vision for an equitable and just nation.”
Yet the meeting also comes as many liberals are reassessing their approach to politics — and the role of the Democracy Alliance, or DA, as the club is known in Democratic finance circles. The DA, its donors and beneficiary groups over the last decade have had a major hand in shaping the institutions of the left, including by orienting some of its key organizations around Clinton, and by basing their strategy around the idea that minorities and women constituted a so-called “rising American electorate” that could tip elections to Democrats.
That didn’t happen in the presidential election, where Trump won largely on the strength of his support from working-class whites. Additionally, exit polls suggested that issues like fighting climate change and the role of money in politics — which the DA’s beneficiary groups have used to try to turn out voters — didn’t resonate as much with the voters who carried Trump to victory.
“The DA itself should be called into question,” said one Democratic strategist who has been active in the group and is attending the meeting. “You can make a very good case it’s nothing more than a social club for a handful wealthy white donors and labor union officials to drink wine and read memos, as the Democratic Party burns down around them.”
Another liberal operative who has been active in the DA since its founding rejected the notion that the group — or the left, more generally — needed to completely retool its approach to politics.
“We should not learn the wrong lesson from this election,” said the operative, pointing out that Clinton is on track to win the popular vote and that Trump got fewer votes than the last GOP presidential nominee, Mitt Romney. “We need our people to vote in greater numbers. For that to happen, we need candidates who inspire them to go to the polls on Election Day.”
But Gara LaMarche, the president of the DA, on Sunday evening told donors gathered at the Mandarin for a welcome dinner that some reassessment was in order. According to prepared remarks he provided to POLITICO, he said, “You don’t lose an election you were supposed to win, with so much at stake, without making some big mistakes, in assumptions, strategy and tactics.”
LaMarche added that the reassessment "must take place without recrimination and finger-pointing, whatever frustration and anger some of us feel about our own allies in these efforts," and he said "It is a process we should not rush, even as we gear up to resist the Trump administration."
LaMarche emailed the donors last week that the meeting would begin the process of assessing “what steps we will take together to resist the assaults that are coming and take back power, beginning in the states in 2017 and 2018.”
In addition to sessions focusing on protecting Obamacare and other pillars of Obama’s legacy against dismantling by President-elect Trump, the agenda includes panels on rethinking polling and the left’s approach to winning the working-class vote, as well as sessions stressing the importance of channeling cash to state legislative policy battles and races, where Republicans won big victories last week.
Democrats need to invest more in training officials and developing policies in the states, argued Rep. Ellison (D-Minn.) on a Friday afternoon donor conference call, according to someone on the call. The call was organized by a DA-endorsed group called the State Innovation Exchange (or SiX), which Ellison urged the donors to support.
Ellison, who is scheduled to speak on a Monday afternoon panel at the DA meeting on the challenge Democrats face in winning working-class votes, has been a leading liberal voice for a form of economic populism that Trump at times channeled more than Clinton.
As liberals look to rebuild the post-Clinton Democratic Party on a more aggressively liberal bearing, Ellison has emerged as a top candidate to take over the Democratic National Committee, and he figures to be in high demand at the DA meeting. An Ellison spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Sunday evening. Nor did a Trump spokesman.
Raj Goyle, a New York Democratic activist who previously served in the Kansas state legislature and now sits on SiX’s board, argued that many liberal activists and donors are “disconnected from working class voters' concerns” because they’re cluster in coastal cities. “And that hurt us this election,” said Goyle, who is involved in the DA, and said its donors would do well to steer more cash to groups on the ground in landlocked states. “Progressive donors and organizations need to immediately correct the lack of investment in state and local strategies.”
The Democracy Alliance was launched after the 2004 election by Soros, the late insurance mogul Peter Lewis, and a handful of fellow Democratic mega-donors who had combined to spend tens of millions trying to boost then-Sen. John Kerry’s ultimately unsuccessful challenge to then-President George W. Bush.
The donors’ goal was to seed a set of advocacy groups and think tanks outside the Democratic Party that could push the party and its politicians to the left while also defending them against attack from the right.
The group requires its members — a group that now numbers more than 100 and includes finance titans like Soros, Tom Steyer and Donald Sussman, as well as major labor unions and liberal foundations — to contribute a total of at least $200,000 a year to recommended groups. Members also pay annual dues of $30,000 to fund the DA staff and its meetings, which include catered meals and entertainment (on Sunday, interested donors were treated to a VIP tour of the recently opened National Museum of African American History and Culture).
Since its inception in 2005, the DA has steered upward of $500 million to a range of groups, including pillars of the political left such as the watchdog group Media Matters, the policy advocacy outfit Center for American Progress and the data firm Catalist — all of which are run by Clinton allies who are expected to send representatives to the DA meeting.
The degree to which those groups will be able to adapt to the post-Clinton Democratic Party is not entirely clear, though some of the key DA donors have given generously to them for years.
That includes Soros, who, after stepping back a bit from campaign-related giving in recent years, had committed or donated $25 million to boosting Clinton and other Democratic candidates and causes in 2016. During the presidential primaries, Soros had argued that Trump and his GOP rival Ted Cruz were “doing the work of ISIS.”
A Soros spokesman declined to comment for this story.
But, given that the billionaire financier only periodically attends DA meetings and is seldom a part of the formal proceedings, his scheduled Tuesday morning appearance as a speaker suggests that he’s committed to investing in opposing President Trump.
The agenda item for a Tuesday morning “conversation with George Soros” invokes Soros’ personal experience living through the Holocaust and Soviet Communism in the context of preparing for a Trump presidency. The agenda notes that the billionaire currency trader, who grew up in Hungary, “has lived through Nazism and Communism, and has devoted his foundations to protecting the kinds of open societies around the world that are now threatened in the United States itself.”
LaMarche, who for years worked for Soros’s Open Society foundations, told POLITICO that the references to Nazism and Communism are “part of his standard bio.”
LaMarche, who is set to moderate the discussion with Soros, said the donor “does not plan to compare whatever we face under Trump to Nazism, I can tell you that.” LaMarche he also said, “I don’t think there is anyone who has looked at Trump, including many respected conservatives, who doesn’t think the experience of authoritarian states would not be important to learn from here. And to the extent that Soros and his foundations have experience with xenophobia in Europe, Brexit, etc., we want to learn from that as well.”
The Soros conversation was added to the agenda after Election Day. It was just one of many changes made on the fly to adjust for last week's jarring result and the stark new reality facing liberals, who went from discussing ways to push an incoming President Clinton leftward, to instead discussing how to play defense.
A pre-election working draft of the DA’s agenda, obtained by POLITICO, featured a session on Clinton’s first 100 days and another on “moving a progressive national policy agenda in 2017.” Those sessions were rebranded so that the first instead will examine “what happened” on the “cataclysm of Election Day,” while the second will focus on “combating the massive threats from Trump and Congress in 2017.”
A session that before the election had been titled “Can Our Elections Be Hacked,” after the election was renamed “Was the 2016 Election Hacked” — a theory that has percolated without evidence on the left to explain the surprising result.
In his post-election emails to donors and operatives, LaMarche acknowledged the group had to “scrap many of the original plans for the conference,” explaining “while we made no explicit assumptions about the outcome, the conference we planned, and the agenda you have seen, made more sense in the event of a Hillary Clinton victory.”Gambling has become one of the most popular pastimes for people today. Whether it’s betting on your favourite football team, playing the slot machine at a local casino, or pulling the trigger in a risky round of Russian roulette, gambling never seems to lose its appeal. It’s easy to understand why people decide to take up gambling – who wouldn’t want to earn a few extra dollars without having to break a sweat? We could even explain why a person who has already hit the jackpot decides to play again; he’s likely riding on a high and obviously has a few extra bucks to spare. But how do we explain the behaviour of those persons who continue to gamble despite consistent losses? Most of us would take the position of famous comedian, W.C. Fields – “if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Then quit. No use being a damn fool about it.” Yet many gamblers who have suffered great losses refuse to quit. Instead of throwing in the figurative towel, they throw in more and more resources, hoping and praying for the elusive win. On the surface this might seem irrational, but there are several psychological reasons why some gamblers never seem to get enough. Five main reasons are explained below.
1. Partial reinforcement [showmyads]
You don’t have to be a psychologist to know that reinforcement strengthens behaviour. Reinforcement may be provided on a continuous basis, such as when a child gets $1.00 every time he wins a game of Scrabble, or on a partial basis, as when a person wins at the slot machine after 6, 20, or 100 tries. As counter-intuitive as it may seem, behaviours tend to persist longer when they are partially rather than continuously reinforced, and this is a major reason why casinos are hardly ever out of business. People don’t expect to win every single time they gamble so when they encounter a loss or even a string of losses, it comes as no big surprise. It’s simply counted as part of the game. Nevertheless, gamblers do expect to be reinforced some of the time and it is this expectation, this belief that “I’ll get lucky next time” that motivates them to continue. They can never be sure which bet will produce rewards but they believe that if they play long enough their patience will eventually pay off…literally!
2. Availability heuristic
This describes the tendency of individuals to overestimate the probability of an occurrence simply because it comes readily to mind. Many people believe that plane crashes occur more frequently than they actually do, because such accidents usually receive extensive news coverage, and are therefore more easily recalled than say, car accidents. Cases of persons winning the lottery jackpot are also widely publicized, causing them to stand out in people’s minds. Gamblers might therefore overestimate the probability that they will experience similar winnings because they have vivid memories of these rare success stories. Even when the odds are against them, their faulty reasoning leads them to believe that they have a great chance to win.
3. Gambler’s fallacy
People often make the mistake of thinking that future events occurring in a random sequence will be influenced by past events. This error in thinking is very common among gamblers which explains how the phenomenon got its name. For example, if a person flips a coin 10 times and it comes up heads every time, he might reason that he will get tails on the next try because it is “overdue.” In reality, the probability of getting tails on the 11th try is still 50% – the same as it was on each of the previous 10 tries. The gambler’s fallacy might cause persons to continue investing in a game of chance even after suffering terrible losses, because they think they are “due” for a win.
4. Illusion of control
Although gambling activities are often directed solely by chance, many gamblers mistakenly believe that they have some amount of control over the outcome. Thus, they might blow on the dice before they throw or perform some other ritual before a game, assuming that such actions will increase their chances of winning. Since people are more likely to invest in an activity when they believe they can influence the results, the illusion of control actually encourages gamblers to persist in their efforts. As Moghaddam & Studer (1998) explain:
Chance will work in the gambler’s favor once in a while, and if success comes early then the illusion of control will be even more firmly entrenched. If gamblers start with some wins, then their estimates of their ability to beat the odds become even more inflated, often surviving a long string of losses” (p. 2).
5. Loss aversion
This refers to the fact that people are usually more sensitive to losses than to gains of equal value. In other words, the pain an individual feels over losing $100 will likely be greater than the pleasure he feels over gaining that same amount of money. As such, a person might go through more trouble to collect money owed to him than to try to win a prize of equal worth. After experiencing a string of losses, a gambler might continue to invest time and money beyond a reasonable limit, not because the potential gain is especially appealing but because the pain of past losses is agonizing. Even when gamblers are aware that they cannot possible win back all that they have lost, they often persist in desperate attempts to recover at least some of their losses.
Reference
Moghaddam, F. M., & Studer, C. (1998). Illusions of control: Striving for control in our person and professional lives. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers.
Photo courtesy of Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Related articlesThe trouble started after the demonstration with protesters, some of whom masked pelting police with all they could lay their hands on. The police responded with water cannon. It has been confirmed that 8 protesters and 2 police officers including Chief Commissioner Pierre Vandersmissen were injured in the trouble.
Mr Vandersmissen was taken to hospital with a head wound.
Dozens of protesters have been detained. However, it is unclear whether the person that attacked Mr Vandersmissen is among them.
Calm returned by around 3pm after which a clear up operation was mounted.
Mr Vandersmissen hit the headlines last month after he detained 100 people, including the Chairman of the Francophone Human Rights League Alexis Deswaef on the steps of the Brussels Stock Exchange Building.
Mr Deswaef said that he and the other people on the steps shouldn’t have been detained as they were showing their support to the victims of the 22 March attacks. However, Mr Vandersmissen said that they had been detained as there was a ban on demonstrations that day.A suicide bomber killed at least 16 people Thursday and wounded 40 others, including a prominent lawmaker, at an anti-corruption rally in eastern Afghanistan, the latest casualties ahead of the Taliban's expected spring offensive.
The attack comes just a week after Washington announced it would not be halving the 9,800 US troops still in Afghanistan by the end of the year, backpedalling on previous plans.
The Taliban, waging a deadly insurgency since they were ousted from power in late 2001, warned that the US troop announcement would damage any prospects of peace talks as they vowed to continue fighting.
Thursday's attack targeted an anti-graft demonstration outside the residence of the acting governor of restive Khost province, sending terrified, blood-soaked victims fleeing for cover.
Severed limbs and body parts lay strewn around the area after the powerful blast, according to an AFP reporter at the scene.
The area was cordoned off by security officials as yellow-helmeted firefighters used water hoses to douse the smouldering scene of the explosion.
"Today morning, a suicide attack was carried out by the enemies of peace and stability of Afghanistan at a rally in the city of Khost, in which 16 people were martyred, and 40 others were wounded," said Abduljabar Naeemi, the acting governor of Khost province, which borders Pakistan.
Humayoun Humayoun, a well-known MP from Khost province, was among those wounded, Naeemi added in his statement.
The interior ministry in Kabul said 17 civilians were killed and 37 others were wounded in the explosion, adding that it "strongly condemns the terrorist attack".
President Ashraf Ghani also condemned the "cowardly attack during a peaceful protest -- which is the civil right of our people".
Protesters accusing Naeemi of rampant corruption and land grabbing have staged demonstrations outside his residence for nearly a week.
The Taliban denied responsibility for the blast, spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said on the group's official Twitter account, but suicide bombings have long been a weapon of choice for the militants in their 13-year battle against the government and its foreign backers.
The bombs often target Afghan security forces, but they have also taken a heavy toll on civilians.
The number of civilians killed and wounded in Afghanistan jumped 22 percent in 2014, a recent UN report said, as NATO troops withdrew from combat.
The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan attributed the rise to an intensification in ground fighting, resulting in a total of 10,548 civilian casualties last year.
It condemned Thursday's blast, saying "such an attack deliberately targeting... civilians is an atrocity".
President Barack Obama last week reversed plans to withdraw around 5,000 US troops from Afghanistan this year, an overture to the country's new reform-minded leader, President Ashraf Ghani.
A large section of Afghan society welcomed the decision, with many fearing that without continued international military support, Afghanistan -- like Iraq -- could spiral into chaos.
Afghan forces are bracing for what is expected to be a bloody summer push by the Taliban and the government has also raised the ominous prospect of the Islamic State jihadist group making inroads into Afghanistan.
Taliban insurgents have already stepped up suicide attacks on government targets following an Afghan army offensive which began in southern Helmand province more than two months ago.
A roadside bomb killed Hekmatullah Haqmal, the police chief of Gereshk district of opium-rich Helmand late Wednesday, according to local officials.
He was part of a convoy of reinforcements heading to a village to launch a retaliatory attack against Taliban insurgents after they raided police checkpoints.
Short link:WASHINGTON/BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The United States, Europe and Japan joined forces on Tuesday to challenge China’s restrictions on exports of rare earth minerals critical to the manufacture of advanced technology.
In a formal complaint to the World Trade Organization, the three trade powers accused Beijing of trying to hold down prices for its domestic manufacturers and to pressure international firms to move operations to China.
“We want our companies building those products right here in America. But to do that, American manufacturers need to have access to rare earth materials which China supplies,” President Barack Obama said at the White House.
Europe’s trade chief said China’s restrictions violated international trade rules and had to be removed.
“These measures hurt our producers and consumers in the EU and across the world, including manufacturers of pioneering hi-tech and ‘green’ business applications,” said European Union Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht.
Rare earths are crucial for the defense, electronics and renewable-energy industries and are used in a range of products such as the iPhone, disk drives and wind turbines.
“We invent solar panels, they end up in China. We’re inventing electric cars, they end up in China. Why? Because they’ve got rare earths,” said Michael Silver, chief executive of American Elements, a company that makes rare earth products for the aerospace, defense and automotive industries.
Beijing said the export curbs are necessary to control environmental problems caused by rare earth mining and to preserve supplies of an exhaustible natural resource.
“We regret their decision to complain to the WTO,” said China’s Minister of Industry and Information Technology Miao Wei, according to the official Xinhua news agency. “In the meantime, we are actively preparing to defend ourselves.”
China’s export quotas were not trade protectionism and did not target any specific country, he added.
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Chart on rare earth production link.reuters.com/tut96s
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Obama, who has faced criticism from Republican rivals for not being tough enough with Beijing, has hardened his stance on Chinese trade practices as he gears up for a re-election battle.
“Our competitors should be on notice. They will not get away with skirting the rules,” Obama said.
The rare earths dispute, which has been building for years, comes as China undergoes a political transition, with Vice President Xi Jinping poised to become the leader of the world’s second-largest economy by early 2013.
U.S. President Barack Obama announces new efforts to enforce U.S. trade rights with China and "level the playing field for America's businesses and workers," at the White House in Washington March 13, 2012. Obama is flanked by U.S. Commerce Secretary John Bryson (L) and U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk (R). REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
The United States and Europe have clashed regularly with China over a range of economic issues including the value of the Chinese currency. The United States is due to make a preliminary decision next week on whether to impose countervailing duties on Chinese-made solar panels, potentially adding to trade tensions.
The rare earths case is the first to be jointly filed by the European Union, the United States and Japan.
Though dependent on the outside world for vast qualities of industrial components such as iron and coal, China accounts for about 97 percent of world output of the 17 rare earth metals.
“China continues to make its export restraints more restrictive, resulting in massive distortions and harmful disruptions in supply chains for these materials throughout the global marketplace,” said U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk.
DRAWN-OUT PROCESS
The action over China’s export curbs involving rare earths, as well as tungsten and molybdenum, begins a 60-day process for the two sides to try to resolve the dispute.
The next step would be for the United States, the EU and Japan to ask the WTO to establish a dispute-settlement panel to decide the case. Once appeals are lodged and heard, the process could take as long as two years to complete.
The EU, the United States and Mexico won a similar case against China in January concerning other raw materials. A European official close to the case said China had not removed wider export restrictions since that ruling. In particular, the EU said in a statement, rare earth quota announcements “are further tightening the restrictions and are a clear signal in the wrong direction.”
Beijing has until the end of March to tell the United States, the EU and Mexico how it intends to comply with the January ruling, providing an opportunity for China to address both that case and the rare earth restrictions at the same time, Kirk said in an interview.
Slideshow (4 Images)
“We are hopeful that because the WTO ruling in the raw materials case was so unequivocal that China will work with us,” Kirk said.
Foreign companies pay up to twice as much as Chinese firms for rare earth metals, the EU said.
The EU directly imports 350 million euros worth of rare earths from China each year, and also brings in products of far greater value containing rare earths from Japan and elsewhere.
The damage done to European manufacturing runs into billions of euros, the official said, because it was nearly impossible to diversify away from Chinese supply.There aren’t many hillclimbers which come odder than this hatchback. It may be wearing the skin of a sedate Mazda3 |
5Dear Reader, As you can imagine, more people are reading The Jerusalem Post than ever before. Nevertheless, traditional business models are no longer sustainable and high-quality publications, like ours, are being forced to look for new ways to keep going. Unlike many other news organizations, we have not put up a paywall. We want to keep our journalism open and accessible and be able to keep providing you with news and analysis from the frontlines of Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish World.
Senior government officials took rhetorical aim at Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday, with National Infrastructure Minister Yuval Steinitz saying he is the leading enemy challenging Israel’s existence, and Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely saying he is engaged in “diplomatic terrorism” against the Jewish state.Steinitz, in an interview with Israel Radio, said that Abbas and the Palestinian Authority seek the destruction of Israel, saying that Abbas is even more hostile toward Israel than his predecessor, Yasser Arafat.Steinitz made the remarks the day after Abbas, at a speech to the Fatah Congress in Ramallah, reiterated his demand that Israel must recognize a Palestinian state, but stressed he would not recognize Israel as a Jewish state, despite the PLO’s formal recognition of Israel’s right to exist in the 1993 Oslo Accords.Abbas, Steinitz said, “will never really recognize [Israel’s] right to exist or the right for the self-determination of a Jewish homeland. Let’s not kid ourselves. From an ideological perspective, Abbas is the number one enemy of the very existence of Israel, even more so than Arafat.”Hotovely, meanwhile, said after meeting visiting Uruguayan Foreign Minister Rodolfo Nin Novoa that she asked him to pass a message to Abbas, whom he will be meeting during his four-day visit to the region, to cease his “diplomatic terrorism” against Israel.She said Palestinian efforts to harm Israel in international forums does nothing to move forward any type of agreement.Uruguay is currently a rotating member of the 15-nation UN Security Council Steinitz, in his interview, called approval of a UN General Assembly resolution on Wednesday that used exclusively Islamic terms to describe the Temple Mount as “a bad joke” that bordered on antisemitism.“The UN General Assembly is a joke, the UN Security Council however is not a joke, and I hope and I believe that the American veto [there] will protect Israel against the attempts to harm it,” he told the radio station.His comments come amid uncertainty in Jerusalem whether US President Barack Obama, in the waning days of his presidency would abstain, support or veto resolutions in the UN Security Council that Israel believes are one-sided and inimical to its interests.US Ambassador Dan Shapiro addressed the issue during an interview on Army Radio, saying, “We will always oppose one-sided resolutions. That is a long-term policy. If ever there will be a one-sided resolution, we have opposed in the past and will always oppose.”
Join Jerusalem Post Premium Plus now for just $5 and upgrade your experience with an ads-free website and exclusive content. Click here>>ANAHEIM – A second union at Angel Stadium – this one representing those selling hot dogs and beer – has authorized a strike because of frustrations over contract negotiations.
More than 500 of the 800 workers in Unite Here Local 11 have authorized union leaders to call for a strike if negotiations remain stagnant, union spokeswoman Leigh Shelton said Thursday.
On July 28, SEIU United Service Workers West, the union representing 400 ticket sellers, ticket takers, ushers and janitors, also authorized a strike, citing frustrations over a wage freeze.
Food workers say that they are frustrated by a wage freeze and health-care takeaways suggested by concessionaire Aramark, which handles food and beverage sales at the stadium.
“We believe that there is strength in numbers, so it is good that both unions have taken a stance,” Shelton said. “We hope to send a strong message to Aramark and to the Angels that they are a successful franchise, and they need to share some of that (financial) success with their workers.”
Both unions have said they don’t immediately expect workers to walk off the job and are hopeful that a strike can be avoided. Both unions have been negotiating for months, since before the current season began.
Aramark officials didn’t immediately return a phone call seeking comment. Angels spokesman Tim Mead said after the first strike authorization that the team remains hopeful that any strike can be averted and that, in any case, games would continue.
Shelton said that union workers are frustrated about having to pay a larger share of health-care costs, especially when they are paid less than similar workers at other ballparks and entertainment venues.
As a comparison, she said, a food-service cashier at Angel Stadium makes $12.88 an hour; at Dodger Stadium, $12.94; and at San Francisco’s AT&T Park, $16.40.
The Angels just ended a nine-game homestand and aren’t scheduled to return home until Sept. 2. The regular season ends Sept. 28.
Contact the writer: 714-704-3769 or ecarpenter@ocregister.comMONROVIA, Liberia — Despite the deadly Ebola outbreak, Liberia began campaign activities for the Special Senatorial Election, which will see 15 members of the senate elected in December. The National Elections commission said it would go ahead and conduct the election on December 16, 2014.
“In keeping with the revised timeline for the 2014 Special Senatorial Election, the Commission is pleased to announce that political campaigns will commence on Thursday, November 20, 2014 and end 24 hours before Polling Day,” said Jerome Korkoya, chairman of the election commission.
Supporters of former soccer star George Weah and Robert Sirleaf, the son of Liberia’s President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and a former head of the National Oil Company, turned out in their numbers to begin the campaign on Thursday in Monrovia.
The President’s son will face Wiah in the race for senator of Montserrado County, in which Liberia’s capital is situated. Political rallies kicked off amid the sound of ambulances plying the streets, taking sick people to Ebola Treatment Units across the country.
Despite the kicking off of the campaign, health workers fear that such large gatherings associated with elections could trigger a rise in the epidemic. “With the crisis of Ebola, for me, in my personal mind, I don’t think that it is time for us to have elections in this country,” said Sam Bropleh, an ambulance driver of the First Responders Ebola team. “People still need to take the preventive measure. We are talking about public gatherings, people will be together, dancing, sweating, and touching each other. Going to vote you have to form a cue.”
But political parties officials continue to reassure the country that the campaigns will not endanger anyone.
“We have instructed our people to wash their hands. It is not just about campaign, it is about intercession and education about Ebola,” said Mulbah Morlu, chairman on Mobilization for Weah’s party, the Congress for Democratic Change (CDC). “As we speak, in the next 30 minutes we are going to put a drum at the entrance with chlorine that those entering the party premises will wash their hands. And we tell them to be cautious about Ebola, so we are taking every step to guard against this deadly epidemic.”
The Thursday rallies saw people—mainly youths—wearing T-shirts of the various candidates, dancing, hugging, and crowding on buses and other vehicles. A young man named Jacob Kerkulah, wearing a T-shirt with the President’s son’s face on it, said he would vote for Mr. Sirleaf because he cares about the young people.
“I’m voting for Robert Sirleaf. I want to test him for the nine years. I see lots of vision in him because he cares for the young people,” said Kerkulah. “He comes down to our level, he does things for us, we love him and he loves us too.”
But the opposition is outraged that the President’s son is running for the senate when his mother’s regime has caused, according to them, nothing but hardship for the people of Liberia. They vow to defeat him.
“There is no way he can run against George Weah. This campaign will expose the weaknesses and the vulnerability of the Sirleafs,” said Morlu. “Their hegemony will come to an end this year. We are not concerned or jittered about an unknown candidate. It is not about what I think; it is about what is inevitable and what will be.”
The election commission said it would institute appropriate measures to curtail the risk of spreading the Ebola virus during the election period.
The commission said voters and polling staff would be required to wash their hands with chlorinated water at all precincts across the country.
Provisions will also be made to ensure voters stand three feet apart in queues at all polling centers on Election Day, and they use cotton buds to ink their thumbs before marking the ballot (for those who cannot read or write).
Educated voters will not be allowed to share pens, as the commission said it would encourage them to bring personal pens. Where necessary, the commission will provide pens in polling booths that will be routinely sanitized.
139 candidates have been certified by the commission to contest the Special Senatorial Election, which was to be held on October 14, 2014, but was postponed because of the Ebola outbreak.In this photo taken April 12, 2016 Huck Holbrook, right, helps Bernard Romero, left, mount a light fixture in a showroom at the High Point Market in High Point, N.C. High Point is bracing for an economic hit if thousands stay away from a semiannual furniture market to protest a North Carolina law that limits protections to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. (AP Photo/Chuck Burton) Chuck Burton
In this photo taken April 12, 2016 Bernard Romero mounts a light fixture in a showroom at the High Point Market in High Point, N.C. High Point is bracing for an economic hit if thousands stay away from a semiannual furniture market to protest a North Carolina law that limits protections to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. (AP Photo/Chuck Burton) Chuck Burton
In this photo taken April 12, 2016 Bernard Romero mounts a light fixture in a showroom at the High Point Market in High Point, N.C. As 75,000 visitors from around the world cram into this traditional furniture industry hub, industry insiders enjoying an upswing after surviving bleak years of recession are facing a new worry. Some buyers are boycotting the High Point Market to protest a North Carolina law that limits protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. (AP Photo/Chuck Burton) Chuck Burton
In this photo taken April 12, 2016 Richard Fritz, left, and Jessica Weisner, right, of Painted Plate Catering stock a cooler with beverages at the High Point Market in High Point, N.C. As 75,000 visitors from around the world cram into this traditional furniture industry hub, industry insiders enjoying an upswing after surviving bleak years of recession are facing a new worry. Some buyers are boycotting the High Point Market to protest a North Carolina law that limits protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. (AP Photo/Chuck Burton) Chuck Burton
In this photo taken April 12, 2016 Edwin Hernadez puts finishing touches on a showroom at the High Point Market in High Point, N.C. High Point is bracing for an economic hit if thousands stay away from a semiannual furniture market to protest a North Carolina law that limits protections to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. (AP Photo/Chuck Burton) Chuck Burton
Furniture retailer Ron Werner usually spends $2 million a year at North Carolina’s gargantuan, semiannual furniture market, but he’s skipping this week’s event.
Werner knows not attending the High Point Market will mean missing an early look at new trends that could get hot later on, translating to big sales for his own business. But he said the state left him little choice when it passed a law last month that critics say discriminates against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.
“The state just came out with this nasty and mean-spirited law that provides for state-sanctioned discrimination,” he said. “How do we jump on a plane and go to North Carolina? They put up a sign that says, ‘Gay? Stay away.’ ”
Some fear that Werner’s decision might start a wave that could damage a tradition of commerce that brings an estimated $5 billion a year in economic activity to North Carolina. About 75,000 buyers and sellers from around the world usually cram into this traditional furniture city of 100,000 every six months for a five-day spend-a-thon. This year, however, the High Point Market’s organizers are warning that thousands of attendees could skip the event, which starts Saturday. Among those who won’t be attending are buyers for Williams-Sonoma Inc. retail outlets, including Pottery Barn and West Elm, spokesman Pat Connolly said Friday.
The High Point Market remains vibrant after 107 years because it’s less expensive for exhibitors than shows in Las Vegas, Dallas or Milan, said T. William Lester, a city and regional planning professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who co-authored a 2013 study on the market’s economic impact.
But an extended boycott could “whittle away the competitiveness of the built-up advantage that High Point has,” Lester said.
Lester noted that furniture purchased from manufacturers within 75 miles of the city accounts for about half of the market’s $5 billion economic impact. A 5 percent drop in market sales could translate into a loss of more than $100 million for North Carolina furniture manufacturers, which employ about 14,000 workers.
“These are jobs that are really difficult to grow at new companies and we want to hold onto these manufacturing jobs as much as possible,” he said. “These are solid, middle-income jobs for people who don’t have an advanced degree.”
The state’s tourism industry also stands to suffer.
Werner said he canceled a five-day reservation of a four-bedroom private home he’d rented for his five-person team — at a cost of $2,700 — and adds he won’t be entertaining at the High Point restaurant he has frequented for years.
If only 2,000 of the estimated 58,000 out-of-town market visitors like Werner stay away from High Point, it could mean a loss of about $15 million in lodging, food and other tourism-related spending, Lester said.
The boycott is one of a number of protests spurred by the new North Carolina law enacted last month, which directs transgender people to use public toilets corresponding to the sex listed on their birth certificate. The law also excludes LGBT people from state anti-discrimination protections, blocks local governments from expanding LGBT protections, and bars all types of workplace discrimination lawsuits from state courts.
Supporters describe the law as a common-sense policy that keeps male sexual molesters from posing as transgender women to filter into female toilets and locker rooms.
Werner, co-owner of three HW Home stores in the Denver area, said instead of the North Carolina market, he’ll visit producers in California and attend a smaller furniture market in Las Vegas in July as he shops for furnishings to tempt his customers. He suspects his absence from High Point will be barely missed by furniture-makers, but “there’s business that we would have done that is not going to happen.”
A fellow boycotter, furniture retailer Claus Ihlemann, said by skipping the market this month, he will miss discovering new vendors to supply Decorum Furniture, his contemporary furniture store in Norfolk, Virginia.
Nonetheless, he said, “I do think in speaking up and speaking your conscience, you’re starting a lot of conversations and you’re making people think about what is right or wrong.”
While dozens of retailers, interior designers and other buyers said they will stay away, no major furniture-makers announced scrapping plans to show off their new products. And of the dozens of manufacturers contacted by The Associated Press, none said they would boycott the market.
Any boycott’s effects won’t be known until after the event, when registered no-shows are tallied against last-minute drop-ins, High Point Market Authority spokeswoman Ashley Grigg said. Exhibitors don’t share sales information that can be compared to previous markets, she said.
Gov. Pat McCrory has downplayed any boycott, the effects of which were also not readily apparent earlier this week as trucks loaded with furnishings began arriving at already-rented and rebuilt exhibitor spaces. Police officers guided arriving truckers to waiting areas until spots opened at loading docks. Movers carried sofas and tables into showrooms. Thousands of carpenters and other tradesmen were swarming to complete displays incorporating the work of sign artists, woodworkers and photographers.
Three blocks from the market center, blue-collar workers streamed into Oscar’s Fine Foods for some of the best burgers in town, and furniture companies were calling in big delivery orders for workers who couldn’t spare time for lunch.
Debbie Lockhart’s father started the restaurant 54 years ago when surrounding manufacturing plants and hosiery mills were humming. Now that furniture is made primarily in Asia, about 60 percent of Lockhart’s annual sales come in the two months around each of the year’s two market meetings.
“That’s how we survive,” Lockhart said. “It helps tremendously, because everything’s moved out of here.”
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Follow Emery P. Dalesio on Twitter at http://twitter.com/emerydalesio. His work can be found at http://bigstory.ap.org/content/emery-p-dalesioLast month BitTorrent site isoHunt lost its appeal against the MPAA, meaning that the site has to continue filtering movie and TV related terms from its search engine. However, isoHunt founder Gary Fung is not giving up just yet and has asked for a jury to decide on the case. In a petition filed this week isoHunt argues that, among other things, the Ninth Circuit decision chills innovation and threatens free speech online.
For more than seven years isoHunt and the MPAA have been battling in court, and it’s not over yet.
In 2010 the District Court ordered the owner of isoHunt to start censoring the site’s search engine based on a list of thousands of keywords provided by the MPAA, or cease its operations entirely in the US.
IsoHunt hoped to overturn this ruling in an appeal, but last month the Ninth Circuit upheld the decision of the lower court, ruling that the website does not qualify for safe harbor protection under the DMCA.
For now this means that the keyword filter stays in place, but for isoHunt founder Gary Fung this is not the end of the matter. This week isoHunt’s legal team petitioned the court for a re-hearing before a jury.
Among other things, isoHunt argues that the current verdict chills innovation and threatens free speech on the Internet.
“Fung contends that many of the items of evidence cited by the District Court should be protected as Free Speech under the First Amendment to the Constitution and would be inadmissible at trial. As a result of decisions herein, impermissible burdens are being imposed on Fung’s speech and on the speech of other Internet users,” the petition reads.
The MPAA used quotes from isoHunt’s founder dating back to 2003, to argue that he was aware of and liable for copyright infringing use of the site. As evidence the MPAA cited the following statements made by Fung in a forum thread discussing the RIAA.
“Agreed. they accuse us for thieves, and they r right. Only we r ‘stealing’ from the leechers (them!) and not the originators (artists),” Fung wrote.
IsoHunt’s founder later updated the IRC announce bot to say: “Files… are now being indexed for isoHunt.com…We completely OPPOSE RIAA & Co., so do not be alarmed by our indexing activities.”
In its petition for a re-hearing isoHunt argues that when these isolated statements are used to determine liability, without any connection to direct infringements, this could “severely chill free speech” and threaten innovation.
“The effect of decisions herein is to make sarcasm directed at copyright enforcement or statements in support of file-sharing a reason for later imposition of liability. Cautious individuals will practice self-censorship. Outspoken individuals will avoid certain areas of technological development,” isoHunt’s legal team writes.
The free speech concerns are not the only issue raised by isoHunt. The petition also contends that there is no evidence that isohunt’s founder promoted or facilitated direct copyright infringements.
In addition, the petition protests the ruling that Fung should not be entitled to safe harbor protection under the DMCA because he knew that isoHunt users were sharing copyrighted material. According to isoHunt’s legal team this goes directly against verdicts in other cases, such as the dispute between YouTube and Viacom.
With a re-hearing before a jury isoHunt is confident it can win the case as that will provide an opportunity to counter specific allegations of copyright infringement. If this request is granted the battle is expected to continue for a few more years, perhaps making it to the 10th anniversary of the case in 2016.Modern medicine’s been a boon to mankind. Diseases like chicken pox, diphtheria, measles, malaria, HIV, and polio—all but eradicated in the past century by pharmaceuticals. So what went wrong? The USA’s drug industry is the product of the country’s culture. As the cultural outlook changed, so did the industry. Consumers are addicted to quick fixes, and Big Pharma is addicted to major quick profits. In the past, drug companies were often led by medical scientists. Expected profit margins were around 10 percent, with a singular brand new drug rolled out each year. But then the culture shifted. Businessmen took the place of scientists, and marketing and advertising took the place of actual medical research. Profit became one-dimensional, seen only as money costs vs. money gains. The most important ratio of all, human costs vs. human gains was ignored or, in some cases, intentionally trampled.
The case of Pfizer, in 2009, comes to mind. The company paid $2.3 billion, the largest health care fraud settlement in the Justice Department’s history. That sounds punitive, but not when you factor in a company profit of over $8 billion for that same year. It’s a slap on the wrist, one that comes with no jail time. Bayer in the early 1980s is another example. When Bayer's Cutter Laboratories realized some of their blood products were contaminated with HIV, the money investment was considered too great to destroy the inventory. Cutter misrepresented the results of its own research and sold the inventory to overseas markets in Asia and Latin America. Consequently, hemophiliacs who infused the HIV-contaminated Factor VIII and IX tested positive for HIV and developed AIDS.
Unfortunately, the FDA didn’t have an explicit policy regarding direct-to-consumer-advertising (DTCA), because in 1969 there had been no mass media advertisements for prescription drugs. They supported the concept of DTCA, confident the existing regulations for promotion to physicians would prevent any misleading ads aimed at consumers. In 1983, the FDA began to voice serious concerns. Commissioner Arthur Hull Hayes asked the pharmaceutical industry to stop advertising drugs to the public. The fears were many: patients will pressure physicians to prescribe unnecessary drugs; ads will confuse patients by leading them to believe some minor difference in products represents a major therapeutic advantage; DTCA will increase the price of drugs—encourage the use of brand name products over cheaper, equivalent generic drugs, and exacerbate the problem of an already narcotized population/
Nowadays, to get a drug approved by the FDA, a company has to submit just two tests, showing that the product works better than a placebo. The legislation is so lax that the government allows drug companies to submit whatever tests they want. For example, a company may commission 20 clinical trials for its drug. Eighteen may prove the drug is harmful or inefficient, but as long as two positive studies are produced, the drug gets FDA approval. The real business magic of the industry no longer lies with the pursuit of science, but in hiding the bad studies.
Research in the effectiveness of drugs is left to the corporate sector. The federal government doesn’t fund this activity, despite it falling under the public purpose and general welfare. Going back to the shrewd practice of hiding bad data, how many negative studies are published in scientific journals? Publication bias doesn’t contain itself solely to the realm of usual politics—MSNBC vs. Fox News, Breitbart vs. BuzzFeed, etc. Cartel is the right name for it.
What are the results of the so-called war on drugs? A system based on greed, corruption, and addiction. A propitious environment for legal drug pushers. A frightening incarceration rate, the highest of any country in the world. Huge numbers of addicts and addiction-related illnesses. A culture obsessed with quick and temporary fixes, in which normality is deemed insufficient. And a booming drug industry with vast leverage over the political process.
1992 is a testament to Big Pharma’s powers of persuasion. That year Congress passed the Drug User Fee Act, which allows Pharma companies to pay a fast-track fee to the FDA of up to $350,000 per drug in order to speed up the approval process. This is called “pay to win.” It’s not democratic, and has nothing to do with efficient or fair market practices. It’s political rent-seeking.
The legal drug pushers aren't only at the top, waiting for the end of fiscal years to tally up net profits. Crooked physicians are in on it too. They handle patients directly and keep them coming by prescribing street-legal dope when it’s not really needed, except they don’t call it heroin or meth, but Codeine and Adderall. Take drug A to manage condition 1. Then take drug B to manage condition 2, induced by drug A. Then take drug C to manage drug B. In the words of former Pharma rep. Gwen Olsen, “The pharmaceutical industry is no longer in the business of health and healing, it’s in the business of disease management and symptoms maintenance.”Pool season is getting underway in Las Vegas and there are many great pools to enjoy. Although pools at hotel and casinos are generally only accessible to guests, quite a few of the pools host pool parties on the weekends or offer free admission to locals on certain days of the week.
ARIA
LIQUID Pool Lounge at the Aria is an adult-only pool lounge and restaurant feature poolside pampering, VIP dipping pools, refreshing cocktails, state-of-the-art sound system, and live DJ performances. Upcoming events include Girls Just Want to Have Funds on April 20 and star-studded lineups for Memorial Day Weekend and EDC.
ARTISAN
The Naked Pool at the Artisan is topless and for adults only. There are private cabanas and oversized daybeds. The pool hosts various events throughout the summer. Must be 21 or older to visit. Locals are usually admitted free.
BALLY'S
For the serious swimmers, there is an Olympic-sized pool at Bally's with a deep end. Live DJ entertainment Thursdays through Sundays.
BELLAGIO
There are 5 luxurious pools at the Bellagio, two of which are lap pools. The 2 largest pools are heated. The pool area also features hand-carved Italian-style stone fountains and Mediterranean-designed tile. There is a cafe, cabanas and four full-stocked bars.
CAESARS PALACE
The pool area at Caesars Palace features 5 pools, including one for ages 21 and over. Cabanas, couches and daybed rentals available. The Fortuna Pool features swim-up blackjack, the Jupiter Pool is the most relaxing pool, the Neptune pool is the place to meet and mingle, the Temple Pool has five cabanas and 17 daybeds, and the Venus Pool is a sophisticated and secluded European-style retreat with 11 cabanas, four couches, 14 daybeds and chaise lounge chairs.
THE COSMOPOLITAN
The Boulevard pool is located on the 4th level of The Cosmopolitan. Cabanas and daybeds available for rental. There are also pool tables, foose-ball, a bar and a restaurant. The pool also shows movies on Monday nights. The Chelsea Pool is a refreshing retreat featuring soothing ambient sounds and various spa offerings. The Marquee Dayclub and Pool features three-story bungalow lofts, a grand Las Vegas pool cabana, infinity plunge pool and a party deck. Entertainment by some of the top DJs in the country.
THE CROMWELL
Drai's Beach Club at The Cromwell is for the serious partier. There are two pools on the lower level and one on the upper level. Special big-name guest performers throughout the summer. Other events include weekly night swims.
FLAMINGO LAS VEGAS
The Flamingo has two pool experiences -- the family-friendly Beach Club Pool and GO Pool for adults ages 21 and over. Live entertainment by various performers and DJs throughout the summer at the GO Pool.
GOLDEN NUGGET
The Golden Nugget pool is known as The Tank and features a 2,000-gallon shark tank, 3-story waterslide and 13 private cabanas. The Hideout Luxury Infinity Pool is a secure pool for guests ages 21 and older. Premium cabanas, daybeds and cabanas available for a fee.
HARD ROCK
The Hard Rock's afternoon pool party is known as REHAB and is held in the Paradise Beach complex on Saturdays and Sundays. Most of the action takes place in the main pool but fun can also be had at the second pool, beach and bar. Multiple cabanas and lounge chairs available. The pool area at the Hard Rock also features a waterslide and river. REHAB happens Saturdays and Sundays. Admission ranges from $10-$20. 21 and older only.
HARRAH'S LAS VEGAS
Sinful Saturday takes place the first Saturday of every month through September at the hotel-casino's Olympic-sized pool. Poolside cafe and poolside cocktail and meal service. Chair massages also available.
JW MARRIOTT AND RAMPART CASINO
Memberships are available for the resort-style pool at JW Marriott and Rampart Casino. Individual memberships are $150 a month or $495 for a season pass. Family memberships are also available. Daily pool access is also available for non-guests Monday through Friday, excluding holidays and blackout dates. Cost is $15 for anyone 16 and over and $12 for kids 6 to 15. Children under 5 will be admitted free. Cabana rentals start at $195.
THE LINQ
There are two pools at The LINQ. Live DJ entertainment and themed pool parties throughout the summer. There is also a community cabana with 2 pool tables, shuffle board and a foosball tables.
LUXOR
The Luxor offers 4 large pools totaling 19,000 square feet. A poolside retail shop offers swimwear, sunglasses, sun care products and casual wear. Poolside food and beverage service available. The Luxor also offers a paid access only area. Guest may gain access to the area for the day by renting a cabana, daybed, VIP chair or regular chairs within the area.
MANDALAY BAY
Mandalay Bay is home to the DAYLIGHT Beach Club back. This year, DAYLIGHT is upping the ante with LIT Sundays, which is being billed as the hottest hip-hop party in the nation. This year's performers include Metro Boomin, EDM super star Laidback Luke, dance music favorites Morgan Page, Bassjackers, T-Pain, Steve Powers and more. DAYLIGHT features a 5,000-square-foot wave pool, two additional pool-to-service VIP pools, daybeds, 23 private VIP cabanas, 2 private ultra-VIP bungalows with private dipping pools and more. Open Thursday through Sunday. $20 for females, $30 for males.
M RESORT
The DayDream Las Vegas pool club at the M Resort offers high-end service, VIP seating, and bottle service at moderate price points. The more than 12,000-square-foot venue is a 21+ playground with cabanas, day beds, lounge areas, an ice-railed bar, DJ booth, 2 whirlpool hot tubs and an infinity-edge pool. Free admission for ladies before noon and half-priced admission for men. Locals with ID will be admitted for free every Tuesday.
MGM GRAND
WET REPUBLIC pool party takes place in a 54,000-square-foot venue featuring large saltwater pools, intimate dipping pools, daybeds, banquets, luxurious bungalows and deluxe cabanas. The adult pool destination also features an open-air covered lounge, unique culinary offerings, signature cocktails, and premium bottle and pitcher service. World-renowned talent such as Calvin Harris or Tiesto. Weekly parties include Endless Sundays.
THE MIRAGE
The Bare Pool Lounge at The Mirage is for adults only. Premium menu features specialty cocktails and quality food offerings. Weekly industry party known as Case of the Mondays. All-star lineups scheduled for Memorial Day Weekend and EDC. European-style sunbathing. The pool at The Mirage is shaped like a lagoon and is heated year round for regular swimming.
THE PALAZZO LAS VEGAS
The Palazzo has a new pool club named The Aquatic Club. The club offers sophistication and style with a twist. It is inspired by the intimate yet energetic environment of social and athletic clubs of decades past. The club is open Friday through Sunday. Guests can enjoy world hip-hop, Afro Cuban and global beats. One pool is set aside for non-competitive, semi-buzzed table tennis on a floating table. Also on Fridays, the Connoisseur Series will feature tastings from various distillers. Saturdays will be a celebration of retro-inspired music with surprise performances and synchronized swimmers. Sundays will feature live acoustic music that morphs into tranquil electronica. Also, relax with poolside spa treatments and enjoy the Bloody Mary bar. All guests must be 21 or older. Reservations recommended by calling 866.834.2319.
THE PALMS
The pool area at the Palms features 3 different pool areas. The regular pools is ringed by cabanas with custom interiors. An ankle-deep wading area gives way to a 2nd pool. Another pool features a bar and blackjack tables. Several 2-story bungalows have their own pools. There are usually several events throughout the summer.
PARIS LAS VEGAS
The rooftop pool area offers awesome views and is a little quieter than some of the other pool areas on the Las Vegas Strip. Live DJ entertainment Thursdays through Sundays.
PLANET HOLLYWOOD
The pool area at Planet Hollywood has the only FlowRider, a free standing wave machine designed for surfing or boogie boarding. The pool area also hosts bikini contests every Saturday and the rooftop pool area is known for its party atmosphere. Live DJ entertainment and drink specials.
PLAZA HOTEL-CASINO
The fully-renovated rooftop pool at the Plaza has even more to offer guests this summer with an additional $25K upgrade to its furnishings and a $300K renovation to five hotel suites with direct access to the pool deck. The pool will host various special events, including a Hawaiian luau and the debut of Plaza Pool Nights.
RED ROCK
The pool area at the Red Rock is known as The Backyard. The three-acre aquatic complex consists of 8 small pools, a few hot tubs, 2 bars and poolside gaming. There is a poolside cafe that serves refreshing bites and cool cocktails. The pool hosts special events throughout the year.
RIO
VooDoo Beach at the Rio features real sands and beaches, waterfalls, 3 swimming pools and 3 Jacuzzi-style spas. Flair bartenders serve up specialty cocktails. VIP cabanas available for rental.
SLS LAS VEGAS
Foxtail Pool at SLS Las Vegas is making a splash this summer with an update lineup of weekly DJs (Fridays through Sundays), new menu selections and specials for locals. Menu specials include ahi poke tacos, topped with guacamole, yuzu creme and truffle soy and chicken tenders with French fries and buttermilk ranch and barbecue sauce. Free admission for hotel guests and free admission for locals Monday through Thursday. Cover charges will apply to locals on weekends and holidays. Cabana rentals available.
THE VENETIAN / THE PALAZZO
TAO Beach at The Venetian features luxury cabanas with air conditioning and HD televisions, a 30-foot bar and an extensive appetizer and grill menu from TAO Asian Bistro. Entertainment is provides by internationally acclaimed DJs and celebrity appearances ranging from Jay Z and Heidi Klum to LeBron James. There are 10 pools total between The Venetian and The Palazzo. There are also 5 hot tubs, 23 cabanas and 4 outdoor pavilion beds. In addition, there is a pool retail shop, private showers and changing rooms at The Palazzo and poolside cocktail service.
TROPICANA LAS VEGAS
Tropicana's pool acres is 20 acres in size and features lush landscaping, waterfalls and private lounge spots. Lounge chairs, daybeds and poolside canopy available to rent. Live entertainment and pool volleyball every Saturday and Sunday. Guests ages 21 and older can also enjoy beer pong and swim-up blackjack. Daily mimosa special ($5) from 10 a.m. to noon daily. The pool opens at 10 a.m. daily and is free for all hotel guests and locals with valid Nevada ID (subject to availability).
WYNN LAS VEGAS
The Encore Beach Club at Wynn Las Vegas features world-renowned DJs in a quality party atmosphere. The 60,000-square-foot venue features 3 pools, cabanas, daybeds and bungalows. Encore Beach Club is open Fridays through Sundays from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.
And if you are a local who just wants a place to cool down, there are plenty of pools around the Las Vegas valley.
City of Las Vegas pools
Clark County pools
City of North Las Vegas pools
City of Henderson pools
To submit information for this article, send an email to joyce.lupiani@ktnv.com.The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has approved Boeing's proposal to fix battery issues on the 787 Dreamliner, allowing the airframer to conduct limited test flights on two aircraft even as a safety investigation continues.
Boeing would be required to conduct "extensive testing and analysis to demonstrate compliance" with safety regulations, says the FAA today, almost two months after it grounded the 787 fleet on 16 January.
"This comprehensive series of tests will show us whether the proposed battery improvements will work as designed," says US Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. "We won't allow the plane to return to service unless we're satisfied that the new design ensures the safety of the aircraft and its passengers."
Boeing's proposal |
is set up in the X server. An easy way to check whether synchronization is working is to put on the HMD — unless everything is smooth, it’s not synchronized. An additional way is to press Win+Pause while a VR display window has input focus. This will collect frame rate information and print a summary when Win+Pause is pressed again. The printed frame rate should be close to 89.5 Hz (the Vive’s true frame rate).
If the Vive is connected as a secondary X screen, vertical retrace synchronization should work out-of-the-box.
If the Vive is connected as an extended display (“TwinView” in Nvidia parlance), there may need to be some additional steps. Using Nvidia’s proprietary drivers — which I am using on all my computers — there is an environment variable that needs to be set to tell OpenGL to which display to synch (OpenGL could figure this out by itself based on the position of the window asking for synch, but Nvidia never implemented that). First, find out the display connector name of the Vive’s display, most easily through nvidia-settings. This is going to be something like DFP-1 or DFP-2. Then, before running a Vrui application from a terminal window, enter
$ export __GL_SYNC_DISPLAY_DEVICE=DFP-1
into that terminal window, replacing DFP-1 with the actual name from nvidia-settings.
Testing Vrui
That was basically it. You can now run any Vrui application in the Vive. Vrui contains a number of small example programs, mostly meant to get developers started on creating Vrui applications. The Build-* scripts automatically built and installed them, but if you built Vrui manually, go into the ExamplePrograms directory and run make:
$ cd ~/src/Vrui-4.2-004/ExamplePrograms $ make INSTALLDIR=/usr/local $ sudo make INSTALLDIR=/usr/local install
Then run one of them like this:
$ ClusterJello -rootSection Vive
The -rootSection Vive option tells Vrui to run in the Vive. If you leave it off, Vrui will run in desktop mode (you can make Vive mode the default later).
ClusterJello is a silly toy application. It shows a block of lime green Jell-O on the floor. To interact with the block, press some button on a controller, and select “Dragger” -> “6-DOF Dragger” from the tool selection menu that pops up. Then reach down and grab the block by pressing and holding the same button.
You can change the behavior of the Jell-O by pressing and holding the controller’s menu button, and selecting “Show Settings Dialog.” Use the menu button to interact with that dialog, and press the “X” button to dismiss it.
To exit from the program, select “Quit Program” from the Vrui system menu.
Note: Do not run the “Jello” application. Virtual Jell-O comes in three flavors, to highlight different aspects of the Vrui VR toolkit. Jello is a very simple application that will run the Jell-O simulation inside the application’s main loop, which means it will not hit target frame rate in most cases, and look and feel very choppy. ClusterJello is a more advanced version of the same that runs the Jell-O simulation in a background thread, so it will always run at the display’s native frame rate. SharedJello is a distributed application that allows multiple users, each from their own VR environment, to play together with the same block of Jell-O. It is client/server based, with SharedJelloServer being another Vrui example program.
Next Steps
This is a preliminary release of Vrui with Vive support. There are still a lot of improvements to be made. Latency, smoothness, tracking stability, etc. are not necessarily up to snuff. Probably most importantly, Vrui does not yet receive notifications when the headset loses tracking. Meaning, should this happen, the VR display will get very wonky. I’m working on that part.
Figure 2: Another Vrui application running on an HTC Vive head-mounted display. Recorded using a second-generation Microsoft Kinect camera (Kinect-for-Xbox-One).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
The controversial Mayor of Tower Hamlets has given up use of his chauffeur-driven Mercedes in what was today branded a "cynical" election tactic.
Lutfur Rahman, who has been the deprived east London borough's Independent Mayor since 2010, has made use of the luxury vehicle for almost three years, at a cost of £72 per day to taxpayers.
But with the cash-strapped council due to hold local elections in May, Mr Rahman announced he will no longer be travelling in the car - saying the decision is in the interests of "transparency".
Campaign director of pressure group the Taxpayers' Alliance, Robert Oxley, said: "This is a cynical move from Lutfur Rahman who should have scrapped his chauffeur-driven car long ago.
"The Mayor has consistently and shamelessly wasted taxpayers’ money on the trappings of power – this token gesture is nowhere near enough."
His use of the luxury vehicle – which has a starting price of £30,000 – was first revealed in July 2011. At a cost of £360 per week to hire, the total amount spent on the Mercedes as the council seeks £100million savings would seem to exceed £90,000, although the Mayor’s office does not accept this figure.
A Dispatches programme filmed for Channel 4 last year showed Mr Rahman using the car to drop off washing at his home and taking driving him on a short journey to visit the East London Mosque in Whitechapel.
Mr Rahman, an Independent who was deselected by the Labour Party in 2010 over allegations of ties with the controversial Islamic Forum of Europe, made the announcement after Labour opposition candidate John Biggs said he would do away with the car if elected in May.
"In order to ensure that the highest standards of probity and transparency are maintained, I will no longer be making use of the official car," said Mr Rahman.
A spokesman for his office later added: “Other London councils use far more costly vehicles than this one. This is simply mock outrage from the opposition, many of whom made use of official cars when they were in office."Sarah Tew/CNET
The claws are out now.
T-Mobile CEO John Legere fired back at AT&T's new early upgrade plan, calling it "smoke and mirrors" and a "poor copycat," and warned that customers pay more and end up getting less than what T-Mobile's Jump plan has to offer.
"Their offer is terrible for consumers," Legere told CNET in an email on Tuesday.
Earlier Tuesday, AT&T introduced its AT&T Next plan, which lets people pay for their mobile devices in 20 monthly installments and allows them to upgrade each year. But the new plan doesn't include a key component -- a lower-cost service plan -- which T-Mobile said is its crucial standout feature in Jump, its early upgrade plan. As a result, T-Mobile claims AT&T Next is actually more expensive than ever.
"They're charging you twice on the same phone and calling that a good deal," T-Mobile executive Andrew Sherrard told CNET in an interview earlier today.
In addition to paying the full price of the phone over the monthly installments, AT&T Next customers also pay the same service plan rate they had been paying -- a rate that was designed to work with subsidized phones. When T-Mobile introduced its no-contract monthly installment plan, it cut the rate of its plan to reflect the lack of a subsidy.
"Why they think anyone would go for this plan is baffling to us," Legere said.
An AT&T representative told CNET that Next represents a new offer and different choice for customers.
"We're not taking away anything," he said. "We're just giving people choice by removing the up-front cost and allowing them to upgrade their phone."
AT&T wouldn't discuss the direct comparisons between Next and Jump, but noted that it offers a larger 4G LTE network.
"As people dig into this, they'll find it's a much better deal to go with Jump," T-Mobile's Sherrard said. He added that Jump includes insurance, which AT&T Next does not.
Verizon Wireless is expected to introduce a similar plan to that of AT&T, and Sherrard said he felt equally good about how Jump stacks up against the reported Verizon Edge plan.
Sherrard said he was happy that the industry was reacting to T-Mobile's moves. He called the competitors' moves "a response, not a strategy."
Sherrard said that as the challenger in the industry with the lowest market share among the big four U.S. carriers, T-Mobile can afford to be more aggressive to pursue growth. The big two companies can't follow because they have higher profit margins to protect.
"We're glad to change the game a little bit," he said.
Updated at 11:44 a.m. and 1:47 p.m. PT: to include a comment from AT&T and from the T-Mobile CEO.The next-gen BMW X5 has been a long time coming. Though the current F15 generation has been in production since the middle of 2013, we've seen spy shots of the new model for nearly two years at this point. While the new X5 will no longer be the German automaker's flagship SUV - a mantle soon to be taken by the upcoming X7 - it's still a hugely important vehicle for BMW. The current model has been a success, and this new one doesn't look like it's planning to shake up the formula.This is our best look yet. These photos were taken near the X5's production facility in Spartanburg, S.C. Some of the other prototypes were missing things like rocker panels and were sporting big, blocky bumpers. On these new models, the only things that seem out of spec are the taillights and the lower part of the front bumper. Other than that, this is as close to production as we're likely to see while still wearing camouflage.There appear to be two models in these photos. A quick look at the A pillar makes indicates that the blue model may be an M or M Sport variant while the black X5 is likely a more luxury oriented trim. The general shape remains the same, as BMW hasn't had a totally new design language in years. The kidney bean grille is larger and more upright, similar to what we saw on the X7 concept.No word on what's under the hood, but expect turbocharged six and eight-cylinder engines. Don't be surprised if we see a high-output turbocharged 2.0-liter inline four in the mix. A plug-in variant should be on offer, too. There' s also word on when we'll see the new model, but look for something official this auto show season.Psychologists at Bangor University believe that they have glimpsed for the first time, a process that takes place deep within our unconscious brain, where primal reactions interact with higher mental processes. Writing in the Journal of Neuroscience (May 9, 2012 • 32(19):6485- 6489 • 6485), they identify a reaction to negative language inputs which shuts down unconscious processing.
For the last quarter of a century, psychologists have been aware of, and fascinated by the fact that our brain can process high-level information such as meaning outside consciousness. What the psychologists at Bangor University have discovered is the reverse- that our brain can unconsciously 'decide' to withhold information by preventing access to certain forms of knowledge.
The psychologists extrapolate this from their most recent findings working with bilingual people. Building on their previous discovery that bilinguals subconsciously access their first language when reading in their second language; the psychologists at the School of Psychology and Centre for Research on Bilingualism have now made the surprising discovery that our brain shuts down that same unconscious access to the native language when faced with a negative word such as war, discomfort, inconvenience, and unfortunate.
They believe that this provides the first proven insight to a hither-to unproven process in which our unconscious mind blocks information from our conscious mind or higher mental processes.
This finding breaks new ground in our understanding of the interaction between emotion and thought in the brain. Previous work on emotion and cognition has already shown that emotion affects basic brain functions such as attention, memory, vision and motor control, but never at such a high processing level as language and understanding.
Key to this is the understanding that people have a greater reaction to emotional words and phrases in their first language- which is why people speak to their infants and children in their first language despite living in a country which speaks another language and despite fluency in the second. It has been recognised for some time that anger, swearing or discussing intimate feelings has more power in a speaker's native language. In other words, emotional information lacks the same power in a second language as in a native language.
Dr Yan Jing Wu of the University's School of Psychology said: "We devised this experiment to unravel the unconscious interactions between the processing of emotional content and access to the native language system. We think we've identified, for the first time, the mechanism by which emotion controls fundamental thought processes outside consciousness.
"Perhaps this is a process that resembles the mental repression mechanism that people have theorised about but never previously located."
So why would the brain block access to the native language at an unconscious level?
Professor Guillaume Thierry explains: "We think this is a protective mechanism. We know that in trauma for example, people behave very differently. Surface conscious processes are modulated by a deeper emotional system in the brain. Perhaps this brain mechanism spontaneously minimises negative impact of disturbing emotional content on our thinking, to prevent causing anxiety or mental discomfort."
He continues: "We were extremely surprised by our finding. We were expecting to find modulation between the different words- and perhaps a heightened reaction to the emotional word - but what we found was the exact opposite to what we expected- a cancellation of the response to the negative words."
The psychologists made this discovery by asking English-speaking Chinese people whether word pairs were related in meaning. Some of the word pairs were related in their Chinese translations. Although not consciously acknowledging a relation, measurements of electrical activity in the brain revealed that the bilingual participants were unconsciously translating the words. However, uncannily, this activity was not observed when the English words had a negative meaning.
###Hi, fellow comics fans! We're Dave Kellett & Fred Schroeder, creators of the comics documentary STRIPPED. This film is our love-letter to the art form: Bringing together 60 of the world's best cartoonists into one extraordinary, feature-length documentary. The film sits down with creators to talk about how cartooning works, why it's so loved, and how as artists they're navigating this dicey period between print and digital options...when neither path works perfectly.
Set to an *original* score by Stefan Lessard of "Dave Matthews Band," this should be a really special film. It's been a two-year labor-of-love for us, and we can not wait for you to see it. But the post-production phase is the super expensive phase...and we need your help to finish it.
We have a lot of incredibly talented Hollywood professionals who believe in the film, and as a result are discounting their rates to help us complete it, but it's still an expensive process. With your financial support, we'll be able to complete the editing, special effects, sound mixing, and color timing -- and bring a really special film to life.
***STILL ACCEPTING PLEDGES***
Thanks to your continuing support, we've met the minimum level for the Kickstarter drive to fund. But we're still accepting pledges, to tackle the additional budget items, below. So, why donate now? Self-interest, for one thing! The DVD price won't change, but by "purchasing" the DVD at the $25-level, now rather than later, it will help us make a better film, with features including....
CLOSED CAPTIONING: We want this film to be accessible to everyone! Help us add a closed-captioning option to the DVD. Additional Budget: $2,500
ANIMATIONS: We want to hire independent animators to create snippets and shorts to illustrate points of the film. We had already budgeted for a set amount of AfterEffects, but an increased animation budget will give more work to worthy artists, *and* make the film really shine. Additional Budget: $30,000
HIGH-FIDELITY SOUND MASTERING: Good films live and die by their sound quality. Listen to an indie film, and you'll see what we mean: They often sound terrible. With just a little extra, we can bring this film into Dolby. Additional Budget: $10,000
TRAVEL: We've lined up additional interviews with folks like Jeannie Schulz, Mike & Jerry of Penny Arcade, and more. But we'd also still love to sit down with Lalo Alcaraz, Keith Knight, Matt Groening, Garry Trudeau, Randall Munroe, Art Speigelman, and others. Additional funding will help make those trips possible for our crew and equipment. Additional budget: $10,000
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***VIDEO UPDATE***
Three new "rough-cut" moments (no sound correction, no color correction) from our interviews, including: Zach Weiner, Danielle Corsetto, and Howard Tayler!
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***VIDEO UPDATE***
Four new "rough-cut" moments (no sound correction, no color correction) from the film, including: Jeff Smith, Darrin Bell, Scott Kurtz, and Scott Mcloud!
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***VIDEO UPDATE***
Four new "rough-cut" moments (no sound correction, no color correction) from the film, including: Kate Beaton, Richard Thompson, Greg Evans and Ryan North!
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"Peanuts" comic strip © 2011 Peanuts Worldwide LLC***NEW! VIDEO UPDATE***
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Just for fun, here are screenshots of a few of the talented cartoonists who've joined us:The Chili Peppers have been around for almost 29 years. The band is much older than me or any of my friends who know and listen to them. We grew up with the Chili Peppers as a famous band with great songs from the past twenty years that had become major hits. But back in early 1991, the Chilis were mostly just an alternative rock group that had a mix of funk, punk, and metal that didn't always come together perfectly with the reputation of performing only wearing one sock each. They were crazy party animals whose first guitarist died in 1988 from an overdose. They had four albums, only one of which made it on Billboard.
Blood Sugar changed all that into what we know today. Two of their most successful songs ever, "Under the Bridge" and "Give it Away," came from this album. It was the right combination of music types that came out at the right time, when people were looking for new types of rock to go mainstream. There are plenty of great songs, especially those two singles. "Breaking the Girl" has a great little bridge with a bunch of percussion sounds, and there are plenty of great sounds and funky lyrics on songs like "If You Have to Ask," "Apache Rose Peacock," and "My Lovely Man." The chorus in "The Power of Equality" is in a minor chord or something and sounds a little sour, but it works. There are also some sexual references, such as the name of the song "Suck My Kiss" and, the eight and a half minute monster, "Sir Psycho Sexy."
Unfortunately, the biggest flaw on this album is that several of these songs sound very similar. A friend of mine will often play songs from Blood Sugar in a playlist, and I know that the songs are by the Chili Peppers right away, but can't figure out what song it is without listening to the lyrics. I'd say there are five or six songs like that (which is why it's only four stars). Strangely enough, "Under the Bridge" and "Give it Away" are very different songs compared to each other, and aside from the five similar songs, the rest of the album follows suit in trying to expand the type of music that the band is coming up with. There are some softer, sweeter songs, like the sorrowful "Under the Bridge," one of the first times that frontman Anthony Kiedis really sings, or "I Could Have Lied." There are some more crazy songs, like "The Greeting Song" (whose lyrics I still mostly cannot understand to this day).
This one album showcases the Chili Peppers' versatility and different musical styles, a great mix between the good ole days that many people aren't aware of and the success that came afterwards. This album is essential listening.It’s time for the best regatta in the World….Henley Royal Regatta – the event that every rower in the world should race at least once in their careers.
This year sees entries from 577 crews from 15 different nations, the 2nd highest in the regatta’s history.
So, as always I’ll do a rundown of the key crews to watch in all the events, and there are three new ones to look at this tear, the Women’s pair, Women’s Double Sculls and Women’s coxless four meaning that for the first time in the Regatta’s history there is an equal number of men’s and women’s open events.
So, to kick off…
The Grand Challenge Cup
Holders: Hollandia Roeiclub, Holland
3 crews (7 in 2016)
4 fewer entries this year, but they are three of the best men’s 8’s in the World
Passauer Ruderverein von 1874 e.V. and Ruderverein “Trevis” Trier von 1821, Germany
Whilst the crew name maybe a bit of a mouthful this crew is, in reality, the German national eight, the Deutschlandachter. This crew contains four of the crew that won a silver medal behind the British at the Rio Olympics (Malte Jackschik, Richard Schmidt, Hannes Ocik & Martin Sauer) along with half of the Olympic M4- (Felix Wimberger and Max Planer). The other members of the crew are Johannes Weissenfeld & Torben Johannesen who raced the M2- at the Poznan World Cup in 2016 and 2015 M2+ silver medallist Jakob Schneider. Together this crew dominated at the European Championships winning their first title of the Tokyo Olympiad. This weekend they also won at the 2017 Poznan World cup posting a frankly astonishing time of 5:18.6 setting a new World Best Time, breaking the mark set by the Canadians at the Lucerne World Cup in 2012.
Leander Club and Newcastle University
This is the British national eight. They’ve some mighty shoes to fill, Olympic Champions, three-time World Champions and winners of the Grand in 2013, 2014 and 2015. But, this crew is new and very much in development. Plus they suffered a number of illnesses in the last couple of weeks with Olympic Champion Tom Ransley out with an appendicitis. At Poznan this weekend the British had a good race battling with the New Zealanders through to the 1500m mark before losing out in the sprint ending up with a bronze medal. There’s just one change from the crew that rowed in Poznan, with Oxford Blue Ollie Cook replacing Tom Jeffrey, Cook joins Leander Clubmates Tom Ford, Cam Buchan, Callum McBrierty, Jacob Daswon and Adam Neill along with Newcastle’s James Rudkin and Cambridge’s Lance Tredell.
Wairiki Rowing Club, New Zealand
The New Zealand national eight. Another fabulous crew, possibly the best New Zealand M8 since the awesome Kiwi crews of the late 1970’s. Built around the crew that won the U23 World Championships in 2014 that went on to take 6th at the Rio Olympics. The crew for Henley has Issac Grainger, Shaun Kirkham, Stephen Jones, Brook Robertson and cox Caleb Shepherd from the Olympic M8 along with lightweight Olympian James Lassche in bow along with Anthony Allen and Pat McInnes who raced in the M4- that just missed qualification for the Olympics. At Poznan this weekend Kiwis and the British had a great race with the Kiwis taking the silver.
My picks…I hope the Stewards arrange it that the British race the Kiwis in the Semi, as a head to head between these two boats could be a classic. But, no-one will beat the German’s. Given the likely good conditions at Henley we could see the Grand record under threat. The Germans were the first crew to break the magic 6 minute barrier at Henley back in 1989. GB set the course record of 5:54 in 2014 and the Germans will be gunning for that record.
The Queen Mother Challenge Cup
Holders: Leander Club
A straight final between Leander Club and Wairiki Rowing Club, New Zealand.
The British, Jack Beaumont, John Collins, Jonny Walton and Pete Lambert will be expecting to take the victory. At Poznan this weekend they laid down an impressive marker taking the gold in a very quick time of 5:36. For Jack Beaumont a win in the Queen Mother will give him the full set of quad medals at Henley with a win in the Fawley Challenge Cup in 2012 and a hat-trick of wins in the Prince Of Wales Challenge Cup from 2013-15. If they take the win in the QM he will become the first man to win all three quad events (and with a win in the Double Sculls in 2016 it would give him his 6th Henley Medal). Although Harry Glenister could also achieve that feat if his Leander crew win the Prince of Wales Challenge Cup.
Racing the final against the British are the New Zealanders of Wairiki rowing club. The crew of Giacomo Thomas, Nathan Flannery, Cameron Crompton and Lewis Hollows are a young crew, three of whom won a silver medal at the U23 World Championships in 2015. Just Nathan Flannery remains from the Olympic quad that finished 10th. At the Poznan World Cup this weekend the young Kiwi crew finished 1st in the B-final to take 7th overall.
My pick….the British look too strong for the Kiwis at this point. I would expect a comfortable home win. What will be fun is to see whether the British can get near the record of 6:15 set by the Italians of S.C. Eridanea & S.C Firenze back in 1989 – the oldest record in the books.
The Silver Goblets & Nickall’s Challenge Cup
Holders: R. Braas & M Steenman, Holland
9 crews
A small entry this year, it’s been a while since there hasn’t been the need to run qualifying for this event.
Despite the relatively small entry it is quite a high class field:
S.H Arnot & T.R.Jeffery (Leander Club) Members of the GB squad, both were in the M8 that raced at the European Championships. Jeffrey also raced in the crew that won bronze in Poznan.
J.J Dunkley-Smith & J.W.Booth (Mercantile Rowing Club & Melbourne University, Australia). Two of Australia’s finest. They were both part of the M4- that won silver at the Rio Olympics behind the British. Neither have been named as part of the Australian national squad for 2017 but will be very strong contenders at Henley.
A.C.H Lester & J.J Padmore (Thames Rowing Club). A strong club combination, both already have Henley medals to their credit from the Thames Cup winning boat of 2015. Lester followed that up with a win in the Visitors Challenge Cup last year.
M. Lodo & G. Vicino (Team Italia, Italy). Matteo Lodo and Guiseppe Vicino are the top Italian boat. They were both members of the Italian M4- that won the World Championships in 2015 and then took bronze at the Rio Olympics. They’ve raced internationally once so far this season taking the Gold medal at the European Championships. Depending on the draw it could well be an Italy v Australia final.
S.P.S Meijer & S.J Devereux (Elizabethan Boat Club and Leander Club). Sam Meijer and Seb Devereux are two outstanding young British oarsmen. Although entered as Elizabethan and Leander it could so easily be a Harvard University and Washington University composite. Both are part of a plethora of talented British oarsmen and women who are choosing to study in the USA. Meijer was world junior champion in 2015 and raced in Harvard’s 2V crew that finished 5th at the IRA Championships in 2016. Devereux, a losing Henley finalist in the Prince of Wales last year, raced in the Washington Huskies varsity 8 in 2015. This has the makings of a potential GB U23 crew.
V.O. Onfroy & T.O.Onfroy (Club France, France). The current French national team coxless pair. The Onfroy brothers, Valentin and Theo, were both in the M4- that finished 11th at the Olympics. In 2017 they switched to the M2- and have made an outstanding start to their season, taking silver at the European Championships and gold at the 2nd World Cup in Poznan. The “form” crew on the circuit, a head-to- head with either the Italians or the Australians could be very tasty.
B. Simon & A. Juhàsz (Pénzügyôr Sportegy Egylet, Hungary). The Hungarian national team. Simon and Juhàsz were 9th in the M2- at the Rio Olympics and so far in 2017 have a 10th place at the 1st World Cup and a 9th place at the European Championships.
P.C Tortora & L.N. Jenkins (Yale University, USA). Pete Tortora from Fairfield Connecticut and Leonard Jenkins from Whakatane, New Zealand, were members of the Yale University 2V this season, finishing 4th at the IRA Championships and taking the win in the 2V Yale v Harvard race.
C.O. Webster & A.P.Kennedy (Waiariki Rowing Club, New Zealand). Cameron Webster is an U23 World Champion in the BM4+ from 2015 and Alex Kennedy raced for New Zealand in the M8 at the Rio Olympics. This season they are the spare pair for the New Zealand squad and raced at the Poznan World Cup (when the no.1 pair of James Hunter and Tom Murray withdrew through injury) and finished 8th.
My picks…should be a great race in the final which I reckon will be between Australia and Italy, with the Italian European Champions coming out on top.
The Stewards Challenge Cup
Holders: Hollandia Roeiclub, Holland
5 crews
Club France
This is the French national squad M4- with Benoit Demey, Benoit Brunet, Julien Montet and Edouard Jonville. This is the same line-up that raced at the European Championships finishing just out of the medals in 4th. Montet was a member of the M4X that finished 16th at the 2015 World Championships and Demey and Brunet raced in the M2+ at Rotterdam last year finishing 9th.
Leander Club and Griffen Boat Club
I’m a little surprised to see this boat in the Stewards. They are eligible for the Visitors Challenge Cup so why the Stewards bumped them up (or why they entered the higher event) I don’t know.
This is a boat of some of the best young GB oarsmen currently studying in the USA and is the likely GB U23 M4- for this year’s World Championships in Plovdiv in mid-July.
This crew is made up of Matt Benstead at bow, an U23 silver medallist from last year’s BM8+ and a Senior at Princeton. He was a member of the Tigers 2V crew that finished 3rd at the IRA Championships.
In the 2 seat is Tom Digby, a freshman at Yale and 3 seat of the outstanding 1st Varsity crew that won the IRA Championships and also the Yale v Harvard Boat Race. Formerly of Abingdon School, Digby is one of the most outstanding young oarsmen in the country.
At 3 is Charlie Elwes, another of the Yale 1st Varsity crew, a Sophmore from Radley College he raced for the GB junior team for two years winning a silver medal in the JM4- in 2015.
Stroking the boat is the third Yale athlete, Sholto Carnegie. He was also a member of the Yale 1st Varsity crew that won the IRA’s and was also in the crew that won the Ladies Plate at Henley last year. After Henley last year he rowed in the British U23 M8 with Matt Benstead that won silver at the World Championships.
Leander Club & Molesey Boat Club
Great Britain’s flagship men’s crew with Olympic champions Moe Sbihi and Will Satch. Big Moe is rated as possibly the best rower in the world at the moment, certainly one of the most powerful. He was in the crew that won the M4- at the Rio Olympics. Satch was the strokeman of the British M8 that took a spectacular gold in Rio. At bow is the newest member of the crew, Leander Club’s Matt Rossiter. He raced in the M2- at the first World Cup and took a superb gold. Sitting at three is world champion Matt Tarrant. He won gold in the M2+ in 2015 and narrowly lost out on selection for the M2- for Rio.
This new look British four haven’t had the easiest of starts to their 2017, an edgy win in Belgrade at the first World Cup was followed by a pretty disastrous 5th place at the European Championships. Rossiter was brought into the crew for the 2nd World Cup and they had a much better performance even though it resulted in “only” a silver medal behind the Australians. The British will be expecting a big performance at Henley, their home water – only a win will do.
Team Italia (Italy)
The reigning European Champions, Marco Di Costanzo, Giovanni Abagnale, Matteo Castaldo & Domineco Montrone. This crew is unchanged from the crew that won a bronze medal at the Rio Olympics and have three of the boat that won the World Championships in 2015.
Abagnale and Di Costanzo won the U23 BM4- in 2014 and also raced at the senior World Championships later that year, finishing 9th in the M8. Castaldo is a former Lightweight international, winning silver in the U23 BLM4- back in 2004. He then switched to heavyweight, winning silver in the BM2- in 2007. He won his first senior medal at the Lucerne World Cup in 2013 taking silver in the M2- and in 2015 was in the World Championship winning boat in 2015.
They will see the British as vulnerable, they’ve already beaten them once this year, and will like nothing better than beating them in their own back yard.
University of Pretoria, South Africa
This is the new look South African M4-. The orginal plan for this season was for the South Africans to find a fast M2- and build on their silver medal performance at Rio. But during pre-season testing it became apparent that there was a fast 4 in the making. In the crew is Olympic silver medallist Lawrence Brittain. His silver in the M2- at Rio was one of the stories of the regatta given his battles over the last few years with cancer. It was fantastic to see him get the reward after the torrid time he’s had. He’s joined in the crew by three fellow Rio Olympians. At stroke is Jake Green and bow is David Hunt, both of these guys were in the M4- that finished 4th at the Olympics. The 4th member of the crew is former lightweight Olympian John Smith. He was in the LM2X with John Thompson that finished 4th in Rio. He and Thompson are the current holders of the LM2X World Best Time – an astonishing 6:05.3 set at the Amsterdam World Championships in 2014. With the changes to the lightweight events at the Olympics Smith chose to bulk up and race as a heavyweight.
My picks…this could be too close to call. The British are masters at match racing and will have the support of the home crowd. The Italians are the form crew of the season and the South Africans have an awesome pedigree. The advantage for the British is that they will be in a more positive mood following their stronger showing in Poznan – I’m going to go for a Home win for Leander/Molesey.
The Double Sculls Challenge Cup
Holders: N.C Middleton & J.R.A Beaumont Leander Club
18 crews – to be reduced to 12 by qualifying races
A mouth-watering contest in prospect bringing together the some of the best lightweight and heavyweight doubles in the world.
Hans Gruhne & Karl Schulze – Berliner Ruderclub and Ruder-Club Potsdam e.V, Germany
Two of Germany’s most outstanding men’s scullers in this boat. Both were part of the M4X that won a gold medal at the World Championships in 2015 and followed that up with gold at the Rio Olympics. Schulze is a double Olympic gold medallist having won in the quad in London as well as Rio and Gruhne raced in the quad in Beijing that finished 6th.
Pierre Houin & Jeremie Azou – Club France, France
Jeremie Azou is no stranger to this event having won in 2014 with Stany Delayre, in an epic race against the GB heavyweights John Collins and Jonny Walton. He and new partner Pierre Houin have established themselves as the most outstanding lightweight double in the world. They won the gold medal at the Rio Olympics and so far in 2017 they’ve picked up where they left off with commanding wins at both the European Championships and the Poznan World Cup. One of the joys of Henley is the opportunity to pit the top lightweights and heavyweights against each other, and as Azou has shown, the heavy’s don’t always come out on top. They will be delighted if they can claim a few heavyweight scalps during the regatta.
Vincent Klaassens and Gerard Van der Velden – Deltsche studenten |
be increased to 1000 to one, he said, or even 1000 to zero, meaning that the brutes should be completely exterminated. Of course, he is referring to “terrorists,” a broad category that includes the victims of Israeli power, since “Israel never targets civilians,” he emphatically declared. It follows that Palestinians, Lebanese, Tunisians, in fact anyone who gets in the way of the ruthless armies of the Holy State is a terrorist, or an accidental victim of their just crimes.32
It is not easy to find historical counterparts to these performances. It is perhaps of some interest that they elicit virtually no censure and are thus apparently considered entirely appropriate in the reigning intellectual and moral culture – when they are produced on “our side,” that is. From the mouths of official enemies such words would elicit righteous outrage and calls for massive preemptive violence to punish the villains.
The claim that “our side” never targets civilians is familiar doctrine in violent states. And there is some truth to it. Powerful states, like the United States, do not generally try to kill particular civilians. Rather, they carry out murderous actions that they and their educated classes know will slaughter many civilians, but without specific intent to kill particular ones. In law, the routine practices might fall under the category of depraved indifference, but that is not an adequate designation for standard imperial practice and doctrine. It is more similar to walking down a street knowing that we might kill ants, but without intent to do so, because they rank so low that it just doesn’t matter. Thus Clinton’s bombing of the main pharmaceutical plant in a poor African country (Sudan) might be expected to lead to the deaths of tens of thousands of people, as it apparently did. But since we did not aim at particular ones, there is no guilt, Western moralists assure us. And the same holds in much more extreme cases, which are all too easy to enumerate. The same is true when Israel carries out actions that it knows will kill the “grasshoppers” and “drugged roaches” who happen to infest the lands it “liberates.” There is no good term for this form of moral depravity, arguably worse than deliberate slaughter, and all too familiar.
In the former Palestine, the rightful owners (by divine decree, according to the “lords of the land”) may decide to grant the drugged roaches a few scattered parcels. Not by right, however: “I believed, and to this day still believe, in our people’s eternal and historic right to this entire land,” Prime Minister Olmert informed a joint session of Congress in May 2006 to rousing applause. At the same time he announced his “convergence” program for taking over what is valuable in the West Bank, as outlined earlier, leaving the Palestinians to rot in isolated cantons. He was not specific about the borders of the “entire land,” but then, the Zionist enterprise never has been, for good reasons: permanent expansion is an important internal dynamic. If Olmert was still faithful to his origins in Likud, he might have meant both sides of the Jordan, including the current state of Jordan, at least valuable parts of it, though the 1999 Likud Charter – the program of current Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu – is ambiguous. It declares that “the Jordan Valley and the territories that dominate it shall be under Israeli sovereignty.” What “dominates” the Jordan Valley is not defined, but it certainly includes everything to the West of the Jordan, the former Palestine, to remain under Israeli sovereignty. Within that territory there can never be a Palestinian state and settlement must be unconstrained, the Charter declares, since “Settlement of the land is a clear expression of the unassailable right of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel.”
For Olmert and his Likud successor, our people’s “eternal and historic right to this entire land” contrasts dramatically with the lack of any right of self-determination for the temporary visitors, the Palestinians. As noted earlier, the lack of any such right was reiterated by Israel and its patron in Washington in December 2008, in their usual isolation and accompanied by the usual resounding silence.33
The plans that Olmert sketched in 2006 were later abandoned as not sufficiently extreme. But what replaces the convergence program, and the actions that proceed daily to implement it, are approximately the same in general conception. In 2008, West Bank settlement construction rose by 60%, according to a report by Peace Now, which monitors settlement. Housing starts in West Bank settlements rose by 46% over the previous year, while they declined in Tel Aviv by 29% and in Jerusalem by 14%. Peace Now reported further that some 6000 new units had been approved with 58,000 waiting approval: “If all the plans are realized,” the report said, “the number of settlers in the territories will be doubled.” There are many ways to expand the settlement project without eliciting protest from the paymasters in Washington, for example, setting up an “outpost” that is later linked to the national electricity and water grids and over time slowly becomes a settlement or a town. Or simply by expanding the “rings of land” around a settlement for alleged security reasons, seizing Palestinian lands, all processes that continue.34
These devices, which have roots in the pre-state period, trace back to the earliest days of the occupation, when the basic idea was formulated poetically by Defense Minister Moshe Dayan, who was in charge of the occupied territories: “the situation today resembles the complex relationship between a Bedouin man and the girl he kidnaps against his will…You Palestinians, as a nation, don’t want us today, but we’ll change your attitude by forcing our presence on you.” You will “live like dogs, and whoever will leave, will leave,” while we take what we want.35
That these programs are criminal has never been in doubt. Immediately after the 1967 war, the Israeli government was informed by its highest legal authority, Teodor Meron, that “civilian settlement in the administered territories contravenes the explicit provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention,” the foundation of international humanitarian law. Israel’s Justice Minister concurred. Dayan conceded that “Settling Israelis in occupied territories contravenes, as is known, international conventions, but there is nothing essentially new in that,” so the issue can be dismissed. The World Court unanimously endorsed Meron’s conclusion in 2004, and the Israeli High Court technically agreed while disagreeing in practice, in its usual style.36
In the West Bank, Israel can pursue its criminal programs with US support and no disturbance, thanks to its effective military control and by now the cooperation of the collaborationist Palestinian security forces armed and trained by the US and allied dictatorships. It can also carry out regular assassinations and other crimes, while settlers rampage under IDF protection. But while the West Bank has been effectively subdued by terror, there is still resistance in the other half of Palestine, the Gaza Strip. That too must be quelled for the US-Israeli programs of annexation and destruction of Palestine to proceed undisturbed.
Hence the invasion of Gaza.
The timing of the invasion was widely assumed to be influenced by the coming Israeli election. Defense Minister Ehud Barak of the centrist Labor Party, who was lagging badly in the polls, gained one parliamentary seat for every 40 Arabs killed in the early days of the slaughter, Israeli commentator Ran HaCohen calculated.37
That changed, however. The Israeli far right gained substantially from the invasion, though as the crimes passed beyond what the carefully honed Israeli propaganda campaign was able to suppress, even confirmed supporters of the invasion became concerned about the way the outside world was perceiving Israel’s just war. The highly regarded political scientist and historian Shlomo Avineri offered an analysis of these “critical differences of opinion” between Israel and outsiders. Among the causes, he explained, were “the harsh images — a consequence of the firepower Israel used, as magnified by the media — as well as disinformation and, undoubtedly, plain old hatred of Israel.” But he discerned a deeper reason: “the name given to the operation, which greatly affects the way in which it will be perceived. Israelis associate the Hebrew for Cast Lead, as the operation was called, with a line written by poet Haim Nahman Bialik that is part of a Hanukkah song typically sung by cute little children. The fact that the operation began around Hanukkah sharpened that association. Abroad, however, it was seen differently. In English, not to mention German, Cast Lead has a whole other association. Lead is cast into bullets, bombs and mortar shells. When the world reported on Cast Lead it sounded militaristic, brutal and aggressive; it was associated with death and destruction rather than spinning dreidels. Even before the first shot was fired or the first speech explaining Israel’s case was made, the operation had already acquired an image of belligerence,” a terrible failure of Israeli hasbara. Perhaps it should have been called something more gentle, Avineri felt, “like the Gates of Gaza, which also has a historical ring to it.”38
Other war supporters warned that the carnage is “Destroying [Israel’s] soul and its image. Destroying it on world television screens, in the living rooms of the international community and most importantly, in Obama’s America” (Ari Shavit). Shavit was particularly concerned about Israel’s “shelling a United Nations facility…on the day when the UN secretary general is visiting Jerusalem,” an act that is “beyond lunacy,” he felt.39
Adding a few details, the “facility” was the UN compound in Gaza City, which contained the UNRWA warehouse. The shelling destroyed “hundreds of tons of emergency food and medicines set for distribution today to shelters, hospitals and feeding centres,” according to UNRWA director John Ging. Military strikes at the same time destroyed two floors of the al-Quds hospital, setting it ablaze, and also a second warehouse run by the Palestinian Red Crescent society. The hospital in the densely-populated Tal-Hawa neighbourhood was destroyed by Israeli tanks “after hundreds of frightened Gazans had taken shelter inside as Israeli ground forces pushed into the neighbourhood,” Al-Jazeera reported.
There was nothing left to salvage inside the smoldering ruins of the hospital. “They shelled the building, the hospital building,” paramedic Ahmad Al-Haz told AP. “It caught fire. We tried to evacuate the sick people and the injured and the people who were there. Firefighters arrived and put out the fire, which burst into flames again and they put it out again and it came back for the third time.” It was suspected that the blaze might have been set by white phosphorus, also suspected in numerous other fires and serious burn injuries.40
The suspicions were confirmed by Amnesty International after the cessation of the intense bombardment made inquiry possible. Israel had sensibly barred all journalists, even Israeli, while its crimes were proceeding in full fury. Israel’s use of white phosphorus against Gaza civilians is “clear and undeniable,” AI reported, condemning its repeated use in densely populated civilian areas as “a war crime.” AI investigators found white phosphorus edges scattered around residential buildings, still burning, “further endangering the residents and their property,” particularly children “drawn to the detritus of war and often unaware of the danger.” Primary targets, they report, were the UNRWA compound, where the Israeli “white phosphorus landed next to some fuel trucks and caused a large fire which destroyed tons of humanitarian aid” after Israeli authorities “had given assurance that no further strikes would be launched on the compound.” On the same day, “a white phosphorus shell landed in the al-Quds hospital in Gaza City also causing a fire which forced hospital staff to evacuate the patients… White phosphorus landing on skin can burn deep through muscle and into the bone, continuing to burn unless deprived of oxygen.” Whether purposely intended or beyond depraved indifference, such crimes are inevitable when the weapon is used in attacks on civilians. 41
The white phosphorus shells were US-made, AI reported. In a report reviewing use of weapons in Gaza, AI concluded that Israel used US-supplied weapons in “serious violations of international humanitarian law,” and called on “the U.N. Security Council to impose an immediate and comprehensive arms embargo on the Jewish state.”42 Though conscious US complicity is hardly in doubt, it is excluded from the call for punishment by the analogue of the “too big to fail” doctrine.
It is, however, a mistake to concentrate too much on Israel’s severe violations of jus in bello, the laws designed to bar wartime practices that are too savage. The invasion itself is a far more serious crime. And if Israel had inflicted horrendous damage by bows and arrows, it would still be a criminal act of extreme depravity.
It is also a mistake to focus attention on specific targets. The campaign was far more ambitious in scope. Its goal was “the destruction of all means of life,” officials warned. A large part of the agricultural land was destroyed, some perhaps permanently, along with poultry, livestock, greenhouses, orchards, creating a major food crisis, the World Food Program reported. The IDF also targeted the Ministry of Agriculture and “the offices of the Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committees in Zaitoun — which provides cheap food for the poor – ransacked and vandalised by soldiers who left abusive graffiti.” Large areas were flattened by bulldozers. Beyond “the physical damage done by Israeli bulldozers, bombing and shelling, land has been contaminated by munitions, including white phosphorus, burst sewerage pipes, animal carcasses and even asbestos used in roofing. In many places, the damage is extreme. In Jabal al-Rayas, once a thriving farming community, every building has been knocked down, and even the cattle killed and left to lie rotting in the fields.” Leaders of Gaza’s business community, generally apolitical, “say that much of the 3 per cent of industry still operating after the 18-month shutdown caused by Israel’s economic siege has now been destroyed” by Israeli forces using “aerial bombing, tank shelling and armoured bulldozers to eliminate the productive capacity of some of Gaza’s most important manufacturing plants,” destroying or severely damaging 219 factories, according to Palestinian industrialists.43
To impede potential recovery, the IDF attacked universities, largely destroying the agriculture faculty at al-Azhar university (considered pro-Fatah, Washington’s favored faction), Al-Da’wa College for Humanities in Rafah, and the Gaza College for Security Sciences. Six university buildings in Gaza were razed to the ground and 16 damaged. Two of those destroyed housed the science and engineering laboratories of the Islamic University in Gaza.44 The pretext was that they contributed to Hamas military activities. By the same principle, Israeli (and US) universities are legitimate targets of large-scale terror.
There were occasional reports of the Israeli navy firing on fishing boats, but these conceal what appears to be a systematic campaign in recent years to drive the fishing industry towards shore – thereby destroying it, because the vast pollution caused by Israel’s destruction of power stations and sewage facilities makes fishing impossible near shore. Citing recent incidents, the Al Mezan Center for Human Rights in Gaza, which has been a highly reliable source, “strongly condemn[ed] the continuous escalation of the IOF [Israeli Occupation Forces] offensive against Palestinian civilians, including fishermen.” International human rights observers report regular attacks on fishing vessels in Gazan territorial waters. Accompanying Palestinian fishers, they report having “witnessed countless acts of Israeli military aggression against them whilst in Gazan territorial waters, despite a six-month ceasefire agreement holding at the time,” and now again after the January ceasefire. “Gaza’s 40,000 fishermen have been deprived of their livelihood” by Israel naval attacks, Gideon Levy reported from the bedside of a 19-year-old Gaza fisherman, severely wounded by Israeli gunboats who attacked his boat without warning near the Gaza shore on October 5, a month before the ceasefire was broken by Israel’s invasion of Gaza, events to which we return. “Every few days the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) publishes reports from its volunteers in Gaza about attacks on fishermen. Sometimes the naval boats ram the wretched craft, sometimes the sailors use high-pressure water hoses on the fishermen, hurtling them into the sea, and sometimes they open lethal fire on them,” Levy reported.45
The international observers report that attacks on fishing boats began after the discovery of quite promising natural gas fields by the BG Group in 2000, in Gaza’s territorial waters. The regular attacks gradually drove fishing boats towards shore, not by official order but by threat and violence. Oil industry journals and the Israeli business press report that Israel’s state-owned Israel Electric Corp. is negotiating “for as much as 1.5 billion cubic meters of natural gas from the Marine field located off the Mediterranean coast of the Palestinian controlled Gaza Strip.” It is hard to suppress the thought that the Gaza invasion may be related to the project of stealing these valuable resources from Palestine, which cannot take part in the negotiations.46
Aggression always has a pretext: in this case, that Israel’s patience had “run out” in the face of Hamas rocket attacks, as Ehud Barak put it. The mantra that is endlessly repeated is that Israel has the right to use force to defend itself. The thesis is partially defensible. The rocketing is criminal, and it is true that a state has the right to defend itself against criminal attacks. But it does not follow that it has a right to defend itself by force. That goes far beyond any principle that we would or should accept. Putin had no right to use force in response to Chechen terror – and his resort to force is not justified by the fact that he achieved results so far beyond what the US achieved in Iraq that if General Petraeus had approached them, he might have been crowned king.47 Nazi Germany had no right to use force to defend itself against the terrorism of the partisans. Kristallnacht was not justified by Herschel Grynszpan’s assassination of a German Embassy official in Paris. The British were not justified in using force to defend themselves against the (very real) terror of the American colonists seeking independence, or to terrorize Irish Catholics in response to IRA terror – and when they finally turned to the sensible policy of addressing legitimate grievances, the terror virtually ended. It is not a matter of “proportionality,” but of choice of action in the first place: Is there an alternative to violence? In all of these cases, there plainly was, so the resort to force had no justification whatsoever.
Any resort to force carries a heavy burden of proof, and we have to ask whether it can be met in the case of Israel’s effort to quell any resistance to its daily criminal actions in Gaza and in the West Bank, where they still continue relentlessly after more than 40 years. Perhaps I may quote myself in an interview in the Israeli press on the legitimacy of Palestinian resistance: “We should recall that Gaza and the West Bank are recognized to be a unit, so that if resistance to Israel’s destructive and illegal programs is legitimate within the West Bank (and it would be interesting to see a rational argument to the contrary), then it is legitimate in Gaza as well.”48
Palestinian-American journalist Ali Abunimah observed that “There are no rockets launched at Israel from the West Bank, and yet Israel’s extrajudicial killings, land theft, settler pogroms and kidnappings never stopped for a day during the truce. The western-backed Palestinian Authority of Mahmoud Abbas has acceded to all Israel’s demands. Under the proud eye of United States military advisors, Abbas has assembled `security forces’ to fight the resistance on Israel’s behalf. None of that has spared a single Palestinian in the West Bank from Israel’s relentless colonization” – thanks to firm US backing. The respected Palestinian parliamentarian Dr. Mustapha Barghouti adds that after Bush’s Annapolis extravaganza in November 2007, with much uplifting rhetoric about dedication to peace and justice, Israeli attacks on Palestinians escalated in the West Bank, along with a sharp increase in settlements and Israeli check points. Obviously these criminal actions are not a response to rockets from Gaza, though the converse may well be the case.49
The actions of people resisting brutal occupation can be condemned as criminal and politically foolish, but those who offer no alternative have no moral standing to issue such judgments. The conclusion holds with particular force for Americans who choose to be directly implicated in Israel’s ongoing crimes — by their words, their actions, or their silence. All the more so because there are very clear non-violent alternatives – which, however, have the disadvantage that they bar the programs of illegal expansion that the US strongly supports in practice, while occasionally issuing a mild admonition that they are “unhelpful.”50
Israel has straightforward means to defend itself: put an end to its criminal actions in occupied territories, and accept the long-standing international consensus on a two-state settlement that has been blocked by the US and Israel for over 30 years, since the US first vetoed a Security Council resolution calling for a political settlement in these terms in 1976. I will not once again run through the inglorious record, but it is important to be aware that US-Israeli rejectionism today is even more blatant than in the past. The Arab League has gone even beyond the consensus, calling for full normalization of relations with Israel. Hamas has repeatedly called for a two-state settlement in terms of the international consensus. Iran and Hezbollah have made it clear that they will abide by any agreement that Palestinians accept.51
One can seek ambiguities and incompleteness, but not in the case of the US-Israel, which remain in splendid isolation, not only in words.
The more detailed record is informative. The Palestinian National Council formally accepted the international consensus in 1988. The response of the Shamir-Peres coalition government, affirmed by James Baker’s State Department, was that there cannot be an “additional Palestinian state” between Israel and Jordan – the latter already a Palestinian state by US-Israeli dictate. The Oslo accords that followed explicitly put to the side potential Palestinian national rights: the Declaration of Principles signed with much fanfare on the White House lawn in September 1993 referred only to UN 242, which grants nothing to the Palestinians, while pointedly ignoring subsequent UN declarations, all blocked by Washington, which respect Palestinian national rights. The threat that these rights might be realized in some meaningful form was systematically undermined through the Oslo years by Israel’s steady expansion of illegal settlements, with US support. Settlement accelerated in 2000, President Clinton’s and Prime Minister Barak’s last year, when negotiations took place at Camp David against that background.
After blaming Yassir Arafat for the breakdown of the Camp David negotiations, Clinton backtracked, and recognized that the US-Israeli proposals were too extreme to be acceptable to any Palestinian. In December 2000, he presented his “parameters,” vague but more forthcoming. He then announced that both sides had accepted the parameters, while both expressed reservations. The two sides met in Taba Egypt in January 2001 – four months after the outbreak of the intifida — and came very close to an agreement. They would have been able to do so in a few more days, they said in their final press conference. But the negotiations were cancelled prematurely by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. That week in Taba is the one break in over 30 years of US-Israeli rejectionism. There is no reason why that one break in the record cannot be resumed.52
The preferred version, reiterated by Ethan Bronner, is that “Many abroad recall Mr. Barak as the prime minister who in 2000 went further than any Israeli leader in peace offers to the Palestinians, only to see the deal fail and explode in a violent Palestinian uprising [the intifada] that drove him from power.” It is quite true that “many abroad” believe this deceitful fairy tale, thanks to what Bronner and too many of his colleagues call “journalism.”53
It is commonly claimed that a two-state solution is now unattainable because if the IDF tried to remove settlers, it would lead to a civil war. That may be true, but much more argument is needed. Without resorting to force to expel illegal settlers, the IDF could simply withdraw to whatever boundaries are established by negotiations. The settlers beyond those boundaries would have the choice of leaving their subsidized homes to return to subsidized homes in Israel, or to remain under Palestinian authority. The same was true of the carefully staged “national trauma” in Gaza in 2005, so transparently fraudulent that it was ridiculed by Israeli commentators. It would have sufficed for Israel to announce that the IDF would withdraw, and the settlers who were subsidized to enjoy their life in Gaza would have quietly climbed into the lorries provided to them and travelled to their new subsidized residences in the other occupied territories. But that would not have produced tragic photos of agonized children and passionate calls of “never again,” thus providing a welcome propaganda cover for the real purpose of the partial “disengagement”: expansion of illegal settlement in the rest of the occupied territories.54
To summarize, contrary to the claim that is constantly reiterated, Israel has no right to use force to defend itself against rockets from Gaza, even if they are regarded as terrorist crimes. Furthermore, the reasons are transparent. The pretext for launching the attack is without merit.
There is also a narrower question. Does Israel have peaceful short-term alternatives to the use of force in response to rockets from Gaza. One such alternative would be to accept a ceasefire. Sometimes Israel has formally done so, while quickly violating it. The most recent and currently relevant case is June 2008. The ceasefire called for opening the border crossings to “allow the transfer of all goods that were banned and restricted to go into Gaza.” Israel formally agreed, but immediately announced that it would not abide by the agreement and open the borders until Hamas released Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier captured by Hamas in June 2006.55
After the Gaza invasion, Israel continued to reject Hamas proposals of a ceasefire and long-term truce, again citing the capture of Shalit. Partly on the same grounds, it refused to permit any reconstruction, even the import of macaroni, crayons, tomato paste, lentils, soap, toilet paper, and other such weapons of mass destruction – eliciting some polite queries from Washington.56
The steady drumbeat of accusations about the capture of Shalit is, again, blatant hypocrisy, even putting aside Israel’s long history of kidnapping. In this case, the hypocrisy could not be more glaring. One day before Hamas captured Shalit, Israeli soldiers entered Gaza City and kidnapped two civilians, the Muamar brothers, bringing them to Israel to join the thousands of other prisoners held there, hundreds reportedly without charge. Kidnapping civilians is a far more serious crime than capturing a soldier of an attacking army, but as is the norm, it was barely reported in contrast to the furor over Shalit. And all that remains in memory, blocking peace, is the capture of Shalit, another illustration of the depth of imperial mentality in the West. Shalit should be returned – in a fair prisoner exchange.57
It was after the capture of Shalit that Israel’s unrelenting military attack against Gaza passed from merely vicious to truly sadistic. But it is well to recall that even before his capture, Israel had fired more than 7,700 shells at northern Gaza after its September withdrawal, eliciting virtually no comment.58
After immediately rejecting the June 2008 ceasefire it had formally accepted, Israel maintained its siege. We may recall that a siege is an act of war. In fact, Israel has always insisted on an even stronger principle: hampering access to the outside world, even well short of a siege, is an act of war, justifying massive violence in response. Interference with Israel’s passage through the Straits of Tiran was a large part of the justification offered for Israel’s invasion of Egypt (with France and England) in 1956, and for its launching of the June 1967 war. The siege of Gaza is total, not partial, apart from occasional willingness of the occupiers to relax it slightly. And it is vastly more harmful to Gazans than closing the Straits of Tiran was to Israel. Supporters of Israeli doctrines and actions should therefore have no problem justifying rocket attacks on Israeli territory from the Gaza Strip.
Of course, again we run into the nullifying principle: This is us, that is them.
Israel not only maintained the siege after June 2008, but did so with extreme rigor. It even prevented UNRWA from replenishing its stores, “so when the ceasefire broke down, we ran out of food for the 750,000 who depend on us,” UNRWA director John Ging informed the BBC.59
Despite the Israeli siege, rocketing sharply reduced. According to the spokesperson for the Prime Minister, Mark Regev, there was not a single Hamas rocket among the few that were launched from the onset of the June 2008 ceasefire until November 4, when Israel violated it still more egregiously with a raid into Gaza, leading to the death of 6 Palestinians and a retaliatory barrage of rockets (with no injuries). The raid was on the evening of the US presidential elections, when attention was focused elsewhere. The pretext for the raid was that Israel had detected a tunnel in Gaza that might have been intended for use to capture another Israeli soldier; a “ticking tunnel” in official communiques. The pretext was transparently absurd, as a number of commentators noted. If such a tunnel existed, and reached the border, Israel could easily have barred it right there. But as usual, the ludicrous Israeli pretext was deemed credible, and the timing was overlooked.60
What was the reason for the Israeli raid? We have no internal evidence about Israeli planning, but we do know that the raid came shortly before scheduled Hamas-Fatah talks in Cairo aimed at “reconciling their differences and creating a single, unified government,” British correspondent Rory McCarthy reported. That was to be the first Fatah-Hamas meeting since the June 2007 civil war that left Hamas in control of Gaza, and would have been a significant step towards advancing diplomatic efforts. There is a long history of Israel provocations to deter the threat of diplomacy, some already mentioned. This may have been another one.61
The civil war that left Hamas in control of Gaza is commonly described as a Hamas military coup, demonstrating again their evil nature. The real world a little different. The civil war was incited by the US and Israel, in a crude attempt at a military coup to overturn the free elections that brought Hamas to power. That has been public knowledge at least since April 2008, when David Rose published a detailed and documented account of how Bush, Rice, and Deputy National-Security Adviser Elliott Abrams “backed an armed force under Fatah strongman Muhammad Dahlan, touching off a bloody civil war in Gaza and leaving Hamas stronger than ever.” The account was corroborated by Norman Olsen, who served for 26 years in the Foreign Service, including four years working in the Gaza Strip and four years at the US Embassy in Tel Aviv, and then moved on to become associate coordinator for counterterrorism at the Department of State. Olson and his son detail the State Department shenanigans intended to ensure that their candidate, Abbas, would win in the January 2006 elections – in which case it would have been hailed as a triumph of democracy. After the election-fixing failed, the US and Israel turned to the punishment of Palestinians for voting the wrong way, and began arming a militia run by Fatah strong-man Muhammad Dahlan. But “Dahlan’s thugs moved too soon,” the Olsons write, and a Hamas pre-emptive strike undermined the coup attempt.62
The Party Line is more convenient.
The US-Israel responded to the failed coup attempt by introducing far harsher measures to punish the people of Gaza, and to ensure that that the plague of disobedience would not spread to the rest of Palestine. Together with Jordan, the US undertook to arm and train more efficient Palestinian “security force” to maintain order in the West Bank, under the direction of US General Keith Dayton. Israeli military officers participate as well, Ethan Bronner reported in the New York Times, describing how “An Israeli officer inaugurated the firing range here, shooting a Palestinian weapon to test it and give his seal of approval.” The major achievement of the new paramilitary force, Bronner elaborated, was to have “maintained tight order” to prevent any kind of “uprising” – that is, significant show of sympathy and support – while Israel slaughtered Palestinians in Gaza and reduced much of it to rubble.
The effective performance of these forces also impressed Senate Foreign Relations Committee chair John Kerry. In his address to the Brookings Institution, he spoke eloquently of “the need to give the Israelis a legitimate partner for peace,” which they evidently lacked during the decades of unilateral US-Israeli rejection of the international consensus on a peace settlement, which the Palestinian Liberation Organization supported, along with the Arab states (and the world, outside the US-Israel). We must overcome this failure, Kerry explained, suggesting several ways to weaken the elected government and strengthen our man Mahmoud Abbas. “Most importantly,” Kerry went on, “this means strengthening General Dayton’s efforts to train Palestinian security forces that can keep order and fight terror…Recent developments have been extremely encouraging: During the invasion of Gaza, Palestinian Security Forces largely succeeded in maintaining calm in the West Bank amidst widespread expectations of civil unrest. Obviously, more remains to be done, but we can help do it.”63
So we can. The US has had a century of rich experience in developing paramilitary and police forces to pacify conquered populations and to impose the structure of a long-lasting coercive security state that undermines nationalist and popular aspirations and sustains obedience to the wealthy classes and their foreign associates.64
After Israel broke the June 2008 ceasefire (such as it was) in November, the siege was tightened further, with even more disastrous consequences for the population. According to Sara Roy, the leading academic specialist on Gaza, “On Nov. 5, Israel sealed all crossing points into Gaza, vastly reducing and at times denying food supplies, medicines, fuel, cooking gas, and parts for water and sanitation systems” “During November, an average of 4.6 trucks of food per day entered Gaza from Israel compared with an average of 123 trucks per day in October. Spare parts for the repair and maintenance of water-related equipment have been denied entry for over a year. The World Health Organization just reported that half of Gaza’s ambulances are now out of order” – and the rest soon became targets for Israeli attack. Gaza’s only power station was forced to suspend operation for lack of fuel, and could not be started up again because they needed spare parts, which had been sitting in the Israeli port of Ashdod for 8 months. Shortage of electricity led to a 300% increase in burn cases at Shifaa’ hospital in the Gaza Strip, resulting from efforts to light wood fires. Israel barred shipment of Chlorine, so that by mid-December in Gaza City and the north access to water was limited to six hours every three days. The human consequences are not counted among Palestinian victims of Israeli terror.65
After the November 4 Israeli attack, both sides escalated violence (all deaths were Palestinian) until the ceasefire formally ended on Dec. 19, and Prime Minister Olmert authorized the full-scale invasion.
A few days earlier Hamas had proposed to return to the original July ceasefire agreement, which Israel had not observed. Historian and former Carter administration high official Robert Pastor passed the proposal to a “senior official” in the IDF, but Israel did not respond. The head of Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security agency, was quoted in Israeli sources on December 21 as saying that Hamas is interested in continuing the “calm” with Israel, while its military wing is continuing preparations for conflict.
“There clearly was an alternative to the military approach to stopping the rockets,” Pastor said, keeping to the narrow issue of Gaza. There was also a more far-reaching alternative, which is rarely discussed: namely, accepting a political settlement including all of the occupied territories.66
Israel’s senior diplomatic correspondent Akiva Eldar reports that shortly before Israel launched its full-scale invasion on Saturday Dec. 27, “Hamas politburo chief Khaled Meshal announced on the Iz al-Din al-Qassam Web site that he was prepared not only for a `cessation of aggression’ — he proposed going back to the arrangement at the Rafah crossing as of 2005, before Hamas won the elections and later took over the region. That arrangement was for the crossing to be managed jointly by Egypt, the European Union, the Palestinian Authority presidency and Hamas,” and as noted earlier, called for opening of the crossings to desperately needed supplies.67
A standard claim of the more vulgar apologists for Israeli violence is that in the case of the current assault, “as in so many instances in the past half century – the Lebanon War of 1982, the `Iron Fist’ response to the 1988 intifada, the Lebanon War of 2006 – the Israelis have reacted to intolerable acts of terror with a determination to inflict terrible pain, to teach the enemy a lesson. The civilian suffering and deaths are inevitable; the lessons less so” (New Yorker editor David Remnick).68 The 2006 invasion can be justified only on the grounds of appalling cynicism, as already discussed. The reference to the vicious response to the 1988 intifada is too depraved even to discuss; a sympathetic interpretation might be that it reflects astonishing ignorance. But Remnick’s claim about the 1982 invasion is quite common, a remarkable feat of incessant propaganda, which merits a few reminders. The lessons, particularly about American intellectuals, are all too easy to recognize, though hardly “inevitable.”
Uncontroversially, the Israel-Lebanon border was quiet for a year before the Israeli invasion, at least from Lebanon to Israel, north to south. Through the year, the PLO scrupulously observed a US-initiated ceasefire, despite constant Israeli provocations, including bombing with many civilian casualties, presumably intended to elicit some reaction that could be used to justify Israel’s planned invasion. The best Israel could achieve was two light symbolic responses. It then invaded with a pretext too absurd to be taken seriously.
The invasion had nothing to do with “intolerable acts of terror,” though it did have to do with intolerable acts: of diplomacy. That has never been obscure. Shortly after the US-backed invasion began, Israel’s leading academic specialist on the Palestinians, Yehoshua Porath – no dove — wrote that Arafat’s success in maintaining the ceasefire constituted “a veritable catastrophe in the eyes of the Israeli government,” since it opened the way to a political settlement. The government hoped that the PLO would resort to terrorism, undermining the threat that it would be “a legitimate negotiating partner for future political accommodations.”
The facts were well-understood in Israel, and not concealed. Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir stated that Israel went to war because there was “a terrible danger… Not so |
Bernie Sanders on the campaign trail is quite good. His rap on income inequality and the distorting effects of big money in American politics is persuasive and effective. But as I listened to him speak in Nashua last week, I couldn’t help notice there was something missing from his stump speech: Republicans.
It’s a bit of an odd omission, seeing as Sanders is running for the Democratic nomination for president. But it also speaks to one of the fundamental problems with Sanders’ campaign and his theory of political change.
Now to be sure, it’s not as if Sanders fails to criticize Republicans (he does); it’s that his focus lies elsewhere.
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He says, “What we’ve got to do is create a political revolution which revitalizes American democracy; which brings millions of young people and working people into the political process.” In a recent speech on Wall Street, he listed the iniquities of the One Percent, but never mentioned the GOP.
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This language is at pace with a campaign message that views money, not Republicans, as the true impediment to transformative political change. But just a cursory review of the past seven years of American politics suggests that Sanders is wrong.
First and foremost, to say that nothing real will happen until we have a political revolution is refuted by history. Since President Obama took office, Congress passed a health care law that expanded access to 20 million people, reformed the student loan program, made massive investments in clean energy and infrastructure, and strengthened financial regulation. What allowed this to happen wasn’t a political revolution. It also wasn’t even the election of a Democratic president. The simple fact is that much of this happened because Democrats, for a brief period, had a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate and control of the House.
Democrats have enjoyed far less success now that Republicans control Congress. GOP opposition on Capitol Hill is not simply a result of campaign donations from Sheldon Adelson, the Koch brothers, and Wall Street — three of Sanders’ key bogeymen. It wasn’t these folks that had the most to lose from health care reform; and indeed many on Wall Street and in the business community disagreed with Republican opposition to immigration and watched in horror as Republicans in Congress played chicken with the debt limit. The driver for these efforts is politics and the ideological preferences of Republican politicians and voters.
But the second problem here is that Sanders, though running as a Democrat, is diminishing, even disrespecting, the accomplishments of Democrats. Implicit in Sanders’ call for single-payer health care is that Obamacare is simply inadequate to the challenge of ensuring greater access to care and cutting costs. Implicit in Sanders’ call for greater financial regulation is that Dodd-Frank is inadequate reform. Implicit in Sanders’ call for free higher education is that Democratic efforts to improve the student loan program and ensure free tuition for community college is that these measures are insufficient.
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Now of course Sanders would likely suggest that one needs a political revolution to ensure the kind of changes that go beyond these half-measures. But if one believes that, why is Sanders running for president?
Surely, because he serves in the Senate, Sanders knows that a public option in Obamacare didn’t fail because Obama didn’t advocate for it; it failed because Democrats in Congress refused to go along with it.
If it is Congress — particularly Republicans — that has blocked reform, shouldn’t Sanders’ focus be on electing more liberal Democrats to Congress?
I asked his campaign how much time he’s spent over the years helping Democrats get elected to Congress. I didn’t get a response. But it bears noting that Sanders isn’t even a Democrat, and from my admittedly crude Google searches I couldn’t find much evidence that he’s actively campaigned on behalf of Democratic House and Senate candidates.
That stands in contrast to his opponents, Martin O’Malley and Hillary Clinton. O’Malley criticized Sanders during the last Democratic debate for not campaigning on behalf of Democratic candidates in South Carolina. For her part, Clinton campaigned in 20 states at the tail end of the 2014 midterm election. In fact, while Clinton helped to raise $18 million for Democrats in 2015, Sanders didn’t raise a dime for the DNC — and she’s identified helping down-ballot Democrats and rebuilding local Democratic parties as top priorities.
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As Sanders, who has been in Washington for decades surely must know, Congress today is a dysfunctional mess, one in which Republicans block pretty much every single reform effort proposed by Democrats. Why would President Sanders be successful in overcoming Republican obstructionism? If he believes the key to creating a political revolution would come through overturning Citizen United or ending the influence of super PACS or moving toward public funding of elections or ending redistricting, how exactly would he accomplish that?
The point of course is that he wouldn’t, not without a solid majority of Democrats in Congress and even then much of his agenda would be open to negotiation.
Now, in fairness, lots of presidential candidates talk about legislation on the campaign trail that has no chance of becoming law. Clinton is just as guilty of this, but she’s not the one talking about a political revolution or being indifferent about electing more Democrats to Congress.
If anything, political change in America rarely begins with the actions of presidents — it usually ends with them, as political leaders, pushed by activists and social movements, are often the last group to jump on a political bandwagon. This has been true from enacting laws to protect workers and the civil rights movement to more modern fights in support of same-sex marriage.
Sanders’ focus on the presidency as a spark for massive political change is a particular affliction that affects the Democratic Party, where more emphasis is placed on electing a president than on the hard work of electing Democrats not just to Congress but at the state and local level, too.
In a sense, this is what is so troubling about what Sanders is doing. It’s not just that he is presenting his supporters with a simplistic understanding of how political change happens, he is merely setting them up for crushing disappointment. If, by some outside chance, Sanders became president, his agenda would be dead on arrival. We’d see four more years of gridlock and four more years of dysfunction. If Sanders really wanted to push his agenda, he would have spent the last few years electing like-minded Democrats to Congress. But I suppose that’s less fun than running for president.
Michael A. Cohen’s column appears regularly in the Globe. Foll0w him on Twitter @speechboy71It might be useful to distinguish between pleasure and joy. But maybe everybody does this very easily, all the time, and only I am confused. A lot of people seem to feel that joy is only the most intense version of pleasure, arrived at by the same road—you simply have to go a little further down the track. That has not been my experience. And if you asked me if I wanted more joyful experiences in my life, I wouldn’t be at all sure I did, exactly because it proves such a difficult emotion to manage. It’s not at all obvious to me how we should make an accommodation between joy and the rest of our everyday lives.
Perhaps the first thing to say is that I experience at least a little pleasure every day. I wonder if this is more than the usual amount? It was the same even in childhood when most people are miserable. I don’t think this is because so many wonderful things happen to me but rather that the small things go a long way. I seem to get more than the ordinary satisfaction out of food, for example—any old food. An egg sandwich from one of these grimy food vans on Washington Square has the genuine power to turn my day around. Whatever is put in front of me, foodwise, will usually get a five-star review.
You’d think that people would like to cook for, or eat with, me—in fact I’m told it’s boring. Where there is no discernment there can be no awareness of expertise or gratitude for special effort. “Don’t say that was delicious,” my husband warns, “you say everything’s delicious.” “But it was delicious.” It drives him crazy. All day long I can look forward to a popsicle. The persistent anxiety that fills the rest of my life is calmed for as long as I have the flavor of something good in my mouth. And though it’s true that when the flavor is finished the anxiety returns, we do not have so many reliable sources of pleasure in this life as to turn our nose up at one that is so readily available, especially here in America. A pineapple popsicle. Even the great anxiety of writing can be stilled for the eight minutes it takes to eat a pineapple popsicle.
My other source of daily pleasure is—but I wish I had a better way of putting it—“other people’s faces.” A red-headed girl, with a marvelous large nose she probably hates, and green eyes and that sun-shy complexion composed more of freckles than skin. Or a heavyset grown man, smoking a cigarette in the rain, with a soggy mustache, above which, a…
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Copyright © 2013 Zadie SmithThe Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday moved forward a top Defense Department nominee, despite questions earlier this month about potential conflicts of interest with his prior employer.
The committee voted to send to the full Senate Lockheed Martin International senior vice president John Rood, who's on track to be the next undersecretary of Defense for policy, as well as Randall Schriver, to be the assistant secretary for Asian-Pacific affairs.
Rood drew the ire of committee members at his nomination hearing on Nov. 16 when he would not confirm to Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) that he would not seek a waiver that would allow him to participate in matters involving Lockheed in his new role.
When pressed by Warren on whether he would commit not to seek such a waiver, Rood would not rule it out.
After a brief back-and-forth, Committee Chairman Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) grew frustrated with Rood’s replies, accused him of ducking the inquiry and suggested he “answer the question or you're going to have trouble getting through this committee.”
McCain added that he would give Rood the question in writing. Rood's written response was not immediately available, but seemed to satisfy the committee enough to push forward his nomination.
The White House in October named Rood to take over the top Pentagon policy position. Should he be confirmed by the full Senate, he would be one of five undersecretaries that fall directly under Defense Secretary James Mattis James Norman MattisOvernight Defense: Trump to hold one-on-one with Kim | What to watch as summit kicks off | Top general dodges on Trump emergency declaration Retired officers express 'grave concern' with Trump's defense of transgender military policy Trump backs off total Syria withdrawal MORE.Santa Monica Studio will be at SIGGRAPH from July 30th to August 3rd, speaking to interested job candidates. Email [email protected] to schedule an appointment or visit http://sms.playstation.com/careers for more information.
Since 2005, we’ve pushed the technology on the PlayStation platform to create legendary, impossible moments of action-adventure lore in God of War. The word “epic” has always been synonymous with the design and tech methodologies of our game, and we know our fans worldwide have felt this since Kratos first encountered the Hydra on the Aegean Sea.
Now, over 10 years later, we are taking God of War into a bold new direction. This time, we follow Kratos and his son, Atreus, as they embark on a dangerous and deeply personal journey into the brutal Norse wild. This shift in direction required us to evolve our technology dramatically. From new, unflinching dynamic combat to a game camera that never cuts away from start to finish, to the vast world of Norse mythology that we’re establishing, we’d like to share with you some of the key technological highlights that are making this possible on PlayStation -- and maybe you'd like to join us on this new journey.
Building An Integral Companion: Atreus
One of the core pillars in evolving God of War is Kratos' son, Atreus, from both a story and gameplay perspective. Our Engineering Lead, Jeet Shroff (pictured left), discussed the team’s approach to the character.
"At the heart of this adventure, this game is about the relationship that exists between Kratos and his son," said Shroff. "Atreus plays an important role in giving Kratos the motivation he needs to want to change and bury his vengeful past. He looks to the boy as someone he must protect and struggles to bond with him."
"In turn, Atreus aids his father in many ways throughout the journey. To reinforce this theme, we didn’t shy away from limiting their relationship to just the narrative. In gameplay, Atreus plays a key role in autonomously aiding and complementing Kratos while navigating through this foreign land as well as being an extension to his arsenal in combat."
"In addition, the player can use a face button to have Atreus translate runes, solve puzzles and use his full depth in battle from dividing the field to tag teaming and following up on enemies," said Shroff. "Whether the player uses the son strategically or to enhance combos, there are lots of interesting aspects of gameplay that we’ve been striving for with Atreus."
With these goals in mind, our team knew they needed to focus on building a systemic AI for Atreus that would be able to scale and handle the different cases and maintain his believability across both the narrative and gameplay. Shroff commented on the key focal points in building Atreus' AI as well as praising our team’s collaborative work and persistence throughout the process.
"We worked hard on developing his positioning, traversal, progression and combat loops as core systems and not just specific moments of gameplay," he said. "The animation systems also needed to account for the fast paced combat, while keeping things grounded. We had to meticulously plan for all the situations Atreus might be in as he seamlessly transitioned back and forth between narrative and gameplay with the no cut camera (which Dori will go into more detail below)."
"From the outset, we knew this would be a monumental challenge. Having the inclusion of the son in the game made us rethink how we approached every aspect of God of War. The design, tech and animations needed to be in lockstep, and we had to make sure that every team was actively engaged in dealing with the son and coming up with solutions together to bring him to life."
Utilizing the Power of the PS4
Evolving the God of War franchise, our team created ambitious technical benchmarks that would push the power of the PlayStation 4. Our Principal Programmer, Florian Strauss (pictured right), discussed our team’s visual foundation.
"We’re aiming for a grounded, realistic style, set in an environment that feels like a real place but with fantastical elements. In order to achieve this look, we needed to make the switch to physical-based rendering."
These goals also extended to the rich detail on all of the characters. Florian continued, “We wanted to read subtle emotions on characters' faces and used specific technology to help achieve this, such as pose-space deformation, which was previously only used in films, and very accurate lighting to make the characters look right."
To fulfill these visual ambitions, our development team had to learn a host of new skills on top of using pre-existing development tools. Florian discussed our team’s transition to the new hardware.
"There is much more power available on the PS4 than there was on the PS3, and the hardware does a lot more in order to hide latency, which required a different strategy for getting the best possible performance," he said. "One surprise was that sometimes it was faster to do something brute force than through 'clever' optimizations, as it resulted in better pipelining and an overall better performance.”
An Impossible Camera – One Shot, You’ll Never Turn Away
At the origin stage of establishing a new direction for God of War, Creative Director, Cory Barlog, challenged our team with a seemingly impossible technical goal: no camera cuts in the game. Our Director of Photography, Dori Arazi, laid out the motivations.
"The reason we went for this type of camera boils down to two concepts: we wanted to create a very immersive story with a lot of empathy for the heroes. This required a new approach in how we frame the action for the series. Gameplay in general is a non-interruptive camera experience, but when the camera cuts to a sequence of controlled narrative, you're now breaking that sense of immersion."
The end result was an amazing combination of creative inspiration, new uses of tried-and-true technology, and physical camerawork that had to be perfect. Dori explained, "We spent a lot of time tweaking the virtual mocap equipment to figure out how to get the right controls on the camera, operate it for a significant amount of time while doing this in real-time and not shooting the camera in post. Our team also did an amazing job in creating a gameplay camera that the player can control that has the same sensitivity and sensibility of a documentary camera."
Come join us!
These notable achievements are just a sample of the incredible technology simmering under the hood and bringing our new God of War to life. Suffice to say, by pushing the evolution of our technology, we were able to push their creativity and vision of how we wanted to usher in a Norse era of God of War. These ambitions are what we hope will inspire those who want to join our family.
Home to over 250 world class creatives, our studio continues to work hard on evolving the God of War franchise in significant ways. Have questions about the game or want to inquire about how to join our journey? We’ll be at SIGGRAPH from July 30th to August 3rd, speaking to interested candidates. Email [email protected] to schedule an appointment or visit http://sms.playstation.com/careers for more information.PayPal president David Marcus is in a hurry. He’s got new payments products to roll out—ones that will ease e-commerce, speed up real-world transactions, and spread PayPal’s reach in the apps on your phone.
So he’s got a new logo to roll out. Expect to see it a lot of places starting Wednesday—including, for the first time, in your living room, through PayPal’s first-ever American TV advertisements.
Hanging Up A New Sign At The Store
Who cares about a new logo, right? It’s easy to see PayPal’s rebranding as an exercise in corporate self-congratulation, the eBay subsidiary breaking its virtual arm patting itself on the back. Admittedly, Marcus has moved quickly on many fronts to fix PayPal’s problems, from its needlessly complex application programming interfaces to its user-surly customer service, as he told the audience at a ReadWriteMix event in January.
Logos in the digital age aren’t just a matter of the sign at company headquarters, though. Everyone from app developers to online merchants to physical retailers like Home Depot and Jamba Juice to everyday eBay sellers display the PayPal logo to indicate they accept PayPal for payment. As PayPal mounts an aggressive push to refresh existing services and roll out new ones, the old logo was holding it back, Marcus told ReadWrite in an interview.
David Marcus greets attendees at the January 2014 ReadWriteMix event at Say Space in San Francisco.
“The new in-context checkout experience that we’re rolling out globally [and] a bunch of new experiences across all of our products—as we push all of these experiences out there, we wanted to have a better identity with a new modern design,” Marcus said. “There’s a lot of integration that has to happen at the merchant level as well. We might as well do it at a time when we don’t have to go back to these guys and say, ‘Update your buttons because we have a new identity.’”
PayPal = People
PayPal’s original white logo got replaced by a blue version in 2007, and was updated with slightly rounder type in 2012. But those changes didn’t address the rise of mobile and the need for a simpler, more compact symbol that worked well on mobile devices, embedded within apps, and on storefronts.
The new symbol combines a double-P “monogram” with a modified “PayPal” logotype. The monogram, which Marcus likens to Nike’s distinctive “swoosh,” is meant to allude to people coming together, a major theme of PayPal’s television campaign. It will also become the new icon for PayPal’s mobile app, and appear alone in other contexts as well.
“We also wanted to have a shorter form of expression,” Marcus told me. “That gives us a lot more freedom.”
PayPal’s thinking here reminds me a bit of the design process Google worked through in 2008 to find a new icon that would display well on mobile phones.
Marcus and his team worked with Yves Béhar’s Fuseproject, a design firm that has serviced Jawbone and Nivea, as well as earlier industrial-design projects for PayPal, like its in-store Beacon device and its Here credit-card swiper. The project kicked off in December—a fast timeframe considering the quantity of products and scale of change involved.
The new television commercial ads—as well as print, outdoor, and in-store ads—will start running this summer in PayPal’s major markets, including the U.S., Germany and the UK. (It’s not a global first: PayPal had previously run some TV ads in Australia, Turkey and Israel. Australia will also see PayPal’s new ad campaign.)
Here’s one of the new commercials:
And here’s a visual history of PayPal’s logos:
What do you think of the new logo? Take a poll:The Top 10 Most Ridiculous Quotes Donald Trump Has Ever Said
Love him. Hate him. Really hate him. There's no denying that The Donald is entertaining. If you look up "buffoon" in the dictionary, you'll see the definition of a buffoon... which is what Donald Trump is. Here's to him providing us with much more entertainment and funny pictures up until the 2016 election.
And check out these incredible Trump Memes, or the YUGE list of Space Force memes. And don't forget about the tremendous Trump Quotes and Trump Executive Order Memes, which have been doing alot, really just so much, lately and we need to mention those too before we finish. And we really can't forget the classic Trump Memes such as Trump looking at Solar Eclipse and Trump Meeting Obama Memes. And for the holidays, look at this Trump with holiday sign which was an incredibly photoshopped image. People have told me they have never seen an image photoshopped so much, can you believe it?Howard Charles Lincoln (born February 14, 1940) is an American lawyer and businessman, known primarily for being the former chairman of Nintendo of America and the former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Seattle Mariners baseball team, representing absentee majority owner Hiroshi Yamauchi until Yamauchi died on September 19, 2013.
Biography [ edit ]
Born in Oakland, California, Lincoln was an active Boy Scout. As a thirteen-year-old boy, he posed for the famous Norman Rockwell painting The Scoutmaster, which was published in a calendar in 1956.[1] In the painting, young Lincoln is on the immediate right of the campfire. Lincoln eventually attained the rank of Eagle Scout and received a Distinguished Eagle Scout Award.
Lincoln matriculated in 1957 at the University of California, Berkeley, where he earned his BA in political science in 1962 and his law degree from Berkeley Law in 1965. From 1966 to 1970, he served as a Naval lieutenant within the Judge Advocate General's Corps. He then worked in private practice as an attorney in Seattle, Washington. There he did legal work in 1981 for Nintendo, culminating in the legal case Universal City Studios, Inc. v. Nintendo Co., Ltd., in which Universal City Studios had sued Nintendo claiming that the video game Donkey Kong infringed upon Universal City Studio's rights to King Kong. Lincoln hired John Kirby to represent Nintendo in the courtroom. Nintendo won the case, as well as successive court appeals.
Lincoln joined Nintendo in 1983, as its Senior Vice President and General Counsel. He and Minoru Arakawa were instrumental in rebuilding the North American video game industry (after the crash of 1983) with their highly successful marketing of the Nintendo Entertainment System.[2] In 1994, he was appointed its chairman.[citation needed]
Lincoln's tenure as CEO of the Seattle Mariners has seen both success and controversy. Lincoln was considered instrumental, along with former Senator Slade Gorton, in preserving the team's location in Seattle and negotiating with the city for a new stadium, Safeco Field. His stewardship has seen the team's first post-season appearances, in 1995, 1997, 2000, and 2001, as well as the aggressive expansion of the Mariners into the Japanese market, most noticeably through the acquisition of Japanese superstar Ichiro Suzuki. However, Lincoln is also held responsible by many for the team's stagnation and decline following 2001. His inability to retain successful field managers and general managers like Lou Piniella and Pat Gillick, carte-blanche attitude towards superstar players, contentious relationship with local media, and pattern of questionable hiring decisions led to increasing calls within the fanbase for Lincoln to assume a less-active administrative role.
In addition to Lincoln's business achievements, he is an active philanthropist. He has served as campaign chair for United Way of King County and the Chief Seattle Council of the Boy Scouts of America. He is also a trustee of Western Washington University.[citation needed]
References [ edit ]Just because voting is subjective does not mean voters can't be wrong. So, with the knowledge that no ballot will make everyone happy, and with sincere appreciation for the BBWAA making all ballots public, let's hand out some awards to the most mystifying, inexplicable, and just downright terrible MLB awards voters.
Worst single vote
Third runner-up: Enrique Rojas, ESPN Deportes, NL ROY. Bryce Harper took this award, but not without a fight: Diamondbacks pitcher Wade Miley tied the wild card-era record for wins by a rookie. Both were legitimate candidates. Then there's Wilin Rosario, who had a quality year at the plate, but was just terrible behind it. He led MLB catchers in errors and passed balls. He ended up on only four of 32 ballots, and only Rojas voted him first.
Second runner-up: Doug Padilla, ESPN Chicago, NL MVP. Here is a player's triple-slash:.253/.319/.425. In a sane world, that player's team is wondering if they have anyone at AAA to replace him (for $10 million cheaper, in this instance). In Padilla's world, Hunter Pence was the 10th best player in the National League.
First runner-up: Drew Davison, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, AL Cy Young. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with voting a closer for Cy Young—at least in a year where there are no dominant starters. In 2012, Justin Verlander's numbers were nearly identical to his previous Cy-worthy season, and David Price was even better than him. Davison gave Fernando Rodney his only first-place vote. (No one else had him higher than third.)
Winner: Sheldon Ocker, Akron Beacon Journal, AL MVP. Cabrera, Trout. Trout, Cabrera. Either combination is defensible. Ocker had Trout third, behind Adrian Beltre. There is no metric, advanced or otherwise, that can seriously justify this.
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Worst homer vote
Third runner-up: John Fay, Cincinnati Enquirer, NL CY Young. We get it. You cover the Reds. Johnny Cueto still wasn't the best pitcher in the NL.
Second runner-up: Bill Center, San Diego Union-Tribune, NL Manager. I'm sure Bud Black gave good quotes. Managers that win 76 games don't deserve even a token third-place vote.
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First runner-up: Michi Murayama, Tokyo Chunichi Sports, AL ROY. Yu Darvish is Japanese. Wei-Yin Chen is also Asian.
Winner: Mark Gonzales, Chicago Tribune, AL MVP. The common refrain from beat writers is that they get to see a player every day, so they can better judge his contributions than, say, a national media member. If true, the corollary would be that they see almost nothing of players from other teams, and thus have zero context and ought to recuse themselves from league-wide voting. Alex Rios is the fifth-best AL player only to someone who just watches White Sox games and the occasional SportsCenter.
Worst overall ballot
Third runner-up: Tracy Ringolsby, Fox Sports, NL MVP. He wasn't the best pitcher in his league. He may not have been the best closer in his league. Craig Kimbrel is second on Ringolsby's ballot. (He also has Matt Holliday, Ryan Zimmerman, Brandon Phillips, and Gio Gonzalez higher than they are on any other ballot.)
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Second runner-up: Mark Feinsand, New York Daily News, AL MVP. A healthy dose of homerism here, as Feinsand has Derek Jeter third (one of only two voters who did) and Rafael Soriano eighth (the only one who did). Then we noticed Robinson Cano had been left off completely, and are confused.
First runner-up: John Maffei, North County Times, NL MVP. Andrew McCutchen second. Jay Bruce fifth. Allen Craig seventh. At first we thought Maffei's ballot must have accidentally read "NL Central MVP," but then we realized he was the only voter to leave Yadier Molina off completely.
Winner: John Lowe, Detroit Free Press, AL MVP. This is a ballot filled out by clicking "random" on Baseball Reference, or perhaps by having a pet rooster peck at box scores. This is "the top 10 players John Lowe can think of right now." Orioles closer Jim Johnson is third. Jeter is fifth, and Cano is nowhere to be seen. Fernando Rodney is seventh. And Raul Ibanez—pre-playoff Ibanez, who didn't start 100 games and had a bWAR of 0.3—that Raul Ibanez is 10th, because fuck you, that's why.I’ve been thinking about why conversations about religion between atheists and believers often go south: why they often feel so loaded, so heated, so personal. I think I have a partial answer, and I want to run it by y’all.
For most atheists, religion is an idea. It’s a hypothesis, a truth claim about how the world works and why it is the way it is. It’s the claim that the world works the way it does, in part, because of invisible supernatural entities or forces acting on the world. It’s not a very good hypothesis — in many cases, it’s entirely unfalsifiable, which makes it pretty much useless, and in the cases where it is falsifiable it’s been pretty soundly falsified — but it’s still a hypothesis.
But for many believers, religion is an identity. They see it as a central part of who they are: like race, or gender, or sexual identity. They don’t see themselves as having, say, Catholic or Baptist or Muslim ideas about how the world works. They see themselves as Catholic or Baptist or Muslim.
So when atheists criticize the idea of religion — either the specific ideas of a specific religion, or the idea of religion generally — the believers take it personally. They don’t see it as a critique of an idea they hold which may or may not be correct. They experience it as a personal attack.
So what can atheists do about it?
Unsurprisingly, I happen to think that atheists are right about this. Religion is an idea. I mean, of course there are elements to it that has to do with culture and family and history and so on. But that’s not unique to religion. There are plenty of cultural and familial and historical traditions that have jack to do with religion. What makes religion unique — what sets it apart from all other cultural and familial and historical traditions, from all other philosophies and ideologies and so on — is the hypothesis that supernatural beings or forces act on the natural world. Without this idea, it’s not religion.
And while there’s obviously an element of religion that has to do with culture and family and history and so on, the identity can be separated from the idea. Look at the phenomenon of secular Jews, or secular Catholics. It’s entirely possible for these folks to keep their identity — their association with a cultural and familial tradition — while thoroughly and cheerfully shedding the hypothesis, the actual belief in supernatural beings.
So I think atheists are right about this. Religion is not an identity. Or rather, it’s only tangentially an identity. Religion is an idea.
But the fact that many believers see religion as an identity makes it harder for atheists to talk with them about it. They see their religion the way many gay people see being gay, or the way many black people see being black — as a core part of their being. And so they often treat any criticism of their beliefs, or even any questioning of it, as an insult, even a personal attack, to this central part of who they are.
So what can we do about that?
I have a couple of ideas about this — but I’m very much thinking this one out loud, and would welcome any new ideas I might not have thought of.
First: I think we need to keep hammering on the idea. We need to keep criticizing it, and criticizing it, and criticizing it.
A big part of what makes religion flourish is the special treatment it gets. The idea that religion is special and should be treated differently from other human ideas and activities is a ridiculously common one. It’s common to think that its leaders deserve special deference, that its holy places and relics should be treated with reverence, that people who are unusually religious must also be unusually virtuous, that it’s inherently rude or bigoted to criticize it. In the marketplace of ideas, religion gets a free ride. In an armored tank.
So criticizing religion doesn’t just have the effect of sometimes persuading people out of it. It also has the effect of repositioning religion as just another idea. It has the effect of treating religion the same way we treat ideas about politics, science, art, philosophy, medicine, ethics, social policy, etc. — namely, as fair game. Ideas that have to stand up on their own. Ideas that are only as good as the evidence and reason supporting them. Ideas that can be questioned and challenged and made fun of and blasted into shrapnel, just like any other. Criticizing religion doesn’t just expose religion as a singularly bad, entirely indefensible idea. It reframes it as an idea, period.
And that is a win for us. It’s a win for the obvious reason: because the idea sucks, and when it’s pulled out of the armored tank and forced to stand on its own, it folds like a house of cards in a hurricane. But it’s also a win because, if believers can see their beliefs as an idea rather than as an identity, they’ll cling to it less tightly, and they’ll take critiques of it less personally, and the conversations will be less likely to go south.
So if we want to shift the thinking about religion from “identity” to “idea,” we should hammer on the idea. What else can we do?
I think that when we do hammer on the idea, we need to be very careful, and very rigorous, about hammering the idea without insulting the people.
We need to be very careful to say, “That idea makes no rational sense” — and not say, “You’re irrational.” We need to be very careful to say, “That idea is entirely divorced from reality” — and not say, “You are entirely divorced from reality.” We need to be very careful to say, “That’s a ridiculous and stupid idea” — and not say, “You are ridiculous and stupid.”
For one thing — it’s not true. Okay, sometimes it is. Some religious believers are stupid. You know what? Some atheists are stupid, too. But many religious believers are, on the whole, intelligent and reasonable people in most areas of their lives. Yes, they hold a stupid idea. If holding a stupid idea made you not intelligent and reasonable, we’d all be idiots. The tendency to hang on to bad ideas we’ve committed to is a fundamental human trait, a central part of how our brain works. We all do it. Atheists, believers — all of us. It doesn’t make us stupid. It makes us human.
So we shouldn’t say all religious believers are stupid — because it’s not true. And it also doesn’t help. Specifically — and back to the point at hand — it reinforces the idea that religious belief is an identity. Which is exactly what we’re trying not to do. If someone has been taught that their Catholicism makes them special and virtuous, saying that their Catholicism makes them stupid and crazy reinforces the idea that Catholicism = them. Saying that they’re a smart person who’s holding onto a bad idea that they really ought to reconsider… that helps divorce the idea from their identity. Which helps make the arguments less ugly and divisive — and helps us win the arguments in the bargain.
There are some times when the “personal insult” tactic might be appropriate. Public figures, for instance, I think are fair game. And there are times when it’s just irresistible. When professor Stephen Prothero wrote in USA Today that the atheist movement needed more women because women are so much more sweet and diplomatic, there was no way I could keep myself from responding, “Suck my dick, you pompous windbag.” (Or, to be more precise: “Suck my dick, you pompous windbag. You think getting more women into the atheist movement means you won’t have to face a fight? Bring it on. You smug, patronizing, cowardly, sexist prick.”) When it comes to public confrontations with public figures, a nice bit of creative invective can be bracing, a surgical scalpel cutting through the bafflegab and the treacle. But I think we need to use it very judiciously. And in conversations with non-public figures, in conversations with our friends and family and colleagues and community, I think it’s almost never useful.
Now, even if we are being careful and rigorous about critiquing ideas and not insulting people, believers won’t always notice. Again — the whole problem here is that many believers have a hard time separating the idea from the identity, and they reflexively treat critiques |
Hide Caption 11 of 13 Photos: Popes and Presidents Popes and Presidents – President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama meet with Pope Benedict XVI in his library at the Vatican on July 10, 2009. Hide Caption 12 of 13 Photos: Popes and Presidents Popes and Presidents – President Barack Obama and Pope Francis exchange gifts during a private audience on March 27, 2014 at the Vatican. Hide Caption 13 of 13
The pontiff also took a stand for the poor, suffering under tensions between Israelis and Palestinians.
"Even in the absence of violence, the climate of instability and a lack of mutual understanding have produced insecurity, the violation of rights, isolation and the flight of entire communities, conflicts, shortages and sufferings of every sort," he said.
After meeting with Abbas, Francis cruised in the Popemobile through a crowd of hundreds of Catholic faithful and onlookers gathered in Manger Square as they awaited the papal Mass.
Priests and the faithful swayed to religious music, while many waved red, green, black and white Palestinian flags and others yellow and white Vatican flags.
The Pope hopped off the Popemobile to shake hands with people in the crowd.
In a symbolically charged moment, he also stopped the vehicle to cross over to the separation barrier erected by Israel, its surface daubed with graffiti including the words "Free Palestine!" There, arm outstretched, he touched the concrete wall, his head apparently bowed in prayer.
Mustafa Barghouti, general secretary of the Palestine National Initiative, told CNN, "The Pope did not only put his hand on a concrete wall. He put his hand on occupation. He put his hand on (an) apartheid system, on a system of separation, and discrimination, and oppression."
Refugee children make appeal
Francis also met with a group of Palestinian refugee children while in the West Bank.
As they entered, the children held up signs about the occupation of Palestinian territories, typed in Arabic, Italian and English.
"Muslims and Christians live under the occupation," read one. Another said, "I have never been to the sea!" in an apparent reference to the restrictions on movement under which Palestinians live.
After the children sang and presented him with gifts, the Pope responded in his native tongue, Spanish, to say he had heard their message.
"Never let the past determine your lives," he said. "Violence is not overcome by violence. Violence is overcome by peace."
While in Jerusalem, Francis will meet with Bartholomew, the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople.
His visit to the region commemorates the 50th anniversary of the landmark meeting between Pope Paul VI and the spiritual leader of the world's Orthodox Christians at the time, Patriarch Athenagoras, in Jerusalem.
The pope will also meet the city's grand mufti and chief rabbis, visit the Western Wall and Yad Vashem, a memorial to the Holocaust, and lay a wreath on the grave of the founder of modern Zionism, Theodor Herzl.
The Holy Land visit is the first for Francis as leader of the Roman Catholic Church, and just the fourth for any pontiff in the modern era.
'Urgent' solution needed to Syrian crisis
On the first day of his trip, Francis also gave a message of unity as he celebrated Mass at a stadium in Amman, Jordan -- a majority Muslim nation with a significant Christian community.
In his homily, Francis spoke of the need for tolerance and diversity and urged everyone to put aside grievances and divisions.
"The mission of the Holy Spirit is to beget harmony... and to create peace in different situations and between different people," he said.
"Let us ask the Spirit to prepare our hearts to encounter our brothers and sisters so that we may overcome our differences rooted in political thinking, language, culture and religion."
Christian refugees from Syria Iraq and the Palestinian territories were among those present, and 1,400 children received their First Communion at the Mass.
The Pope's trip to the Holy Land has been billed as a "pilgrimage for prayer," with its roots in faith, not politics.
But in a region where religion and politics are so closely intertwined, his every remark takes on an added significance.
The pontiff is traveling with two friends -- a rabbi, Abraham Skorka, and a Muslim, Sheikh Omar Abboud, who leads Argentina's Muslim community. The Vatican has said their presence is symbolic of his call for unity.
The Pope's first stop was at al-Husseini Royal Palace in Amman, where he met with Jordan's King Abdullah II.
In televised remarks after that meeting, Francis paid tribute to Jordan's efforts to promote interfaith tolerance and to the welcome that the small nation has given to Palestinian refugees and, more recently, those fleeing war-torn Syria.
Francis said it was "necessary and urgent" that a peaceful solution is found to the crisis in Syria.
While in Jordan, Francis met some of the 600,000 Syrians who have fled since the start of the civil war in 2011, as well as refugees from Iraq. He also visited the River Jordan, where many Christians believe Jesus was baptized.3 – Sunderland took just three shots in this match, two from outside the 18 yard box and from the penalty spot. When they took the penalty, many Gooners voiced concern on Twitter that Arsenal would let another one slip but Sunderland were the most toothless team Arsenal have faced all season and once Wenger brought on Giroud, there was little cause for worry.
16 – I didn’t say “no” cause for worry, however. Wenger’s boys have conceded 16 big chances in League play this season. Big Chances are counted by Opta and are a measure of a shot which should be scored. For example, a penalty is a Big Chance and the Alexis goal at the end was a Big Chance. Also, when a player is played through 1-v-1 with the keeper, they usually count that as a Big Chance. Clear?
Ok, well, to give some context: Arsenal conceded just 35 big chances all season last year. That’s less than one per game. This season they are averaging 1.6 per game.
Now, that stat is skewed by the fact that Arsenal conceded 7 big chances in the two matches against Swansea and Boro. Last season Arsenal only had two matches where they conceded 3 or more, Swansea and Sunderland, and so there’s a chance that those two matches this season will even out in the end.
I don’t think it’s time to panic on this stat quite yet: if I look at overall shots allowed per game, they are down from 12 to 10 and shots in prime* are only up slightly from 2.6 to 3.1. The 2 penalties Arsenal have conceded so far this season increased the opposition Big Chances per game by 0.2 all by itself. So, it looks like Arsenal are structurally playing well (shots allowed per game down) but errors and penalties conceded are causing a slight burp in the stats.
23 – Number of points Arsenal have won this season and coincidentally the number of goals Arsenal have scored.
18 – Number of Clean Sheets Arsenal kept last season. This led the Premier League and won Petr Cech the Golden Gloves with 16 to his name.
4 – Number of clear sheets Arsenal have kept so far this season.
6 – There have been 6 penalties awarded in Arsenal’s 10 matches this season (4 for Arsenal and 2 against) and while that seems unusual you have to remember that before this weekend, the League was on pace to hand out 131 penalties over the season. That is 25 more penalties awarded than in any season of the Premier League! Liverpool matches have generated 5 penalties (4 for and 1 against) and Man City have 6 (5 for and 1 against).
1 – Giroud scored with his first touch of the game and it was the second time in his Arsenal career that he scored a goal on the match he returned from injury. The last time was in Arsenal’s 2-1 loss to Man U in 2014. That was also Giroud’s first headed goal of the season. And Alexis’ first headed goal of the season. Giroud only had 11 touches in this match, 12 if you count the time he touched my heart and made me feel funny inside, and yet scored 2 goals.
1 – That corner for Giroud’s goal was Özil’s first assist of the Premier League season. He also has an assist in the Champions League but he is way off his mark from last season where he assisted 19 times. In fact, Ozil scored or assisted 25 goals last season (Premier League) and I wonder, would you rather have Özil score 19 goals or assist 19 goals? Assists are much less common. People almost never break 20 assists in a season but there are almost always players who score 20+ goals. But other than rarity, is there any reason why it would matter if he scored more directly or indirectly?
1 – That was also Gibbs’ first assist of the season and the perfect way to cap off a stunning match. He was 3rd on the team with 50/60 passes, second in final third passing with 18/21 passes (Iwobi was 19/21), he led the team (along with Özil) with 3 key passes, he won 2/4 dribbles (second on the team), was second in tackles with 2/4, had 2 interceptions, was second on the team in clearances with 7, tied for first (with Koz) with 5/5 headed clearances, and won 5/9 aerial duels to lead Arsenal.
@7amkickoff
Sources: WhoScored.com, Transfermarkt.com (for the Giroud injury thing), and my personal database
Qq
*My own measure of shots in and around the 6 yard boxIt was 4 a.m., and Mike Broadway had already spent most of the night pumping out basements and patching roofs, helping where he could as his hometown of Dawson Creek flooded.
He pulled onto Eighth Street, normally a main route through town.
The road had become a river and its edge a waterfall — that's where the white sedan was stuck, with three people inside.
He stopped his truck and waded over, with water raging up to his knees and higher.
"It was just the way I was raised. You help," said Broadway. "I drive a big truck so I wasn't worried about getting washed away."
The white Buick that was stuck along Eighth Street in Dawson Creek last night. (@NuclearMoose/Twitter)
'Please do something!'
The driver of the car, 85-year-old Mary Daub, was taking her daughter and son in-law home after they helped her with a flooding basement.
"They were pretty scared and didn't know what was happening," said the driver's son, Fred Daub. "Luckily that gentleman stopped and helped them out."
Mike Broadway, seen here with his wife Amy, helped rescue three people stranded in a car on a flooded road in Dawson Creek, B.C. last night. (Mike Broadway/Facebook)
As Broadway walked up, he recalls her hollering, 'Please do something!"
"'Don't worry,' I said, 'I'll get you out,'" he remembers saying.
Opening the driver's door could risk the vehicle filling with water, which might tip it over the edge, said Broadway. So he got them to open the passenger side first, then he got Daub from the driver's seat.
"She was quite distraught so I just kind of bear-hugged her and picked her out of the car."
'All I could imagine was them getting swept away'
Meanwhile, Tim Tom had also pulled up, concerned for the safety of the people in the white Buick, but hesitant to get out of his truck because his wife and kids were in the vehicle.
After Broadway rescued the elderly driver, Tom saw the two passengers try to get out, stumbling in the water — steps away from a steep drop off.
"I'd seen them getting out and all I could imagine was them getting swept away. So I knew I had to do something," Tom told CBC. And I just got there as quick as I could."
Tom drove closer, hopped out, and linked arms with the passengers to help them reach Broadway's truck.
"I just want to thank Mike for being the first one there," said Tom.
The two rescuers shook hands, and Broadway drove the trio home while Tom rushed back to his family in the truck.
An aerial view of the flood damage in Dawson Creek, B.C., on Thursday. (City of Dawson Creek)
Family doing fine
Fred Daub told CBC News his mother is doing fine after getting some rest and talking about the experience with friends.
"She's fine. She was really shaken up this morning, but she's good," he said. "They had a pretty long night."
Daub said his mother didn't want to speak to the media about the incident because "she's not too much on being famous or anything," but he said she intends to thank Broadway and the other bystander who helped her.
"Thank you very much. It was greatly appreciated," he said. They were in a situation that could have turned — we could have lost them."
"There are good people in the world."
Others passed by
When called by CBC Radio to describe the rescue, Broadway said several times he didn't want to "make a big deal" about it.
There was the other helper, and the cliff wasn't as dramatically eroded at 4 a.m. as the daylight photos later showed, he explained.
But the office manager at the towing company that later recovered the car sees it differently.
"Numerous vehicles saw her stranded there and passed her," said Heather Loiselle of Swede's Towing. "And finally someone stopped and assisted her and got her to safety."
With files from Andrew KurjataINTRODUCTION:
Chronic β-alanine (BA) supplementation is an increasingly popular nutritional strategy, because it can elevate muscle carnosine content and thereby enhance high-intensity exercise performance. The current study investigated 1) whether sex and body mass are determinants of BA-induced muscle carnosine loading and 2) the optimal maintenance dose for ensuring constantly elevated muscle carnosine stores.
METHODS:
During the loading phase, 34 participants (men and women) were supplemented with 3.2 g (4 × 800 mg) BA per day for 46 d (slightly different loading strategies were applied concerning the effect of meal timing and supplementation form). Thereafter, 19 participants (men and women) continued taking free-powder BA for six more weeks (maintenance phase). The participants were matched and redivided into three groups receiving 0.4, 0.8, and 1.2 g·d(-1) BA, respectively. Muscle carnosine content was measured in the soleus and gastrocnemius muscles using proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy.
RESULTS:
Body mass and sex had only minimal effect on the absolute increase in muscle carnosine. Given the lower baseline values in women, the relative increase for women was higher, indicating that women required less BA for the same relative increase. In addition, a significant negative correlation was observed between body mass and the relative increase in muscle carnosine (r = -0.45, P = 0.007). A maintenance dose of ∼1.2 g·d(-1) BA was the most effective in keeping muscle carnosine content elevated at the postsupplementation level.
CONCLUSIONS:
Sex and body mass did not markedly affect the absolute increase during muscle carnosine loading, although they are determinants for the relative increase. In addition, we established for the first time an effective maintenance dose of ∼1.2 g·d(-1) BA to keep muscle carnosine content elevated at 30%-50% above baseline for a prolonged period.A lot about making comic books comes down to trial and error. So long as the finished page (at least somewhat) resembles a series of sequential illustrations accentuated by textual elements, there’s no prescribed method for taking a project from concept to script or from description to panel. The celebration of individual styles is both a blessing and a burden to aspiring creators.
While such leniency drives artistic experimentation, the lack of a standardized approach can also be overwhelming. This holds particularly true when sending out a story for publication consideration, when a multitude of procedures and stipulations determine if a proposal sinks or swims. Suddenly there are right and wrong answers — to questions you might’ve not even thought to ask.
Octal is an anthology created to address these concerns. Volume 2 released on September 15th, featuring independent comics from a variety styles and genres. The latest volume even includes contributions from two Black Ship staffers: Seekers, by William Henry Dvorak in collaboration with Krzysztof Budziejewski and Christy Bontrager, and disunity, created by yours truly in collaboration with Blotch Comics.
Since the book hits a little too close to home to be reviewed here without bias, I’d like to instead highlight why indie creators should consider submitting their idea to Octal before shopping it around independently. Not only is it a publication credit in and of itself, it is an excellent means of refining a series proposal.
PUBLISHERS ARE PICKY
Pitching ain’t easy. Taming a compelling concept, grooming it into a cohesive comic book, and then packaging it all together as an easily digestible pitch is no small feat. The process is supposed to let the best ideas rise to the top, though each publisher insists you swim a different stroke trying to get there. Sending out your comic book for publication consideration is a time-consuming endeavor.
Juggling all the different submission requirements is the biggest challenge. Five complete pages and a cover mockup for one, six pages of sequential illustrations and eight pages of script for another, a one-page issue synopsis versus a five-page series summary, unique submission agreement forms, every publisher swears by their own set of standards.
Before you know it folders are scattered across your desktop like a minefield, each primed with a variation of the same pitch. If one of those landmines proves it isn’t a dud, well, damn! We should all be so lucky. But that’s beating the odds — most rejections won’t come with any indication of where the submission fell short. (It would be logistically impossible to provide personalized feedback in most cases.)
This leaves aspiring creators in a position where they must learn from mistakes they might not know they’re making. That each pitch packet conforms to a different set of rules only further convolutes the process. With such a disparity between what publishers know they want and what we think they’re after, every opportunity to refine your pitch should be pursued.
OCTAL IS PRECISE
Octal was designed to pierce through the paneled curtain, past the editorial expectations and bureaucratic shenanigans, providing much needed transparency to how comic books are pitched. It is an anthology of illustrated “pilots” that all conform to a standardized format as installments in a curated catalog of potential comic-book series.
The anthology benefits fans, creators, and publishers of indie comics alike. Every volume of Octal includes 8 short stories, each told over 8 pages, collected with supplemental material to form a “pitch packet” showcasing the premise and general direction of the proposed comic. Volume 1 debuted in November of last year; this month Volume 2 released; Volume 3 is now open for submissions.
Copies of Octal are distributed to a list of publishers who’ve subscribed to the anthology in hopes of finding new ideas. Two titles from the first volume have signed deals so far, and stories in the second volume garnered attention from publishers within the first week of its release. While such successful results depend largely upon the merits of the narratives themselves, all creators who contribute to the anthology receive editorial guidance throughout the submission process.
Mike Schneider, the anthology’s creator and editor, accepts queries from all styles and genres of comics. What’s most important is whether or not a book is consistent in both its plot and presentation. Submission guidelines for Octal were carefully devised to satisfy the expectations of most comic imprints, which is where the anthology truly shines. Contributors can take their story to multiple publishers with a single pitch.
GET YOUR PITCH NOTICED
Everything you need to know about submitting to Octal is available on its website. Most notably, be sure to download the packet templates. These documents ensure submissions all adhere to the guidelines that make the anthology presentable to so many publishers.
The production group on Facebook is also an excellent resource. Mike describes it as “a virtual bullpen where creators can get in-progress feedback, engage in group critiques, and are offered tips to help make their own productions run smoother.” Between its readily accessible reference material and the enthusiasm of its community, Octal helps creators weather the turbulent storm that surrounds pitching.
Note that self-published work can be retroactively formatted for the anthology. My submission, disunity, was originally released independently via comiXology Submit. We had two issues already completed. Nothing featured in disunity #1 or #2 stood out as a fitting 8-page sequence (for the “pilot” Octal requires). So, with Mike’s guidance, Ron and I pulled panels from our first two issues to create a redux that introduces our premise using remixed content.
Beyond proposals for Original Mini-Series, Ongoing Series, and Graphic Novels, Octal is open to the following:
Print Editions of Web Comics
English Translations of Foreign Comics
Adaptations and Reboots of Existing IP ( w/ Written Consent )
Relaunches and Spin-Offs of Current/ Prior Series ( by Original Creators or w/ Written Consent )
Comic Strip + Serialized Comic Collections
Colorized Editions of Black and White Comics
Trades Editions of Self-Published Comics
Reprints of Creator-Owned Comics ( if Prior Contracts have Lapsed )
Defunct Publishers Pitching Reprints of Back Catalog Titles
Anthology Shorts Being Expanded to Book/ Series ( if Creators Retained that Right )
etc.
Octal Volume 2 || Octal Volume 1 || Homepage || Production GroupNEW YORK -- In 1986, as the crack cocaine epidemic ravaged America's inner cities, a Democratic Congress passed legislation dictating harsh mandatory sentences for possession of even small amounts of the drug, blamed for a nationwide wave of violence by dealers and addicts.
The law created a staggering sentencing disparity for offenses involving crack versus powdered cocaine, filling prisons with low-level offenders and fueling a racially-charged debate over the fairness and efficacy of federal drug policy for nearly 25 years.
Under its provisions, possession of just five grams of crack cocaine -- most often sold in poor black communities -- triggered an automatic five-year prison term. It required 100 times that amount of powdered cocaine, the choice of affluent whites, to earn the same mandatory sentence.
On Tuesday, this disparity will ease dramatically as permanent new federal sentencing guidelines for crack cocaine take effect. The guidelines, approved by large bipartisan Congressional majorities in 2010, affect not only new defendants, but will retroactively apply to the sentences of an estimated 12,000 federal inmates, more than 1,000 of whom will be eligible for immediate release next week.
The reforms reduce the sentencing disparity between powder and crack cocaine quantities from 100-to-1 to 18-to-1, and eliminate mandatory sentences for possession of small amounts of crack. The Bureau of Prisons estimated that the sentence reductions will save the federal government $200 million over five years.
"The amount of time it took for us to get to this reform was unconscionable, I think. But we're delighted at the outcome," said Mary Price, vice president of Families Against Mandatory Minimums.
The moderation in federal crack cocaine sentence guidelines is one example of a growing movement at the state and federal level to repeal or dilute harsh anti-drug statutes responsible for putting vast numbers of non-violent, largely minority drug offenders behind bars, often for decades.
The reforms have gathered steam in part due to a steep decline in crime rates nationwide, which has dampened voters' enthusiasm for "tough-on-crime" policies and politicians. Decades of studies showing the disproportionate impact of harsh drug laws on minority communities have also swayed politicians on both sides of the aisle.
But in many states, it is crippling budget deficits caused by the economic slowdown that have spurred elected officials to finally take action to slim their bulging prison populations. With a strong focus on non-violent offenders -- many locked up for drug-related crimes -- states are increasingly looking at alternatives to incarceration and enacting new polices to moderate long sentences for those already behind bars.
The result is a national prison population that has flatlined after decades of unprecedented growth, experts say.
"In the last year or two, it's more or less stabilized as a whole," said Marc Mauer, executive director of the Sentencing Project, a research and advocacy group. "Now, we're stabilizing at a world-record rate, so it's nothing to get too excited about. But it is notable."
The U.S. leads all nations in incarceration, with nearly 2.4 million people in prisons and jails, according to the most recent data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics. That is about 25 percent of all people incarcerated worldwide, though the U.S. represents only 5 percent of the global population.
Federal and state corrections cost the American taxpayer about $68 billion per year, according to the Pew Center on the States.
While the prison population evens out nationwide, some states have achieved dramatic declines in incarceration rates. Leading the pack are New York and New Jersey, which have trimmed prison populations by approximately 20 percent in the past decade. Those declines are due in large part to a drop-off in the number of offenders sentenced for drug crimes.
The new climate regarding drug crimes has opened the door to sentencing reforms once thought politically unthinkable. Last year in New Jersey, legislators scrapped a decades-old law requiring a minimum three-year prison sentence for those caught selling drugs within 1,000 feet of a school.
Opponents of the law said it unfairly penalized the overwhelmingly minority residents of densely-populated urban areas, where "drug-free zones" blanketed entire neighborhoods.
"In many ways it's a good time to work on these things," Mauer said. "These issues are difficult, but if you ask voters what they care about, crime doesn't make the top five issues anymore."
"It's a very different picture than it was not all that long ago," he added.
As states slow the arrival of new inmates and speed the way home for those already incarcerated, the savings are adding up. In 2011, at least 13 states, from Texas to Rhode Island, have closed prisons and other correctional facilities or are planning to do so, according to a report by the Sentencing Project.
This June, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) announced the closure of seven prisons, a move the state estimated would save $184 million over two years.State Rep. Marc Roberts of Utah said water authorities ought to shut off the lines that feed the National Security Agency’s massive data center located just outside Salt Lake City as a means of curtailing the government’s spy activities on innocent Americans.
Mr. Roberts introduced a bill to do just that, and fellow lawmakers have been studying its text and mulling its proposed action, The Associated Press reported. But they put off formal debate on it last session.
Now, as debate about — and awareness of — the NSA’s growing surveillance tactics makes the media rounds, his bill is being touted once again as a needed measure.
“This is not a bill just about a data center,” said Web developer Joe Levi in the AP report. “This is a bill about civil rights. This is a bill that needs to be taken up and needs to be taken seriously.”
Peter Ashdown, the founder of Internet provider XMision, a Salt Lake City-based operation, said the data center was a black mark against the state.
“I do encourage [lawmakers] to stand up and do something about it,” he said, AP reported.
Lawmakers won’t consider shuttering the $1.7 billion facility. But some say other actions are warranted — other actions that could send a strong message to Washington, D.C., representatives about the growing frustrations with the NSA and its unwarranted spy operations, AP said.
“We may look at some type of a strong message to give our representatives to take back to Congress,” said Sen. David Hinkins, who represents Orangeville, AP reported.
The NSA chose Utah to build its largest data center because of the state’s abundant and cheap supplies of electricity. The facility is located on a military base about 25 miles outside Salt Lake City, in Bluffdale.
The facility is largely secretive, off-limits to public visitations or review, but was roundly criticized as being a key collection point for millions of U.S. telephone records and digital communications swept up during NSA surveillance operations.
Cutting off access to its water supply — and electricity — would basically shut down its operations.
Copyright © 2019 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.Almost exactly a year ago, a tow truck driver hauled a two-tone silver Ford F-250 into West Coast Car Crushing where it was flattened into a mess of metal.
The 1992 truck belonged to David Uphoff and had been stolen the day before from the lot at his North Portland floral shop.
The pickup turned out to be one of more than 100 cars, trucks and SUVs that illegal towers snatched from outside homes, businesses or along freeways across the metro area over eight months.
The stolen vehicles ended up either at West Coast Car Crushing or its neighbor, A-1 Light Truck & Van Parts. The auto yards, owned by members of the same family, destroyed the vehicles without getting titles or other ownership documents and sold the metal and auto parts for a tidy profit, police say.
None of this should have come as any surprise to law enforcement or state regulators.
An investigation by The Oregonian shows that the state DMV and Portland police had evidence dating back at least eight years that the two car crushers were a dumping ground for stolen cars. But neither police nor the state did anything to stop them. In fact, the operation was such an open secret that police would send people to the two auto yards to check for themselves if their stolen cars had ended up there.
Oregon Driver and Motor Vehicle Services inspectors found repeated violations at the yards for buying cars without titles over the last decade, but issued only one $500 fine and failed to follow up on numerous recommendations for higher fines.
The state could have put the businesses on probation, which would have brought a heightened level of scrutiny, yet never did. Regulators also could have canceled West Coast Car Crushing's operating certificate for moving to a new location without alerting the state, but the DMV didn't do that either.
State inspectors rarely visited the two car dismantlers. Five years passed between state inspections at A-1. Regulators cited limited resources for the infrequent inspections. Seven DMV inspectors are responsible for regulating 320 auto dismantlers statewide, as well as 2,700 auto dealers.
Portland police didn't do much better than the DMV, records and interviews show.
Just as the two car crushers were ramping up their alleged car theft ring, the Police Bureau eliminated its auto theft task force in 2006. Investigating thefts such as this was no longer a priority.
Even when someone found their stolen car in one of the wrecking yards, Portland police didn't make an arrest until now.
A-1 and West Coast essentially ran unchecked until a detective newly assigned to the North Portland police precinct connected the dots and launched a full-scale investigation last year.
Indicted as part of a Portland police investigation into A-1 Light Truck & Van Parts and West Coast Car Crushing, two North Portland car dismantlers.
Today, 34 people face indictment – including eight charged with racketeering -- in what investigators are calling one of the largest car theft rings in the city. A handful already have been convicted and await sentencing.
A-1 owner Tony D. Schneider Sr., 51, and sons Tony D. Schneider Jr., 33, and Joseph "Joey" C. Schneider, 31, who both ran West Coast Car Crushing, are among those indicted on racketeering and theft charges. They pocketed nearly $1 million a year from the alleged scheme, investigators estimate.
When investigators started tracking down owners of cars they had filmed on videotape getting towed to the yards, they called Uphoff.
He was infuriated. The old Ford pickup had been his father's before he died in 2010.
"It was part of the family,'' Uphoff said. "It was in too good of shape to steal and crush like that. I'm just heartbroken over the whole thing."
REGULATIONS EVOLVED
Long before "Big Tony" Schneider, as he's known in his family, was arrested, he was considered the poster boy for why the state adopted regulations for auto dismantlers.
Other yard owners were concerned he was skirting accepted practices based on the volume of his business, the disorderly shape of his yards and a heavy reliance on cash transactions.
"We knew he was one of the reasons they pushed for the legislation,'' said Chris Ratliff, manager of the state DMV Business Regulation Section.
Ten years ago, the state had limited authority over dismantlers. The businesses simply needed to have a fence higher than 6 feet and be set back from the road.
"The dismantling industry used to be the fat old guy in the coveralls chewing on a cigar with two big old dogs ready to bite.... They did whatever they wanted,'' Ratliff said.
The two businesses tried to keep operating until the DMV canceled West Coast's dismantler certificate in June and A-1's certificate in July, both because they had lost their bonds after police and prosecutors alerted their bonding companies of the criminal investigation.
Yet activity at the yards continued.
Angela Greene-Killam, who worked in the office and at the weight scale at West Coast, had gotten a state dismantler certificate in July from the DMV to run a new business, J.O.H Auto Wrecking, at the West Coast yard. Police, though, arrested her at the site this fall, accusing her of lying to obtain public assistance benefits and theft by deception.
Scott Schneider, Tony Schneider Sr.'s nephew, said he bought A-1 from his uncle, changed the name slightly to A-1 Auto Parts and registered the business with the Secretary of State's Office in July.
Ratliff of the state DMV said his office cannot deny the nephew a dismantler certificate because he has insurance, is bonded and has no past problems. Ratliff sent a DMV inspector to the place: "Tony was not there. There's no proof that Tony's involved at all,'' he said.
Scott Schneider, who is the former marketing director for A-1 Light Trucks & Van Parts, said he is running his business independently – and ethically.
"It's a clean slate for me,'' he told The Oregonian. "Here we have strict policies. If you don't have paperwork, you hit the road.''
Scott Schneider, though, said he's not convinced his uncle did anything criminal and that he consults with Big Tony frequently.
"I honestly truly believe he did not do anything wrong except be messy,'' the nephew said. "I think he just sucked at paperwork. He made me think he was getting tricked.''
Others who have worked for Big Tony said he's a generous man who helped pay for his employees' lunches, took them to dinner and helped those who were struggling.
Scott Schneider said he met with a DMV inspector for hours to understand the regulations, and he and three employees sat through a DMV class for auto dealers. There's no such class solely for dismantlers.
"It felt like something I could fix,'' he said. "At least I can save part of my uncle's legacy."
-- Maxine BernsteinNot everyone benefits equally from the tax legislation that House Republicans unveiled Thursday.
GOP leaders toiled for weeks to decide what deductions and tax breaks should be axed to pay for the tax cuts. That means the bill creates some winners and some losers.
Republicans say their plan will simplify the code and provide tax relief to middle-class families.
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.) repeatedly touted an example on Thursday of how a family of four earning the median American household income of $59,000 would save $1,182 a year on their taxes, using the proposed doubled standard deduction, reduced tax rate and expanded child tax credits.
But Democrats argue that most of the benefits of the GOP tax proposal will flow to the ultra-wealthy and corporations.
Here’s a look at who stands to gain and who stands to lose out.
Winners
Corporations
Corporations would get a big tax cut from the GOP’s proposal. The corporate tax rate would go down from the current rate of 35 percent to 20 percent.
Republicans say it’s imperative to lower the U.S. corporate tax rate, the highest among other advanced countries, to attract more businesses.
Companies would also be allowed to deduct the full costs of buying new equipment for five years. And businesses that had been keeping profits overseas to avoid the 35 percent tax rate would be able to bring the money back, or repatriate, to the U.S., and pay only a 12 percent tax for cash assets.
The Business Roundtable, a group of CEOs, threw its support behind the tax plan.
“While the tax-reform bill released today deserves close analysis, it is significant progress toward achieving these goals,” said Jamie Dimon, chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase & Co. and chairman of Business Roundtable.
Major business groups
Leaders in the business community have been pushing tax reform for years, and they generally liked what they saw.
Key players, such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers, spoke positively of the bill. They back provisions to lower rates for businesses, to move to a “territorial” tax system that exempts dividends from companies’ foreign subsidiaries, and to enhance expensing of capital investments.
“This is absolutely a positive first step,” said Caroline Harris, vice president of tax policy at the Chamber.
While most large business groups praised the bill, there was a notable exception. The National Federation of Independent Business said it couldn’t support the bill in its current form because it doesn’t help small businesses enough.
Super-wealthy individuals
Republicans kept the top tax rate in place, but the country's wealthiest individuals have a lot to gain from the bill.
First off, the income tax bracket thresholds increase, which will accrue savings at the top.
Second, the bill would double the limit on the estate tax, and then phase it out altogether. Currently, the estate tax only applies to estates of $5.5 million or more, and twice that for couples. The bill would immediately double that, giving tax shelter to anyone with an estate between $5.5 million and $11 million (or, again, double those amounts for couples). After a few years, the tax would be |
isal Abdul Rauf, the leader of the New York project, said in a statement that he had not spoken to Mr. Jones or Mr. Musri, who said later that he received the pledge of a meeting from a staff member in Mr. Abdul Rauf’s office.
The saga of Mr. Jones appeared likely to continue — with more pressure likely to come as well. In just the past week, the list of his critics had come to include Mr. Obama, the Vatican, Franklin Graham, Angelina Jolie, Sarah Palin, dozens of members of Congress and Gen. David H. Petraeus, who was among the first to declare that the burning of Korans would put Americans soldiers and civilians in danger.
That risk of violence seemed to be rising, as large protests against Mr. Jones were staged over the past week in Kabul, Afghanistan, and Jakarta, Indonesia. It led the Obama administration to work furiously to end Mr. Jones’s plans.
On Thursday, F.B.I. officials met with Mr. Jones, and even Mr. Obama waded into the fray, sharply criticizing what he called a “stunt” that would be a “recruitment bonanza for Al Qaeda.”
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“I just hope he understands that what he’s proposing to do is completely contrary to our values as Americans,” Mr. Obama said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” He added that it could “greatly endanger our young men and women in uniform who are in Iraq, who are in Afghanistan.”
While Mr. Jones had told reporters that he would not “ignore” a call from the White House, administration officials decided that an appeal from the military would be more effective. The Obama administration also had to weigh the desire to stop Mr. Jones from proceeding with his plans against the recognition the once-obscure preacher, with a congregation of less than 50, would get from a direct appeal from the president.
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates called Mr. Jones around 4:15 p.m. Thursday, interrupting a meeting that Mr. Jones was having with Mr. Musri.
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The call was brief, Mr. Jones said, adding that Mr. Gates was not the key factor in his decision. What swayed him, he said, was not the risk to Americans or foreigners but rather the promise that the Islamic center in New York would be moved.
“This is for us a sign from God,” he said.
As Mr. Jones walked back into his office, he said that the idea of the Islamic center as a bartering point came to him only after he had announced his “International Burn a Koran Day” in July. He said he had no regrets.
“We have accomplished what we think God asked us to do,” he said.
Those involved in the Islamic center project in New York offered contradictory stances and opinions on Thursday, making it hard to determine if the parties involved had a common front.
In a brief interview on Thursday, minutes before Mr. Jones made his cancellation announcement, Mr. Abdul Rauf, the imam, seemed to suggest that moving the project — at least the part of it that he is to lead, which includes a mosque, prayer spaces for other faiths and tolerance education programs — was not out of the question.
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When asked — without reference to Mr. Jones — whether the comments he made on CNN’s “ Larry King Live” on Wednesday night, that he would not have proposed the project had he known how much strife it would cause, indicated a new openness to moving or some other compromise, he said, “We are investigating that right now, we are discussing it right now, how we can resolve this issue in a manner that will defuse the rhetoric and the pain and also reduce the risk” of emboldening Muslim radicals.
He added: “That is the question we are now asking ourselves. We are weighing various options.”
But the imam controls only one part of the project, known as Cordoba House, the interfaith and Muslim prayer spaces and tolerance programs that are planned as part of the larger community center, known as Park51.
Sharif el-Gamal, the head of the real estate group that owns the properties where the project is planned, took a more definite position. “We’re not moving,” he said in an interview. He later issued a statement reiterating that.
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In Gainesville, Mr. Jones seemed confused by the differing opinions. At first, after reporters read him Mr. Abdul Rauf’s statement denying that a deal had been made, Mr. Jones said he preferred to believe that the center would be moved.
He said he would be very disappointed if that did not turn out to be the case. As for whether he would go back to burning Korans, he seemed to go back and forth during multiple appearances before the news media. At one he said, “Right now, we are not even entertaining that idea.” But later he suggested he might reconsider.
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Regardless of whether Mr. Jones does meet with the mosque leaders in New York, he has already elevated his profile, which has risen quickly from the small church he has run in Gainesville since around 2001.
The church has been fairly empty during recent services, with no more than a few dozen congregants, many of them family members. The smell of dust and mildew wafts out from the piles of used furniture that Mr. Jones sells on eBay when he is not preaching.
To most residents of this sprawling college town, where Democrats outnumber Republicans two to one, Mr. Jones has generally been a fringe figure, even last year when he put up a sign outside the church that said “Islam is of the devil.”
But that began to change when news of his Koran-burning plans reached Muslim countries about a month ago. Suddenly, there was an overabundance of what Mr. Jones seemed to want — attention.
Mr. Jones, a former hotel manager who calls himself doctor based on an honorary degree from an unaccredited Bible school, has at times seemed sincerely shocked by the response he has attracted. But not unhappy.
His church has been in financial trouble for years — the property is now for sale — and even before General Petraeus and the president made him a household name, he said in an interview that he hoped to become well known as a critic of Islam.
He was in his office at the time, alone, and to his right sat a drawing of a bearded man — a terrorist — that had been used for target practice.
The mix of guns and visions of grandeur would come to embody the church and Mr. Jones.
On Thursday, several of his parishioners carried pistols on their hips — the result, they said, of death threats. That also served as a sign of the outsize role their small group had taken on in world affairs.
By nightfall, things seemed no closer to an end, as a church member named Stephanie, wearing a pink shirt with a holstered gun at her hip, arranged for interviews with reporters from all over the world.A 6-year-old girl shot in the back and critically wounded in the Palmer Square neighborhood Monday night was stabilized enough to wake up and grab her father's hand, the girl's aunt told WGN-TV.
The child was shot about 8:10 p.m. in the 2100 block of North Bingham Street and taken to Sts. Mary and Elizabeth Medical Center in critical condition, according to police.
The girl was in front of a home when a vehicle drove up and someone in it began firing, hitting her, said Officer Thomas Sweeney, a police spokesman. Police were looking for a silver vehicle, a law enforcement source said.
A relative drove the girl to the St. Mary's campus of the medical center, and she was being transferred in critical condition to Stroger Hospital, Sweeney said.
Police initially said the child was 7 but later corrected that information.
Chicago police said the home where the girl was wounded was a known gang hangout but the girl appears to not have been the intended target. The girl's family has not cooperated with Investigators and no arrests have been made, police said.
On Tuesday, an aunt who did not want to be identified told WGN-TV outside Stroger that "Right now my niece is in critical condition, stable but critical. She’s doing a lot better. She did wake up to grab her father’s hand."
The bullet had travelled through the girl's back and hit her lung, collapsing it, the aunt said.
'It hurts my soul. It hurts my heart to know that I just recently have been reading everything and it gets closer and closer to home, and the fact that it hit inside my home, it’s even more painful, but it makes everything more real," the aunt told WGN-TV.
The girl "is a trooper, she is the most excited, energetic little girl you could ever meet, she is the biggest daddy’s girl, I’ve ever seen. I’ve never seen a little girl so close to her father in my life."
Late on Monday at Stroger, a few family members were crying and talking outside. One relative of the girl said the family was not talking to reporters but she added that the girl's condition stabilized early Tuesday morning.
Tuesday afternoon, no one came to the front door of the home on Bingham, where two holes could be seen in the small home's front window.
Monday night, Simon Fernandez, who has lived on the block for 31 years, said the gunshots were loud, and said he suspects three guns were used.
Police gathered at the scene of a shooting in the Palmer Square neighborhood June 6, 2016, that left a 6-year-old girl critically wounded. (WGN-TV / Chicago Tribune) Police gathered at the scene of a shooting in the Palmer Square neighborhood June 6, 2016, that left a 6-year-old girl critically wounded. (WGN-TV / Chicago Tribune) SEE MORE VIDEOS
Rocio Valera, who has lived on the block for three years, said she works as a police liaison for local 1st Ward Ald. Proco "Joe" Moreno and has been involved in several talks with police about preventing crime in the neighborhood. One of the most recent safety improvements, she said, was the installation of a city Office of Emergency Management and Communications camera on the block.
"It's unbelievable," she said. "We've been trying to do what we can. We have a camera right there. We work with police every day."
But Valera isn't too concerned about her safety as resident of the block and said gun violence is an active issue across the city.
"I feel fine" about the neighborhood, she said. "But it's getting close to home. There are still pockets of activity you have to worry about."
At least 11 other people have been wounded in separate shootings since Monday afternoon.
Most recently, also in the Palmer Square neighborhood, a 21-year-old man was wounded in a shooting around 2:50 a.m. Tuesday, said Officer Veejay Zala, a police spokesman.
The man was walking in the 2900 block of West Armitage Avenue when an unknown attacker walked up to him, pulled out a gun and fired shots, Zala said.
He was shot in the right leg, and he was taken to Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center, where his condition stabilized, Zala said.
Three days ago, a 20-year-old man, identified as Daniel Alcantana, was shot to death and a 21-year-old man was wounded in a shooting on the same block at 6:45 p.m. Friday, according to police.
Around 11:20 p.m. Monday, an 18-year-old man was wounded in a shooting in the Park Manor neighborhood on the South Side, said Officer Hector Alfaro, a police spokesman. The man was standing in an alley in the 6800 block of South Anthony Avenue when someone in a black vehicle fired shots at him, Alfaro said. The man was shot in the pelvis, and he was taken to Stroger Hospital, where his condition stabilized, Alfaro said.
About 11:05 p.m., two 22-year-old men were wounded in a drive-by shooting in the West Woodlawn neighborhood on the South Side, Alfaro said. The two men were standing on the front porch of a home in the 6100 block of South Eberhart Avenue when someone in a passing vehicle fired shots, Alfaro said. One of the men was shot in the left arm. He was taken to St. Bernard Hospital. The second man was shot in the right hand, and he was taken to University of Chicago Medical Center. The conditions of both men stabilized.
About 10:55 p.m., a 23-year-old man was wounded in a shooting in the Grand Crossing neighborhood on the South Side, Alfaro said. The man was driving east in the 1500 block of East 73rd Street when he heard gunshots and realized he was struck. He was shot in the chest and in the left shoulder. He was taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, and he was listed in critical condition, Alfaro said.
About 9:35 p.m., a 22-year-old man was wounded in a shooting in the Gresham neighborhood on the South Side, Alfaro said. The man was driving in a vehicle north in the 8300 block of South Ada Street when he heard gunshots and realized he was hit in both of his legs, Alfaro said. He was taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center, where his condition stabilized, Alfaro said.
About 8:40 p.m., two men and a teenage boy were shot in the 5000 block of South May Street in the Back of the Yards neigborhood, Sweeney said. Two 24-year-old men were each shot in the legs, and a 17-year-old suffered a graze wound to the leg. One man was taken to Stroger, while another was taken to St. Bernard Hospital and Healthcare Center, where their conditions were stabilized. The boy declined to be taken to a hospital. The three told police they were outside when they heard shots and felt pain, Sweeney said.The Carolina Panthers are -- again -- bracing for the loss of Jonathan Stewart.
The running back suffered what The Charlotte Observer called a "serious right knee injury" in Sunday night's 31-13 loss to the New Orleans Saints. MRI testing on Monday revealed Stewart has a torn MCL, NFL Media Insider Ian Rapoport reported, according to a source who has spoken with the player.
Stewart left the game after Saints cornerback Keenan Lewis hit him low to snuff out a 16-yard reception. After a trip to the locker room, Stewart returned to the sideline with his knee wrapped.
Durability is an eternal issue for Stewart, who spent the first seven weeks of the season on short-term injured reserve following offseason ankle surgery. In his absence, DeAngelo Williams and Mike Tolbert will shoulder the load for an upstart Panthers squad that relies heavily on the ground game.
The latest "Around the League Podcast" recapped all the Week 14 games. Steve Mnuchin in 90 seconds
During the campaign, Donald Trump held up Goldman Sachs as a villain and symbol of the corrupt establishment.
Trump's Trump's closing campaign ad flashed an ominous image of Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein just as Trump condemned the "global power structure" for robbing America's working class and enriching the elite.
Yet now, the president-elect is leaning on several former Goldman Sachs executives to help him run the country after he takes over in January.
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This is the same Trump who said Goldman Sachs had "total, total control" over his rivals Hillary Clinton and Ted Cruz. And he often referenced Clinton's speeches to Goldman Sachs ( GS This is the same Trump who said Goldman Sachs had "total, total control" over his rivals Hillary Clinton and Ted Cruz. And he often referenced Clinton's speeches to, accusing her of meeting "in secret with international banks to plot the destruction of U.S. sovereignty."
Trump has run as an anti-establishment candidate and Goldman represents the establishment to many.
After all, President George W. Bush famously tapped then-Goldman CEO Hank Paulson to lead Treasury in 2006 and President Bill Clinton named Robert Rubin, another longtime Goldman exec, to lead Treasury.
"On the campaign trail, he ripped Wall Street and vowed not to let Wall Street control the country. Yet he picks a former Goldman Sachs partner as Treasury secretary," Jaret Seiberg, a Cowen & Co. analyst, wrote in a note on Wednesday.
It's true that Mnuchin hasn't worked at Goldman in over a dozen years and these days he's better known for bankrolling films like American Sniper and It's true that Mnuchin hasn't worked at Goldman in over a dozen years and these days he's better known for bankrolling films like American Sniper and buying the assets of failed bank Indymac on the cheap.
But Mnuchin did spend nearly two decades at Goldman Sachs, reportedly making a fortune of $46 million while there. Mnuchin is also literally a child of Wall Street as his father worked at Goldman before he did.
Trump also met with Cohn on Tuesday at Trump Tower, GOP officials confirmed. The meeting came just before Trump selected Mnuchin as his Treasury pick.
Trump is also reportedly considering Anthony Scaramucci for another top post. Before founding his own hedge fund, Scaramucci had two stints at Goldman Sachs, most recently as vice president in private wealth management. Scaramucci was a leader on Trump's finance committee during the presidential campaign and after the election he joined the billionaire's transition team.
And Bannon, who is best known for leading Breitbart, worked as an M&A banker at Goldman back in the 1980s.
Yet Bannon isn't exactly a friend of Wall Street these days. He's turned into a critic of the industry. In 2014, Bannon Yet Bannon isn't exactly a friend of Wall Street these days. He's turned into a critic of the industry. In 2014, Bannon told Buzzfeed the financial crisis was driven by "greed" and pushed to reform the system.
"You really need to go back and make banks do what they do: Commercial banks lend money, and investment banks invest in entrepreneurs and to get away from this trading," Bannon said.
Wall Street certainly believes that Trump will be a friend. Since Trump's election, Wall Street certainly believes that Trump will be a friend. Since Trump's election, big bank stocks are skyrocketing on hopes that Trump will dial back or even kill the Dodd-Frank financial reform regime.
Goldman itself is on quite a roll since Trump's victory. The company's share price has skyrocketed 21% since Election Day, crushing the broader market's gains and leading many other big bank stocks.
Ironically, Goldman's top boss wasn't exactly a fan of Trump. A year ago Blankfein, the CEO of Goldman, said the idea of Trump having his Ironically, Goldman's top boss wasn't exactly a fan of Trump. A year ago Blankfein, the CEO of Goldman, said the idea of Trump having his "finger on the button blows my mind."
In any case, now that Trump is president and has hired several Goldman veterans does it mean he will go soft on the big banks?
It's too early to say. Seiberg, the Cowen analyst, argues the opposite.
Mnuchin's "Goldman Sachs lineage might force him to be tough on the mega banks to show he isn't caving to Wall Street," he said.With the centenary of the First World War almost upon us, publishers have been falling over themselves to get their titles out early, resulting in a plethora of Great War-related books flooding the market a year ahead of the anniversary itself.
Outstanding among them was Max Hastings’ Catastrophe: Europe Goes to War in 1914 (William Collins, RRP £30, Telegraph price £26). As with his recent books on the Second World War, Hastings adopts a cosmopolitan approach in which Britain takes her proper place as just one among the combatant nations – and numerically a very small player at that. Ranging across the war’s many theatres, from Russia and Prussia to the Balkans and the Vosges, as well as the more familiar Flanders, Hastings presents individual tragedies alongside the grand strategy in one overarching whole. And, in typically robust style, he gives short shrift both to what he sees as the skewed “poets’ view” of the war as unmitigated futility, and to pro-German revisionists seeking to clear Berlin of blame for starting the conflict.
Almost as good, and focusing more narrowly on Britain’s war, is Allan Mallinson’s 1914: Fight the Good Fight (Bantam, RRP £25, Telegraph price £23). A former soldier himself, Mallinson has a good grasp of war’s grim realities, and gives us a strong sense of how Britain’s tiny pre-war army, experienced in and trained for colonial conflicts, acquitted itself heroically, but was almost annihilated, in its first brush with mass, industrialised 20th-century war.
Reaching far beyond the war itself is David Reynolds’ The Long Shadow: The Great War and the Twentieth Century (Simon & Schuster, RRP £25, Telegraph price £23). Reynolds’ purpose is to explore the war’s long-term effects, stretching almost to today. His book is a fluent corrective to our preoccupation with our own individual and family war stories, and offers a truly global perspective on the conflict’s long shadow. Controversially, he also reminds us that the war was the mother of much technological progress and that not all its results were negative.
Just when we thought that the last word had been written on the Great War by a participant, along comes Harry’s War: The Great War Diary of Harry Drinkwater, edited by Jon Cooksey and David Griffiths (Ebury Press, RRP £20, Telegraph price £18). Drinkwater joined up in 1914 and served throughout the war on the Western Front (with a brief interlude in Italy), getting an officer’s commission and winning an MC for bravery in the process. His unique full-length diary, written in secret and now published for the first time, gives an unvarnished view of the war’s horrors – and its occasional joys.
The Great War has so overshadowed the field that there’s a danger that other excellent works of military history published this year will get overlooked. This should certainly not be the case with Richard Overy’s massive – and surely definitive – The Bombing War: Europe 1939-1945 (Allen Lane, RRP £30, Telegraph price £26). Like Hastings, Overy avoids Anglocentricity in an authoritative yet very readable narrative of the conflict in which, for the first time in the history of warfare, the air arm played an equal – and arguably pre-eminent – part, alongside the war on land and at sea. Overy’s history explains and explores strategy, tactics, technology and results in one seamless story that shatters myths and establishes truths about the dubious morality of mass bombing on both sides.
Bombing of civilians plays its foul part in China’s War With Japan 1937-1945: The Struggle for Survival by Rana Mitter (Allen Lane, RRP £25, Telegraph price £23). In his timely history of Chinese resistance to Imperial Japanese aggression, Mitter not only details the suffering of the Chinese (up to 20 million dead, and 100 million displaced), but reminds us that by tying down Japan, China – though divided between warring Nationalists and Communists – enabled the Allies to concentrate on defeating Germany before turning to a fatally weakened Japan. The Chinese part in the Second World War is too often forgotten in the West – this fine book goes far towards remedying that amnesia.
Two books out this year remind us that the Anglo-American relationship has not always been that special. Bunker Hill: A City, a Siege, a Revolution by Nathaniel Philbrick (Doubleday, RRP £25, Telegraph price £23) and When Britain Burned the White House: The 1814 Invasion of Washington by Peter Snow (John Murray, RRP £25, Telegraph price £23) focus respectively on America’s struggle for independence from Britain, and the second round of the conflict in the midst of the Napoleonic Wars. Bunker Hill outside Boston was the first major battle of the struggle, and proved a Pyrrhic victory for Britain against the “rebellious rabble” who would eventually humble the redcoats. Torching the White House some years later may have salvaged British pride, but could not disguise the fact that a new kid was running the block.
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Follow @TelegraphBooksA closeted one. Duh. (Spoiler alert: see Type #5.)
If you want to know more than just that, stay tuned. There are actually seventeen different types of atheists outlined in this post from Common Sense Atheism. I’m going to look at these various options for atheism and see which categories I fall into. Atheist readers, feel free to do it for yourself as well! It could also work for theists if some of the wording is shifted around.
1. Difference in Knowledge
A gnostic atheist not only believes there are no gods, he also claims to know there are no gods.
An agnostic atheist doesn’t believe in gods, but doesn’t claim to know there are no gods.
While (a)theism deals with a statement of belief, (a)gnosticism deals with a statement of knowledge. Personally, I don’t believe that anyone, atheist or theist, can know for sure whether or not there is a god. And either there is one or there isn’t so we can’t all be right. For this reason, I believe that gnostic atheists don’t even exist (even if they claim to). This leads to my obvious identification as an agnostic atheist.
2. Difference in Affirmation
A negative atheist merely lacks a belief in gods. He is also called a weak atheist or an implicit atheist.
A positive atheist not only lacks a belief in gods, but also affirms that no gods exist. He is also called a strong atheist or an explicit atheist.
Difference in Affirmation is very similar to Difference in Knowledge, except rather than dealing with what we claim to know or not know, it addresses what we believe.
In the case of this “type,” I would say that whether I am positive or negative depends on which god we are referring to. If you ask me about the god of the Bible, or Allah, or any specific God that revealed himself to some ancient group of people, then I am a positive atheist towards that god. So rather than just saying that I lack belief in the Christian god, I would say that I believe that he does not exist.
If the god in question is a deist god, some unknown deity that can’t be proven or disproven, that isn’t self-contradictory, that doesn’t come with a peculiar set of laws or a cryptic old book, then that god strikes me as more plausible. For this reason, rather than believing that there is no god, then when it comes to this deist god, I would say I am a negative atheist who merely lacks belief.
3. Difference in Scope
A broad atheist denies the existence of all gods: Zeus, Thor, Yahweh, Shiva, and so on.
A narrow atheist denies the existence of the traditional Western omni-God who is all-good, all-knowing, and all-powerful.
As I said in #2, I lack belief even in the most ambiguous god, and I actively believe that these specific gods (Zeus, Thor, Yahweh, Shiva, the Triune God) do not exist. Therefore, I am a broad atheist: I don’t believe in any gods, whether they are Eastern, Western, or anywhere in between.
I find this an interesting “question,” because it can create a situation in which a theist can also be considered an atheist. It reminds me of the famous Dawkins quote: “We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.” For example, you could consider my mother a passionate atheist in regards to Allah and Baal, but a devout believer in the god of the bible. The only difference here between her and me is that I don’t believe in her god either.
4. Difference in the Assessed Rationality of Theism
An unfriendly atheist believes no one is justified in believing that gods exist.
An indifferent atheist doesn’t have a belief on whether or not others are justified in believing that gods exist.
A friendly atheist believes that some theists are justified in believing that gods exist.
In terms of the Assessed Rationality of Theism, I would say I am a friendly atheist; close to indifferent, but friendly. When my grandfather passed, my mother took comfort about his return to his Savior, although I was uneasy about the fact that she took comfort in something that I don’t even believe to exist. On the contrary, though, even if heaven doesn’t exist, it’s a good thing that she is comforted in its existence and her father’s presence there. If her belief brings her peace, then there’s no reason to break the news to her that I don’t believe in heaven.
This is an example of a time that I see theists being justified in their belief. It does bring comfort to many whether or not it’s rational. Others believe based on their own personal reasons that the existence of a god is only rational. Whether or not it makes sense to me, it certainly makes sense to many, many people, and just because I’m not convinced doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t be.
5. Difference in Openness
A closet atheist has not yet revealed his disbelief to most people.
An open atheist has revealed his disbelief to most people.
Gee, I don’t know. Can you guess?
My real answer: while my blog and username are The Closet Atheist, I’m not as “in the closet” as I was when I started my blog. That’s actually why I chose a cracked-open closet door for my header image rather than a closed door. I’m mostly still in the closet, but I have come out to my boyfriend, my roommates, and a class at school (it was part of an assignment). I plan to come out more at school this year. More importantly, in the next few years, when it’s the right time, I hope to accomplish the liberating task of telling my family.
6. Difference in Action
A passive atheist doesn’t believe in god but doesn’t try to influence the world in favor of atheism.
An evangelical atheist tries to persuade others to give up theistic belief.
An active atheist labors on behalf of causes that specifically benefit atheists (but not necessarily just atheists). For example, he strives against discrimination toward atheists, or he strives in favor of separation of church and state.
A militant atheist uses violence to promote atheism or destroy religion. (Often, the term “militant atheist” is misapplied to non-violent evangelical atheists like Richard Dawkins. But to preserve the parallel with the “militant Christian” who bombs abortion clinics or the “militant Muslim” suicide bomber, I prefer the definition of “militant atheist” that assumes acts of violence.)
Since there are so many options for Difference in Action, I decided that I’m two out of the four. I would say I’m both a passive and active atheist. This may sound contradictory, but according to these definitions, they don’t seem mutually exclusive. By being passive, I’m not trying to change anyone’s minds and deconvert them. Of course, I use my blog and my Twitter to share my thoughts, opinions, and the occasional criticism of religion, but I never have the goal of persuading others to give up their belief.
I consider myself an active atheist because of how I try to present myself on my blog. I see a lot of angry atheists on Twitter, YouTube, and occasionally here on WordPress, and I know that atheists in general have a bad reputation. That’s why I try to show patience, acceptance, and kindness to all who do and don’t agree with me. This is how I try to do what I can to recover the public view of atheism. We’re not all hateful and mean, I promise. This post goes into more detail of how I try to generate and promote positivity.
7. Difference in Religiosity
A religious atheist practices religion but does not believe in gods.
A non-religious atheist does not practice religion.
I guess that for Type #7 that I am technically a religious atheist. I go to church with my mother and sister, but it’s not by choice. It’s just what we do. I’m expected to go with them, so I go. When I’m at school, I don’t attend church (although I joke that my school itself feels like a church anyways), so during the school year, I could say I’m a non-religious atheist.
So there you go! I’m an agnostic, negative, broad, friendly, closeted, passive/active, sometimes religious atheist. What type are you?
Read next:"This is a step taken with respect both to the many conservatives who have a religious commitment and the decision to separate church and state," the Moderate Party wrote in a statement on Friday.
While the party executive has taken a formal decision, the party underlines that "it is very important that those who wish to continue to represent moderate ideas in the church's work are enabled to do so".
This sentiment is supported by party secretary Sofia Arkelsten.
"The Moderate (party) is not standing in the national church elections, but moderates can!" Arkelsten wrote in a Twitter post on Friday.
The party's church consultation group has been given the task of developing a new platform for its commitment to the Church of Sweden, while underlining that there is no longer a religious association within the party.
Elections to General Synod of the Church of Sweden take place every four years and the next elections are due in 2013. Since the 1930s "nominating groups" have typically been directly affiliated with national political parties.
The Moderates are the first major party to take the step for secular reasons, although the Left and Green parties have long operated a system where members are free to form separate associations to compete in the elections.
Furthermore there are also groups with roots in the so-called Free Churches which generally encompasses candidates from the Liberal and Christian Democrat parties.
All Church of Sweden members aged above 16-years-old are eligible to vote for nominating groups and direct elections are held to national national (Kyrkomötet), Diocese (Stift), Community (Samfällighet) and Parish (Församling) assemblies.
Until 2000 the church was considered a state church but on January 1st of that year this relationship was changed with a formal separation of church and state.
With over 6.6 million baptised members, the Church of Sweden is the largest Lutheran church in the world.Man awarded compensation for trauma after witnessing fatal shooting in WA's Wheatbelt
Posted
A man who suffered post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as a result of witnessing a fatal shooting in the West Australian Wheatbelt town of Koorda has been awarded more than $33,000 in compensation.
In February 2013, Harry Farmer was a boarder at the home of former Rebels bikie member Gavin McMaster.
|
) — Attorneys for the company behind West Virginia's chemical spill said in federal bankruptcy court Tuesday that they've secured a deal for up to $4 million in credit to continue operations.
Mark Freelander, an attorney for Freedom, released key details. He said the arrangement reached after an hours-long court hearing would allow Freedom Industries to continue paying its employees and top vendors and also provide funds to cover for environmental cleanup from a Jan. 9 chemical spill in the Elk River.
The spill contaminated water supplies for some 300,000 people in West Virginia.
The agreement with a lender comes after Freedom Industries President Gary Southern said earlier Tuesday that the company had already paid about $800,000 last week to remediate environmental damage from the spill.In 2005 the Supreme Court said the federal government's power to "regulate commerce…among the several states" extends to the tiniest speck of marijuana wherever it may be found, even in the home of a patient who grows it for her own medical use in compliance with state law. "If Congress can regulate this under the Commerce Clause," Justice Clarence Thomas warned in his dissent, "then it can regulate virtually anything—and the Federal Government is no longer one of limited and enumerated powers."
The Obama administration, which was in court this week defending the new federal requirement that every American obtain government-designed health insurance, seems determined to prove Thomas right. But despite seven decades of stretching by a Supreme Court eager to accommodate every congressional whim, the Amazing Elastic Commerce Clause is still not expansive enough to cover the unprecedented command that people purchase a product from a private company in exchange for the privilege of existing.
"Never before has the Commerce Clause…been extended this far," noted U.S. District Judge Henry Hudson when he declined to dismiss the case he heard this week, in which Virginia is challenging the insurance mandate. Last week, allowing a similar lawsuit by Florida, U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson agreed that the Commerce Clause has "never been applied in such a manner before."
That's saying a lot, because the Commerce Clause has been used to justify some audacious assertions of federal power, under the theory that it covers not just interstate commerce but "activities that substantially affect interstate commerce." In 1942 the Supreme Court said a farmer could be penalized for violating federal crop regulations by growing wheat for his own consumption because he thereby reduced demand in the interstate wheat market. The 2005 medical marijuana case extended this reasoning to a federally proscribed commodity grown by people who were not even farmers. In 1964 the Court held that businesses made themselves subject to a federal ban on racial discrimination by purchasing supplies that originated in other states.
But as Judge Vinson noted, all of these cases at least "involved activities in which the plaintiffs had chosen to engage." By contrast, the insurance mandate is "based solely on citizenship and on being alive."
U.S. District Judge George Caram Steeh, who this month dismissed the Michigan-based Thomas More Law Center's challenge to the insurance requirement, disagrees. Conceding that every case in which the Supreme Court has upheld a law under the Commerce Clause has involved "some sort of activity" and "an economic or commercial component," Steeh tried hard to find those elements in a law that punishes people for something that is neither economic nor an activity.
This was the best he could do: "Far from 'inactivity,' by choosing to forgo insurance plaintiffs are making an economic decision to try to pay for health care services later, out of pocket, rather than now through the purchase of insurance.…These decisions, viewed in the aggregate, have clear and direct impacts on health care providers, taxpayers, and the insured population who ultimately pay for the care provided to those who go without insurance."
Although Steeh claimed "the health care market is unlike other markets" because people "cannot opt out," his logic is easily adaptable. People who abstain from purchasing a car are making an economic decision to use other modes of transportation, and that choice has an impact on the U.S. automobile industry, which the federal government is committed to saving. People who do not eat vegetables are making an economic decision to consume other foods, and that choice affects the market for health care services as well as interstate commerce in broccoli. As Judge Hudson observed on Monday, the possibilities are "boundless."
Worse, Steeh's emphasis on "cost-shifting" by people who make poor economic decisions suggests a federal government with the authority to override myriad heretofore private choices, including decisions about education, employment, housing, savings, investment, and purchases of all kinds. Try opting out of that.
Jacob Sullum is a senior editor at Reason and a nationally syndicated columnist.
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The National Hockey League is officially coming to Las Vegas. Yes, the same city that saw temperatures reach 114 degrees Fahrenheit last week will host a sport played on a giant slab of ice.
Sin City is an attractive place for the NHL’s 31st team for a number of reasons. Unless the NFL’s Oakland Raiders relocate before 2017, the currently unnamed hockey team will be the only major professional sports franchise in the city. With the current 16-14 alignment between the Eastern and Western Conferences, adding another team out West makes the layout a little less awkward. Also, this is Las Vegas, a sexy location for a league that could use a publicity bump.
But while this may be a good move for the NHL, what is the product going to look like on the ice? Expansion teams have historically struggled out of the gate, and in some places in the NHL, winning alone isn’t even enough to bring fans to the arena. This team’s peculiar location, combined with the conditions of the expansion, may spell an uphill battle unique to this particular situation. Here are three obstacles that the Las Vegas hockey team may face during its’ inaugural season and beyond:
• Histories and fates of NHL expansion teams
Warm-weather teams tend to fare poorly at the gate
Among the NHL teams that cracked the top 10 in attendance in 2015-16: Montreal, Toronto, Calgary. All of these teams missed the playoffs, but they still brought in a healthy amount of fans each night. In the bottom 10: Anaheim, Florida, San Jose. Not only did those three make the playoffs, the Ducks and Panthers won their divisions, and the Sharks made it all the way to the Stanley Cup Final. Yet, each team averaged less than 17,000 fans per game.
It’s fair to say that Canada is colder than the United States, and Canadian cities innately boast bigger hockey fan bases than most American cities due to hockey's stature north of the border. The sport has its hotbeds in the U.S.—the Minnesota Wild and Buffalo Sabres for example finished fourth and eleventh, respectively, in attendance—and it is making inroads in places like Arizona, the home of this year's No. 1 draft pick Auston Matthews, though the Coyotes ranked 29th at the gate last season (Carolina was 30th).
Here is a chart plotting team’s attendance in 2016 against average high temperatures in January:
Cold temperatures and snow don’t subliminally force people to take shelter at their local hockey rink, and the relationship is one of correlation rather than causation. But hockey is often most popular to play in cold weather cities, and those who grow up with the sport are more likely to become attached to it as a fan. And while youth hockey has grown in Vegas over past years, there is certainly not the following that there is in Quebec, another city that made a bid for an expansion team. According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, only 400 boys and girls play youth hockey in the Las Vegas area, and there are only three rinks in the entire valley. The hope is that this team will inspire that number to grow, but it’s not a guarantee. Hockey is an expensive sport to play.
If you want a more direct comparison, look at the hockey team that currently plays in the desert: The Coyotes, who have finished in the bottom three in attendance during every year since 2007, and who have been on the cusp of leaving for cooler pastures more than once. Even in 2011–12, when they won their division and made it to the Western Conference finals, they still finished dead last in attendance. One reason is due to the location of their arena, which is in the suburb of Glendale, a 25 minute drive from Phoenix. The Coyotes face the same challenge the New York Islanders did during their years in the suburbs of Nassau County. Without convenient mass transit links to games, fans are required to make more of an effort and spend more money to get to them.
The team could turn into a show for visiting fans
Las Vegas is the tourism capital of America. In 2015, the city brought in more than 42 million visitors, according to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. The city’s population, however, is only 583,756, a fraction of the number of tourists the city sees in a given month. The city is consistently chock full of people who don’t live in the state of Nevada–especially near the Las Vegas Strip, where T-Mobile Arena stands. Residents of Las Vegas avoid the Strip like New Yorkers avoid Times Square.
Consider a group of friends from Chicago, who, in the process of planning a weekend in Vegas, notice that the Blackhawks have a night game around the same time of their trip. Surely, they’ll at least consider buying tickets, donning their Jonathan Toews jerseys and cheering on their hometown team, along with the hundreds of other Chicagoans who happen to be visiting that weekend. Las Vegas is not Glendale, and its massive tourism market will definitely draw fans to the arena–but possibly the wrong fans. And who would want to play for a team where their fans are outnumbered in their home arena? The Tampa Bay Lightning have on occasion even taken measures to limit the presence of fans of their opponents.
• Desert Boom: Vegas expansion, Auston Matthews point to new era
People come to Vegas to see shows, and with an arena so close to all the action, a hockey game could easily become an alternative to Cirque de Soleil. It’s true that there is no other major professional sports team in Vegas, and the incoming hockey team will have a monopoly on the city’s fandom. But the large amount of out-of-state tourists, combined with the spectacle that is Las Vegas, may make it hard for the expansion team to build up a devoted fan base–at least one that will consistently go to games in big numbers.
The talent pool is comparably thin
We’ve talked about the conditions surrounding the Vegas expansion, but what is the actual team going to look like? Commissioner Gary Bettman has set forth a reasonable system for the 2017 expansion draft, one he believes will make the team competitive right away. Las Vegas will be allowed to select one player from each of the 30 existing teams, and their selections must account for somewhere between 60 and 100% of the salary cap. The team’s general manager will be allowed to pick and choose a team largely to his own liking.
But the fine print allows some pretty hefty protections for the other 30 teams. Each club has the right to protect seven forwards, three defensemen and one goalie; or eight players at one position and one goalie. Plus, any player with a “no-movement” clause in his contract is automatically exempt. Few teams in the current NHL have seven difference-making forwards, and most teams will be able to hold onto their valuable players without issue.
• NFL, NBA watching NHL’s Las Vegas expansion vote
There is the consolation that Las Vegas will pick no lower than sixth in the 2017 NHL Entry Draft. But from a draft perspective, this expansion was a year or two off from the jackpot. There are no game-changing prospects in next year’s draft like Connor McDavid or Auston Matthews were in 2015 and 2016, respectively.
So, this team will play in a desert city with little attachment to hockey, its’ arena will be located in a tourist trap that will attract out-of-town fans, and the talent level of the prospective team is likely to be low. And all of this excludes the tricky gray areas inherent in placing a pro sports team in a city with legalized sports gambling. Bettman hasn’t exactly taken a pro-gambling stance in the past, and in 2012 said he was “concerned how gambling and betting affects the NHL game and changes the perception of and challenges the integrity of the NHL game.”
Bettman likely understands all of these issues, and probably debated them with his group in deciding where the league's next team should go. Vegas may be a shrewd business decision for the NHL, and should give the it some much-needed exposure. Just don’t expect the Strip to be lined with rabid fans wearing Vegas jerseys.Heath Ledger’s sisters say Joker role did not kill him
The Joker didn’t kill him! Heath Ledger’s sisters say late actor ‘wasn’t depressed’ over The Dark Knight role
His obsession with crafting the comic book character of The Joker has long been rumored to have been a factor in his death.
But on Sunday, Heath Ledger’s sisters Kate Ledger and Ashleigh Bell insisted the gossip surrounding the Australian actor’s sudden overdose death in January 2008 is not justified.
‘He wasn’t depressed about The Joker,’ Kate Ledger said during a Q&A at the Tribeca Film Festival, as reported by The Daily Beast.
Rare appearance: Heath Ledger’s sisters Ashleigh Bell, left, and Kate Ledger, right, attended the screening of documentary I Am Heath Ledger at the Tribeca Film Festival on Sunday
‘Honestly it was the absolute opposite. He had an amazing sense of humor, and I guess only his close family and friends really knew that. But he was having fun,’ Kate said.
The sisters explained that they had been shocked by reports circulating around the time of his death at the age of 28.
‘It was coming out that he was depressed and it was taking a toll, and we were going, ‘What?’’ Ashleigh explained.
The two women were part of a filmmakers panel that followed a festival screening of the new documentary I Am Heath Ledger.
Speaking out: The sisters said they wanted to disprove gossip that the Australian actor’s sudden overdose death in January 2008 was caused by his role as The Joker in The Dark Knight
Last role: Ashleigh and Kate said it wasn’t true that Heath was depressed andThe Joker was taking a toll, insisting the opposite was true and he was having fun with the character
Intimate portrait: Heath’s family gave their approval to the documentary directed by Adrian Buitenhuis and Derick Murray, pictured Sunday with Ashleigh and Kate
It marked a rare instance in which Heath’s family have publicly spoken about his death.
They gave their blessing to the project directed by Derik Murray and Adrian Buitenhuis in part because they wanted to show the world ‘what they didn’t know about him.’
‘Obviously he was such a prominent actor and everyone knew that side of him already…But we knew the photographer, the father. He was such a filmmaker. He was such a creator of everything,’ Ashleigh told the festival audience.
‘Because he was really not a celebrity. In his eyes, he really wasn’t. We wanted that to come through,’ Kate added.
I Am Heath Ledger has a limited theatrical release starting May 3 and will also air in a shortened form on cable channel Spike TV from May 17.
New movie: The documentary will have a limited theatrical release starting May 3 and will also air in a shortened form on cable channel Spike TV from May 17
Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-4438806/Heath-Ledger-s-sisters-say-Joker-role-did-not-kill-him.htmlAugust was supposed to be the month that President Donald Trump sold tax reform.
White House officials, including then-press secretary Sean Spicer, said in July that Trump would be hitting the road to lay the groundwork for tax reform before administration and congressional negotiators wrapped up their high-level work in September.
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But with less than two weeks to go before Congress returns, and Republican leaders hoping to launch a major push to get tax legislation to the president’s desk by the end of the year, Trump has barely mentioned the subject.
Part of the month went to important foreign policy issues, like Trump’s war of words with North Korea and announcing an increased troop presence in Afghanistan.
But domestically he’s picked fights with the top Republican in the Senate, stewed over how his response to racially tinged violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, was received, and mused about shutting down the government over funding for a border wall.
“It’s utterly inexplicable,” said Michael Steel, a Republican communications veteran of the House Ways and Means Committee and former Speaker John Boehner’s office.
Steel, now a managing director at Hamilton Place Strategies, a public affairs firm doing work in support of tax reform, singled out Trump’s antagonistic tweets toward Republican senators, including Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, as especially counterproductive.
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A House GOP aide put it more bluntly.
“Doing anything other than the f---ing Charlottesville equivocating would be lovely,” the aide grumbled.
The White House did not respond to multiple requests for comment. But press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said at a press briefing Thursday that tax reform could be a public focus for the White House as soon as next week.
“Tax relief and the focus on tax relief for middle-class Americans is a huge priority for this administration, and certainly going to be a big focus in the fall,” Sanders said. “And we're going to look at a lot of different ways in which to talk about that and present that to the American people, working with Congress to make sure that that happens."
She added: "I think that you can expect some of that to take place in the very short order, probably next week and following through to the fall.”
Trump’s lack of focus so far also seems to be undercutting the concerted efforts of congressional Republican leaders, business executives and conservative activists to build public support for tax reform before Congress reconvenes.
At a tax reform event Wednesday in Oregon hosted by Intel, House Speaker Paul Ryan took more questions from reporters and workers about Trump’s remarks on border security and immigration than on the topic du jour. The event came the day after Trump held a raucous political rally in Phoenix, where he talked about a border wall and hinted at a pardon for former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, recently convicted of criminal contempt for ignoring a court order to stop detaining people he suspected of being undocumented immigrants.
The most pointed comment Trump made at the rally about tax reform was a jab at Democrats. “I hope some of the Democrats that are going to lose their election will come over and give everybody a big beautiful tax cut, which is going to be great for the economy,” he said.
House Ways and Means Chairman Kevin Brady and many other Republicans have stressed that it will take presidential leadership to get tax reform over the goal line. At an event in Texas last week, Brady called tax reform "the signature issue" of Trump's presidency and said Trump "will be incredibly crucial to the success of this."
But some longtime tax activists question whether Trump’s leadership on the issue is that important.
“He’s not Mr. Communicator,” said Grover Norquist, president of the conservative group Americans for Tax Reform and the country’s most well-known anti-tax advocate.
“It is not necessary for him to sell this, it is necessary for him to agree with the House and Senate,” Norquist said.
White House aides have said that, as a businessman, Trump is naturally more interested in — and more knowledgeable about — taxes than other issues. That line emerged more strongly after the Republicans’ Obamacare debacle, and it may still prove to be true and a boost to tax reform.
The House GOP aide said Trump’s lack of engagement recently isn’t fatal to the tax reform effort. But Republicans will need cover when special interests bear down to protect their deductions and carveouts in the tax code.
“When we need you to be on message, can you be on message please?” the aide said, adding that he wished Trump were more focused like Ryan.
Steel said Trump “absolutely still has the ability to make the case on tax reform to his dedicated base of voters. And I hope he starts to do so vigorously.”Buy Photo The Handy Chef from TeleBrands as seen on TV. (Photo: File Photo )Buy Photo
The acting Attorney General of New Jersey doesn't see eye-to-eye with Telebrand, producers of the Fairfield-based "As Seen on TV" infomercials he has charged with numerous violations of the Consumer Fraud Act.
Telebrands, known for pitching gadgets and products ranging from the "Pocket Hose" and "liquid lawn" to the Olde Brooklyn Lantern, was charged Wednesday with a five-count complaint by the state Division of Law in Essex County Superior Court.
The company was founded by Chief Executive Officer AJ Khubani, a 1978 graduate of Boonton High School who was inducted into the school's Hall of Fame in 2012.
The complaint also alleges that Telebrands violated the terms of a 2001 Final Consent Judgment and Order that resolved prior litigation with the state and, among other things, required the company to comply with the Consumer Fraud Act. From 2012 through July 2014, the division says it received, either directly or indirectly, 340 consumer complaints regarding Telebrands' business practices.
"As demonstrated by its alleged actions, Telebrands cannot be trusted to do right by its customers or to even honor its own 2001 pledge to follow our consumer protection laws," Acting Attorney General John J. Hoffman said in a news release. "We are bringing this action to end the abusive business practices that Telebrands allegedly is inflicting upon consumers."
"We take pride that for more than three decades, tens of millions of consumers have trusted TeleBrands for delivering innovative products," Khubani said in response to the complaint. "Consumer satisfaction is always our top priority. We are confident that this matter with the state of New Jersey will be resolved in short order."
The state's complaint alleges that Telebrands engaged in unconscionable commercial practices, made false promises or misrepresentations, knowingly omitted material facts and violated advertising regulations by obscuring material facts (such as processing fees) and using misleading terms (such as "special offer") in its infomercials and ads.
The charges also are based on a Division of Consumer Affairs undercover investigation that, over several months, had investigators make purchases of products advertised and offered by Telebrands. The purchases were made through various Telebrands websites and as well as the toll-free numbers featured in the company's commercials and infomercials.
The state's complaint also alleges that Telebrands subjected consumers to a lengthy ordering process, sometimes lasting more than 30 minutes, and aggressively upsold customers, citing an instance during undercover Instabulb purchase in which the buyer was solicited for at least seven additional products.
In another instance, an investigator who attempted to return an Olde Brooklyn Lantern for a refund was required to make four telephone calls to Telebrands after being disconnected twice and placed on hold once. After finally reaching a representative, the investigator was instructed to call another number, which connected him to the Telebrands IVR System.
After being placed on hold, the investigator spoke with a Telebrands customer service representative, who stated that the return could not be processed without a credit card number. The investigator then asked to speak with a supervisor and was placed on hold for three minutes. The supervisor also stated that a credit card number was needed to process the refund even though the refund policy posted on the company's web site stated that a credit card was not needed.
In other cases, the state alleges that customers received non-conforming merchandise or merchandise that they did not order, were not provided with instructions as to the return of merchandise, were required to return the nonconforming merchandise or merchandise not ordered at the consumers' expense, and had difficulty in communicating with customer-service representatives.
"This action against Telebrands alleges that consumers were repeatedly pressured through gimmickry misrepresentations, and high-pressure sales tactics to buy products they didn't want," Acting Consumer Affairs Director Steve Lee said.
The state is seeking restitution for the affected consumers, civil penalties and reimbursement of investigation and attorneys' fees. The Consumer Fraud Act provides for a civil penalty of up to $10,000 per violation. Based on Telebrands' violation of the 2001 consent judgment, the state is seeking enhanced civil penalties of up to $20,000 for each violation.
Staff Writer William Westhoven: 973-428-6627; wwesthoven@dailyrecord.com.
Read or Share this story: http://dailyre.co/VmwiXgThis article is over 2 years old
Conservationists say Indochine tigers are ‘functionally extinct’ as they launch action plan for reintroduction
Tigers are “functionally extinct” in Cambodia, conservationists conceded for the first time on Wednesday, as they launched a bold action plan to reintroduce the big cats to the kingdom’s forests.
Cambodia’s dry forests used to be home to scores of Indochinese tigers but the WWF said intensive poaching of both tigers and their prey had devastated the numbers of the big cats.
The last tiger was seen on camera trap in the eastern Mondulkiri province in 2007, it said.
“Today, there are no longer any breeding populations of tigers left in Cambodia, and they are therefore considered functionally extinct,” the conservation group said in a statement.
Forests still large enough to double the world's tiger population, study finds Read more
In an effort to revive the population, the Cambodian government last month approved a plan to reintroduce the creatures into the Mondulkiri protected forest in the far of east the country.
The plan will see a chunk of suitable habitat carved out and protected against poachers by strong law enforcement, officials said, and action to protect the tigers’ prey.
“We want two male tigers and five to six females tigers for the start,” Keo Omaliss, director of the department of wildlife and biodiversity at the Forestry Administration, told reporters. “This is a huge task.”
The government needs $20 to $50m for the project, he said, adding talks had begun with countries including India, Thailand and Malaysia providing a small number of wild tigers to be introduced.
Conservation groups applauded the plan.
“It’s [the tiger] been hunted to extinction because of weak law enforcement and the government is now reacting,” said Suwanna Gauntlett, of the Wildlife Alliance.
Deforestation and poaching have devastated tiger numbers across Asia, with recent estimates from the International Union for Conservation of Nature putting the global population at just 2,154.
Countries with tiger populations - Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Russia, Thailand and Vietnam - in 2010 launched a plan to double their numbers by 2022.
Officials from the 13 countries are set to meet from 12-14 April in Delhi to discuss the goals.Big six fast-food chains pledge to slash fat and salt in historic anti-obesity shift
Historic shift: KFC is one of sixth fast food chains that has signed up to the anti-obesity drive
Six of the country's biggest restaurant chains have pledged to serve more salad and slash levels of fat and salt in their products in an historic shift.
Burger King, KFC, McDonald's, Nando's, Subway and Wimpy have signed up to the anti-obesity drive by the Government's Food Standards Agency (FSA).
Fast food chains Burger King and Wimpy have pledged to run trials on using frying oils that contain less saturated fat.
Burger King is also introducing a new healthy apple dessert as an alternative to ice cream.
Subway promised a review of its entire menu to reduce salt levels by 15 per cent by June next year. Staff will also stop offering to add salt to fillings.
The firm is also to offer side salads with its rolls and aims to reduce saturated fat levels in its standard creations.
Wimpy has introduced five new salads to its menu and also offers jacket potatoes and salads as alternatives to fries with its children's meals.
The biggest chain, McDonald's, said customers will be able to order Big Macs without sauce and fries without salt.
It is running a trial on fruit smoothies as an alternative to sugary fizzy drinks and has pledged to introduce more fruit and veg options backed by popular children's cartoon characters.
Both Nandos and KFC are promising a review of their most popular menu items to reduce both levels of fat and salt.
The FSA is putting pressure on restaurant chains to radically change their menus, moving from fried food to fruit, vegetables and salad.
The Government watchdog has already won commitments from catering firms. It is also in talks with the country's largest pub, family restaurant and coffee shop chains.
It estimates that Britons are eating 20 per cent too much saturated fat every day, which is contributing to some 200,000 deaths a year from coronary heart disease.
It has set itself a target to reduce the proportion of food energy from saturated fat from an average of 13.3 per cent to 11 per cent by 2010.
This, it claims, would prevent 3,500 premature deaths a year.
Head of nutrition at the FSA, Rosemary Hignett, welcomed the pledges from the six restaurant chains.
'Eating out should be fun and we don't want to change that, but we believe restaurants can help make it easier for us to take healthier choices when dining out,' she said.
'These companies' commitments, together with the positive work that many have been doing for a number of years, show just how much is possible. We hope that other restaurant chains will be able to emulate this exciting work'.
The FSA has no legal power to force restaurants to change their recipes. However, it has the backing of the Health Secretary, Alan Johnson, and the ability to shame firms that refuse to fall into line.
The organisation wants restaurants to publish nutrition information on the menus in their high street outlets to help people choose healthy options.
Currently, most of the major chains are unwilling to go beyond putting the information on calories, fat, salt and sugar on their websites.
Earlier this year, a Cabinet Office report on future food policy outlined the need for restaurants to include more nutrition information on their menus.
It said: 'We need to help consumers to access healthier choices when eating out, and need to provide information that considers both the health and environmental aspects of food.'
It justified the measures, saying: 'Changes in eating patterns would bring huge health gains here in the UK.
'Poor diet is known to influence the risk of cancer, heart disease and other conditions.
'The importance of nutrition for mental health and well-being is gradually becoming clearer.
'Around 70,000 fewer people would die prematurely each year in the UK if diets matched the nutritional guidelines on fruit and vegetable consumption, and saturated fat, added sugar and salt intake.'
Chairman of the FSA, Dame Deirdre Hutton, said: 'We are used to seeing nutritional information in supermarkets and we would like to enable people to make the same informed choices when they eat out as well.'
It said restaurants should replace unhealthy dishes, like fried foods, with healthy options.
Dame Deirdre said: 'It's about more than just providing information - we're working with major contract caterers, restaurant, pub and sandwich chains to encourage them to offer a wider range of great tasting healthier options.'
The British Hospitality Association says that small independent restaurants, which are constantly changing their menus, will find it difficult to provide nutrition information.TRIPOLI (Reuters) - On a tidy campus in his capital of Tripoli, dictator Muammar Gaddafi sponsored one of the world’s leading Muslim missionary networks. It was the smiling face of his Libyan regime, and the world smiled back.
Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi (L) is accompanied by Ivory Coast's President Laurent Gbagbo (R) during a welcoming ceremony upon his arrival at Felix Houphouet Boigny airport, outside Abidjan, at the start of a two-day visit to Ivory Coast June 27, 2007. REUTERS/Thierry Gouegnon/Files
The World Islamic Call Society (WICS) sent staffers out to build mosques and provide humanitarian relief. It gave poor students a free university education, in religion, finance and computer science. Its missionaries traversed Africa preaching a moderate, Sufi-tinged version of Islam as an alternative to the strict Wahhabism that Saudi Arabia was spreading.
The Society won approval in high places. The Vatican counted it among its partners in Christian-Muslim dialogue and both Pope John Paul and Pope Benedict received its secretary general. Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, spiritual head of the world’s Anglicans, visited the campus in 2009 to deliver a lecture. The following year, the U.S. State Department noted approvingly how the Society had helped Filipino Christian migrant workers start a church in Libya.
But the Society had a darker side that occasionally flashed into view. In Africa, rumors abounded for years of Society staffers paying off local politicians or supporting insurgent groups. In 2004, an American Muslim leader was convicted of a plot to assassinate the Saudi crown prince, financed in part by the Society. In 2011, Canada stripped the local Society office of its charity status after it found the director had diverted Society money to a radical group that had attempted a coup in Trinidad and Tobago in 1990 and was linked to a plot to bomb New York’s Kennedy Airport in 2007.
Now, with the Gaddafi regime gone, it is possible to piece together a fuller picture of this two-faced group. Interviews with three dozen current and former Society staff and Libyan officials, religious leaders and exiles, as well as analysis of its relations with the West, show how this arm of the Gaddafi regime was able to sustain a decades-long double game.
Yet Libya’s new leaders, the same ones who fought bitterly to overthrow Gaddafi and dismantle his 42-year dictatorship, are unanimous in wanting to preserve the WICS. They say they can disentangle its religious work from the dirty tricks it played and retain the Society as a legitimate religious charity - and an instrument of soft power for oil-rich Libya.
A committee led by a leading anti-Gaddafi Islamic scholar, Sheikh Al Dokali Mohammed Al Alem, is now investigating the Society’s activities. Their report may take months to appear, but a Reuters investigation has found Libyan officials in Tripoli now say openly what under Gaddafi was taboo - that the religious Society was allied to a huge shadow network, especially in Africa.
“There are still some loose ends in the Islamic Call Society in Africa,” said Noman Benotman, a former member of an al-Qaeda-linked Libyan Islamist group who now works on deradicalization of jihadists at the Quilliam Foundation in London.
“They still have a lot of money going around through these channels that used to belong to the Islamic Call Society,” he said. “Huge amounts of money are involved. I think we’re talking about one to two billion dollars.”
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Africa to miss Gaddafi’s money, not his meddling
link.reuters.com/cyx37s
The Gaddafi oil papers
link.reuters.com/ned75s
BACK CHANNEL
In a new book, Gaddafi’s former foreign minister alleges that the dictator used the Society as a back channel to secretly agitate against Christian heads of state in Africa and support Muslim groups seeking power. He accuses the Society’s former secretary general, Mohammad Ahmed Al Sharif, of personally delivering cash to African leaders to finance election campaigns.
“From the start, Gaddafi wanted the WICS to be one of the foreign arms affiliated to him personally,” Abdel Rahman Shalgam writes in the Arabic-language book, “Men Around Gaddafi.” “Among the locals, the World Islamic Call Society was known as the World Security Call Society,” says Shalgam, now Libya’s ambassador at the United Nations in New York.
The facade of semi-independence from the regime collapsed completely when Libya’s revolution broke out early last year. Sharif turned to Russia and Sri Lanka in failed bids to get them to mediate with the rebels.
Shalgam accuses Sharif of using WICS money to rush African mercenaries to Libya to fight for Gaddafi. Defense Minister Osama Al Juweli has alleged that the television studio on the Society campus was used to edit video to make it appear that NATO bombing had hit civilian areas of Tripoli.
Sharif told Reuters he can refute the charges against him, but will not speak publicly until an official inquiry is finished.
The intriguing question is how the Society escaped Western scrutiny for so long. One likely reason is that it seemed like small fish by Libyan standards. Gaddafi was himself bizarre - President Ronald Reagan called him “the mad dog of the Middle East.” And his role in backing Palestinian fighters, African insurgents, the Irish Republican Army and the Lockerbie bombers was provocative enough to overshadow an NGO of preachers.
Its active interest in interfaith dialogue also helped burnish its image. More than that, the moderate version of Islam that WICS preachers spread looked increasingly attractive after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States carried out by mostly Saudi hijackers.
Saudi Arabia has exported its strict Wahhabi Islam through its own missionary society, the Muslim World League, since 1962. Gaddafi’s bitter rivalry with Riyadh extended to Islam as well, and the Society competed with the League to build free mosques and schools around the world. This became a strategic asset when Gaddafi patched up relations with the West in 2003 by taking responsibility for the 1998 Lockerbie bombings and abandoning his pursuit of weapons of mass destruction.
Rev Dr. Olav Fykse Tveit, General Secretary of the Geneva-based World Council of Churches, delivered a lecture at the Society in January 2011. He says dealing with Gaddafi’s Libya required a delicate balance. “Our faith calls us to speak with everyone,” he said, stressing the WCC did not know any specific allegations against the Society when he visited. “We understand the risk involved and the complexity of situations such as this.”
Today, the transitional Libyan government is grappling with what to do about the Society. Its former leader, Sharif, has been sacked and a long official investigation is underway. But most of its staff is still in place. Rather than scrap the Society as a Gaddafi-tainted institution, the government is pursuing a modest purge.
“The Society was misused by the Gaddafi regime. It was part of his intelligence (network),” said Deputy Prime Minister Mustafa Abushagur. “Clearly, the Society itself has a good mission if it is done right.”
During the Libyan dictatorship, few people knew the Society’s real size and influence. It answered only to Gaddafi, and its financial transactions were exempt from all taxes and duties. Massoud Al Wazni |
for us to go – in terms of trying new things, being socially responsible, which Star Trek has always been – was to go for a female captain." ("The First Captain: Bujold", VOY Season 1 DVD special features) Berman elaborated, "We didn't want to just create a captain and cast it with a female. We wanted to create a female captain who was a captain that was somewhat more nurturing and a little bit less swashbuckling than someone like Captain Kirk, a little bit less sullen than someone like Captain Sisko, and a little bit more approachable than Captain Picard." (Star Trek: Voyager Companion) Wanting to develop the character of a female captain who would act as the lead role on Star Trek: Voyager was one motive Berman had for including Jeri Taylor as another executive producer involved in the conceptual genesis of the series, as it was believed Taylor could be a positive influence on the character's development. (Star Trek: Voyager - A Vision of the Future, p. 156) Taylor and her then-associates, Berman and Executive Producer Michael Piller, all agreed that they wanted a female captain for the series. (Star Trek: Voyager - A Vision of the Future, p. 158)
Although a female captain had been decided on, this concept was downplayed to Paramount Studios. Essentially, the three executive producers of the forthcoming series said to Paramount, "Let us interview both sexes, and if the best actor we find is a woman, can we hire her?" Eventually, Paramount accepted this proposal. The studio's hesitation was based on uncertainty over the viewing audience's possible response to having a female captain as the series lead. No-one at the studio knew if the viewers – who were well known as predominantly male, aged twenty-five to forty-five – would accept the idea. However, the choice of a female captain had a significant advantage, as it would eliminate the problem of fans comparing the new captain to Captains Kirk and Picard. As a result, the executive producers proceeded unhindered, building the notion of a female captain into their premise for the series. (Star Trek: Voyager - A Vision of the Future, pp. 158-159)
In a series of early development notes written by Jeri Taylor (dated 3 August 1993), the character of the captain was briefly outlined, in a section titled "The Crew". The outline stated, " Captain – a human female, Lindsay Wagner type." (A Vision of the Future - Star Trek: Voyager, p. 176)
The character was originally named "Elizabeth Janeway". ([1] (X) ; VOY Season 2 DVD trivia text version of "The 37's") In the first draft script of "Caretaker" (dated 8 June 1994), the character had that name, though she had received the first name "Kathryn" by the time the final draft of the script was issued.
In the "Caretaker" script, Janeway was described as "a charismatic woman in her early forties." The script went on to say, "She has a warm thoughtful face and remarkably attentive eyes that suggest a deep awareness of all that is going on around her."
Looking for the right actress to play Janeway was an arduous process, due to the untried nature of the female character. Jeri Taylor commented, "The search for the captain was a long and difficult one. This is the person that gets the white-hot glare of publicity as the first female ever to head one of the Star Trek series and she had to be just right." (Captains' Logs Supplemental - The Unauthorized Guide to the New Trek Voyages)
Numerous actresses have claimed that they were or have been reported in the media as having been considered for the role of Janeway, most notably Susan Gibney (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion, p. 299; A Vision of the Future - Star Trek: Voyager, p. 267; Star Trek - Where No One Has Gone Before, paperback ed., p. 214), and veteran science fiction television actress Erin Gray. Others considered include Karen Austin(citation needed • edit), Nicola Bryant(citation needed • edit), Joanna Cassidy (Star Trek - Where No One Has Gone Before, paperback ed., p. 214), Lindsay Crouse(citation needed • edit), Blythe Danner (A Vision of the Future - Star Trek: Voyager, p. 267), Patty Duke(citation needed • edit), Chelsea Field (Star Trek - Where No One Has Gone Before, paperback ed., p. 214), Linda Hamilton (A Vision of the Future - Star Trek: Voyager, p. 267; Star Trek - Where No One Has Gone Before, paperback ed., p. 214), Kate Jackson (Star Trek - Where No One Has Gone Before, paperback ed., p. 214), Patsy Kensit (A Vision of the Future - Star Trek: Voyager, p. 267; Star Trek - Where No One Has Gone Before, paperback ed., p. 214), Carolyn McCormick(citation needed • edit), Tracy Scoggins(citation needed • edit), Helen Shaver(citation needed • edit), and Lindsay Wagner (Star Trek - Where No One Has Gone Before, paperback ed., p. 214). At an early time of pre-production when it was unclear that Janeway was to be a woman, actors Gary Graham and Rene Rivera also auditioned for the role.(citation needed • edit) Nigel Havers was another male actor who was considered for the part. (A Vision of the Future - Star Trek: Voyager, p. 267)
Eventually, French-Canadian actress Geneviève Bujold was cast in the role of Elizabeth Janeway. Following this selection, the character was described in an early press release (dated 2 September 1994), which referred to Janeway as "a Human female [who] leads the combined teams of Starfleet and Maquis personnel. She is not the only female Captain in Starfleet, however, her intelligence, thoughtfulness, dedication and diplomacy have earned her respect and recognition as one of the best Starfleet Captains – male or female." [2] Due to legal aspects (specifically, that a prominent person, an actual American feminist writer, named "Elizabeth Janeway" existed), the name had to be changed. At Bujold's request, the character was renamed "Nicole Janeway".
Genevieve Bujold left the cast of Star Trek: Voyager during filming of the pilot, "Caretaker". The first season DVD release includes the first public release of footage featuring Bujold as Janeway. The extant footage shows a subdued Bujold; accustomed to the big screen, her quiet, nuanced acting style did not blend well with the rest of the cast. A distinctly unimpressed Brannon Braga commented, "If you watch her dailies, you can see she's not very good." (The Fifty-Year Mission: The Next 25 Years, p. 569) When Bujold left the set after two days of filming, Kate Mulgrew, who had been Braga's second choice, was asked to come back for another audition. Mulgrew ended up being cast in the part, replacing Bujold. At that time, the character's name was changed to its final form – "Kathryn Janeway".
Jeri Taylor was hopeful that, with Kate Mulgrew in the role, Captain Janeway could and would be highly sociable. Shortly after casting the part, Taylor remarked, "We are going to see that she interacts much more easily on a social level with the crew in a way that Picard never did." (Captains' Logs Supplemental - The Unauthorized Guide to the New Trek Voyages)
In an early press release issued shortly after the casting of Kate Mulgrew, much the same information about Janeway was presented as in the earlier press release, apart from a few changes. For example, the character (now renamed "Kathryn") was introduced as "a Human Starfleet Captain" rather than "a Human female". The updated press release additionally referred to Janeway by remarking, "She is a tough Captain, who is not afraid to take chances." The same document relayed that Mulgrew had commented, "Captain Kathryn Janeway is the quintessential woman of the future... both commanding and discerning in her warmth; she's authoritative while remaining accessible. Beneath her extraordinary control runs a very deep vein of vulnerability and sensitivity that I look forward to exploring in seasons to come." [3]
Due to the female gender of Voyager's captain, depicting the character was a balancing act; the captain's feminine qualities, her nurturing and emotional aspects, had to be maintained while also making the character tough enough that she was believable as a Starfleet captain. Concerning the plausibility of the character's toughness, Rick Berman stated, "It's not really all that true with a somewhat diminutive woman like Kate Mulgrew. Those are problems that we find enjoyable to work with and to overcome." (Star Trek: Voyager - A Vision of the Future, p. 159) Berman was ultimately pleased with how Mulgrew sought this balance. He recalled, "Kate, I think, remarkably deliver[ed] a feminine nurturing side and at the same time, a sense of strength and confidence. And that's just what we were looking for and I think that we've gotten it in spades." (Star Trek: Voyager Companion)
The Star Trek: Voyager costuming department regarded the maintenance of Kate Mulgrew's body weight as vital for the portrayal of Captain Janeway. "We have to beg Kate Mulgrew not to lose weight," remarked Costume Designer Robert Blackman, during the making of the series, "because she is very energetic and burns up the calories like there's no tomorrow. So to keep her at a US size 3 or 4 is very difficult sometimes." (Star Trek Monthly issue 9, p. 55)
Brannon Braga found witnessing Kate Mulgrew portray the role of Captain Janeway was particularly informative for writing the character. Mulgrew's habit of frequently placing her hands on her hips, while personifying Janeway, inspired the creation of the Tak Tak body language in "Macrocosm", an episode Braga wrote. (Star Trek: Voyager - A Vision of the Future, pp. 171-172)
Janeway's birthplace of Bloomington, Indiana, is most likely a nod to Jeri Taylor, who was born in the same city. Bloomington is also the town in which Taylor's alma mater, Indiana University, is located.
The shooting script of Star Trek Nemesis directly referred to the popularity of the Janeway character, stating, "She has lost none of her dry humor and down-to-earth charm which made her a household name and beloved cult figure."
Apocrypha Edit
The Caretaker novelization gives her name as "Kathryn M. Janeway".
In the Voyager relaunch book series, Admiral Janeway taught at Starfleet Academy with Tuvok.
Janeway was mentioned in the Deep Space Nine book trilogy Millennium. In the book's alternate future, Janeway and Voyager returned to the Alpha Quadrant at an unspecified time. After the destruction of Earth, Janeway, along with The Doctor, Admiral Seven of Nine, and Hugh negotiated an unholy alliance with the Borg, as a desperate measure to stop Weyoun and the Pah-wraiths from destroying the universe. The cornerstone of Janeway's plan was Project Guardian. The goal of Project Guardian was to use the Guardian of Forever to go back in time and destroy Bajor. Although such an act would violate the Temporal Prime Directive, at least it would save the universe. On December 22, 2399, the combined Borg/Federation fleet arrived at the Guardian's planet to find it was interdicted by hostile Grigari forces. What followed was six days of fighting. Finally, on December 28, Janeway and an army of Federation troops made it to the surface, the Guardian in sight. At that moment, Janeway knew that she had won, that victory was in hand. However, the Grigari were ready for her. They activated a singularity bomb, which created a black hole, killing all who were present. Janeway, the Borg and Federation fleets, the Guardian, and the Grigari were all killed. The timeline was later reset thanks to Captain Sisko.
In "Places of Exile", a story in Star Trek: Myriad Universes - Infinity's Prism, an alternate version of Janeway is presented, who becomes stranded in the Delta Quadrant along with the rest of the Voyager crew. She eventually is instrumental in helping to form a Delta Quadrant version of the Federation, as well as beginning a romantic relationship with Chakotay, and bearing his child.
In the Star Trek Online multiplayer game, Admiral Janeway is alive and well in the year 2409, and is one of the principal backers of scientific investigation into the supernova of 2387 that destroyed Romulus. When the player speaks to the Trill astronomer Damar Kahn aboard Starbase 114 during the episode titled "Heading Out", this information is revealed through Kahn's dialogue text.
In the Next Generation prequel The Buried Age, then-Lieutenant Janeway participated in an archaeological expedition led by Captain Picard a few years after the destruction of the Stargazer, where a plan of Janeway's to access a location isolated from the rest of the universe by a quantum field results in the accidental death of three of the four aliens trapped there; Janeway later notes that, if placed in a situation where her own interests and the well-being of another race are in conflict, she will choose the second option. When assembling his crew for the USS Enterprise-D, Picard attempted to recruit Janeway, but she was on another long-distance assignment and could not be reached.
In the Next Generation relaunch novel Before Dishonor, Janeway was assimilated by the Borg in the year 2380 and is made into their new Queen. An attempt by Seven of Nine to rescue her resulted in the defeat of that Collective, but Janeway herself was apparently killed. Her final fate was left uncertain, as it was implied that she had become a companion of Lady Q. Her death was confirmed in the Full Circle novel.
In the Star Trek: Voyager novel The Eternal Tide, Janeway's consciousness was intercepted by Lady Q as a favor for her son. Lady Q extended the instantaneous moment between life and death experienced by all beings to a point where Janeway exists in this manner for over a year. With assistance by Lady Q, Q Junior, and Kes, Janeway is able to return to her Human body, sans Borg implants, and travel to the Full Circle fleet in the Delta Quadrant in September 2381, in order to aid in Voyager saving the universe from an early death via the Omega Continuum. With the absorption of Fleet Captain Afsarah Eden into the Continuum from whence she came, Starfleet Command places Janeway as the new admiral in command of the USS Voyager and the Full Circle fleet. Meanwhile, Janeway also renews her romantic relationship with Captain Chakotay. The novel A Pocket Full of Lies sees the fleet discover the existence of an alternate version of Janeway created during the events of "Shattered", also revealing that the temporal fracture Voyager experienced during those events was the result of an attack by the Krenim after they became aware of the events of the "erased" Year of Hell in "Year of Hell" and "Year of Hell, Part II".About
What is Bench?
We, at Bench, are working to create a co-operative workspace for trades like wood and metal working. We want to create a shared workshop for local craftsmen and give hobbyists, or as we like to call them Weekend Warriors, a chance to learn and improve their skilled while working on their own projects.
Who will benefit?
Bench helps artisans, entrepreneurs, hobbyists, and homeowners. Basically anyone who wants to work with their hands. But in turn benefitting this group will help our community by growing our local economy, improving neighborhoods, and teaching skills to some who would otherwise not have them.
Who are you?
Ben Petersen
Ben is the founder of Omaha based PhilipDesignLab, a furniture company he started out of his garage. He understands the struggles entrepreneurs like him face, such as; inadequate shop space, lack of exposure to the local market, and a lack of assistance in both design and creation.
Nicholas Petersen
While not a professional craftsman, often finds himself taking on home projects with a DI ambition and finding a need for appropriate workspace, tools, and professional advise. As a designer and strategist, Nicholas is looking for ways to provide resources to professionals and non-professionals looking for a creative workspace.
What is the money for?
It takes a lot to get this set up initially, the money we earn will go toward additional shop equipment and workbenches. A lot of the tools will be donated by PhilipDesignLab however in order for this to be a space many people can use we will have to get some additional tools, and lots of benches!
What are the Rewards?
All of the rewards are listed to the right but a couple could use some more explanation.
The Live Edge Coasters is a set of four cross sections from fallen branches approximately 3.5-4 inches round. These are finished with a danish oil finish that is easy to reapply if they ever need it.
Bench T-Shirts are a great way to show your support for this colaborative workspace!
The Sundial Bike Stand is a floor stand that holds your bike by it back wheel. These come in your choice of Ash or Walnut. It is a neat, simple way to store your Bike. Please specify tire size.
Tree Branch Wall Hooks, this is a set of 4 beautiful, unique wall hooks made from fallen tree branches. You can choose natural or white.
The C-table is a handmade end table from PhilipDesignLab with a cantilevered top, perfect for creating a workspace at your favorite arm chair or couch. It is made from at least 60% repurposed wood and comes in tow different two-tone options, a dark (typically walnut) frame with a light (typically ash or maple) top or a light (typically ash) frame with a dark (typically walnut) top.
Bike Parking, This is the bike rack Greenstreet Cycles uses for their customers and employees. It can be set on the floor and easily mobile or mounted three feet of the floor to reduce the footprint of the bikes. Either way it looks sharp and will be appreciated by anyone commuting on two wheels.
Handsome Work Table. This handsome, minimalist table will make a great desk, dinner table, even a work bench. And it will remind your customers that you helped make Bench a reality! W.60" D.30" H.30"
Founders Club Membership will allow you full access to The Workshop and Recognition as a member who helped create and launch Bench. You also will get this great looking and very practical carpenters apron.On Wednesday’s edition of the 700 Club, host Pat Robertson started out by dabbling in Michael Flynn conspiracy theories, wondering if Barack Obama and a cabal of Democrats engineered the downfall of Trump’s ex-National Security Advisor.
Robertson claimed incorrectly that intelligence agents specifically targeted Flynn and not Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyack.
Then, like a Christian version of North Korean state television, he cited Psalm 2, which reads, “The kings of the earth rise up and the rulers band together against the Lord and against his anointed.” According to Robertson, Trump’s opponents are actually opponents of God.
“I think, somehow, the Lord’s plan is being put in place for America and these people are not only revolting against Trump, they’re revolting against what God’s plan is for America,” Robertson said. ”
“These other people have been trying to destroy America. These left-wingers and so-called progressives are trying to destroy the country that we love and take away the freedoms they love. They want collectivism. They want socialism.”
“What we’re looking at is free markets and freedom from this terrible, overarching bureaucracy,” he continued. “They want to fight as much as they can but I think the good news is the Bible says, “He that sits in the heavens will laugh them to scorn,” and I think that Trump’s someone on his side that is a lot more powerful than the media.”
Watch the video below:
[Right Wing Watch] Featured image via screen grab. To follow Sky Palma on Facebook, click here.Building an Application with the Closure Library… and Lisp!
Using the project directory and Hunchentoot infrastructure I created previously, I will use Common Lisp to write the notepad application described in Google’s Building an Application with the Closure Library.
The Google tutorial illustrates the Closure namespace mechanism, DOM construction, and use of a Closure Library class. I’m interested in the first two features, in particular.
A First Pass
I start by creating and editing a notepad.lisp file to define Hunchentoot easy handlers corresponding to the notepad.html and notepad.js from the tutorial:
(hunchentoot:define-easy-handler (notepad-js :uri "/notepad.js") () (setf (hunchentoot:content-type*) "text/javascript") (ps:ps (ps:chain goog (provide "tutorial.notepad")) (ps:chain goog (require "goog.dom")) (ps:chain goog (require "goog.ui.Zippy")) (setf (ps:@ tutorial notepad append-notes) (lambda (data note-container) (dolist (datum data) (ps:chain goog dom (append-child note-container (ps:chain tutorial notepad (make-note-dom datum))))))) (setf (ps:@ tutorial notepad make-note-dom) (lambda (note-datum) (let ((header-element (ps:chain goog dom (create-dom "div" (ps:create :style "background-color:#EEE") (ps:@ note-datum :title)))) (content-element (ps:chain goog dom (create-dom "div" nil (ps:@ note-datum :content))))) (ps:new (ps:chain goog ui (-Zippy header-element content-element))) (ps:chain goog dom (create-dom "div" nil header-element content-element))))))) (hunchentoot:define-easy-handler (notepad-html :uri "/notepad.html") () (cl-who:with-html-output-to-string (*standard-output* nil :prologue t) (:html (:head (:title "Notepad") (:script :src "/js/goog/base.js") (:script :src "/notepad.js")) (:body (:div :id "notes") (:script (cl-who:str (ps:ps (defun main () (let ((note-data (list (ps:create :title "Note 1" :content "Content of Note 1") (ps:create :title "Note 2" :content "Content of Note 2"))) (note-list-element (ps:chain goog dom (get-element "notes")))) (ps:chain tutorial notepad (append-notes note-data note-list-element)))) (main))))))))
Next, I add notepad.lisp to the components list of the system definition in grok-google-closure-lisp.asd. Then, I stop the Hunchentoot acceptor, reload the project, and start the Hunchentoot acceptor:
GROK-GOOGLE-CLOSURE-LISP> (stop) GROK-GOOGLE-CLOSURE-LISP> (ql:quickload "grok-google-closure-lisp")... => ("grok-google-closure-lisp") GROK-GOOGLE-CLOSURE-LISP> (start)
Now, I can browse the application URL http://localhost:4242/notepad.html.
I want to note that I did not translate the tutorial’s Javascript to Parenscript directly. That was deliberate.
The debate over the pros and cons (even the definition) of OOP rages elsewhere, but, here, I am concerned only with the simplicity, directness, and clarity of the program. I think the tutorial is less simple, direct, and clear than it could be.
To begin with, the definition of main() represents note data simply enough. However, the call to makeNotes() doesn’t just make notes (it doesn’t even make notes, it makes DOM nodes), it also, ultimately, appends them to the parent DOM.
Of course, makeNotes() doesn’t append the nodes itself: the makeNoteDom() method of the Note object does that, after it constructs the node from its internal data, and using a reference to the parent DOM included in the data for each note!
Why do makeNotes() and makeNoteDom() make DOM nodes and have the side effect of changing the parent DOM? Why does the Note object have and use a reference to the parent DOM?
One more annoyance (a smaller one): Why does makeNotes() build and return an unused array of the constructed nodes?
This, as Rich Hickey might say, is complected.
Thus, I represent and access the data as a list of property lists (which Parenscript will translate to an array of Javascript objects) and eliminate the Note constructor, I use MAKE-NOTE-DOM only to construct a DOM node from a note and eliminate the note field referencing the parent DOM, and I have APPEND-NOTES append the constructed nodes to the parent DOM.
I also want to draw attention to the definitions of APPEND-NOTES and MAKE-NOTE-DOM. To work with Closure’s namespace convention I use goog.provide() and, rather than DEFUN ing the functions, I assign anonymous functions to those property names in the namespace object:
(ps:chain goog (provide "tutorial.notepad"))... (setf (ps:@ tutorial notepad append-notes) (lambda (data note-container)...)) (setf (ps:@ tutorial notepad make-note-dom) (lambda (note-datum)...))
Then, of course, rather than calling the functions directly, I must use Parenscript’s CHAIN to access the property in the namespace:
(ps:chain tutorial notepad (append-notes note-data note-list-element))
I would like to suppress these details of defining functions in a Closure-like namespace.
Parenscript Namespaces
Parenscript offers a mechanism to prefix Javascript names when translating symbols in a Lisp package. Using that, I can rewrite the function definitions, storing them in a tutorial-notepad.paren file:
(in-package "TUTORIAL.NOTEPAD") (ps:chain goog (require "goog.dom")) (ps:chain goog (require "goog.ui.Zippy")) (defun tutorial.notepad::append-notes (data note-container) (dolist (datum data) (ps:chain goog dom (append-child note-container (ps:chain tutorial notepad (make-note-dom datum)))))) (defun tutorial.notepad::make-note-dom (note-datum) (let ((header-element (ps:chain goog dom (create-dom "div" (ps:create :style "background-color:#EEE") (ps:@ note-datum :title)))) (content-element (ps:chain goog dom (create-dom "div" nil (ps:@ note-datum :content))))) (ps:new (ps:chain goog ui (-Zippy header-element content-element))) (ps:chain goog dom (create-dom "div" nil header-element content-element))))
Then, I can define a Lisp package, set the Parenscript prefix, and compile the tutoral-notepad.paren file:
(defpackage #:tutorial.notepad (:use #:cl)) (in-package #:tutorial.notepad) (setf (ps:ps-package-prefix "TUTORIAL.NOTEPAD") "tutorial.notepad.") (ps:ps-compile-file "/tmp/tutorial-notepad.paren") =>...
However, that won’t work. It doesn’t provide the Closure namespace. It prefixes all symbols in the package, including those from external Javascript libraries, generating
tutorial.notepad.goog.require('goog.dom'); tutorial.notepad.goog.require('goog.ui.Zippy');
instead of
goog.require('goog.dom'); goog.require('goog.ui.Zippy');
Finally, it defines a Javascript function with a prefixed name rather than assigning an anonymous function to the property in the namespace, generating
function tutorial.notepad.appendNotes(tutorial.notepad.data, tutorial.notepad.noteContainer) { for (var tutorial.notepad.datum = null, _js_idx4 = 0; _js_idx4 < tutorial.notepad.data.length; _js_idx4 += 1) { tutorial.notepad.datum = tutorial.notepad.data[_js_idx4]; tutorial.notepad.goog.tutorial.notepad.dom.tutorial.notepad.appendChild(tutorial.notepad.noteContainer, tutorial.notepad.tutorial.tutorial.notepad.notepad.tutorial.notepad.makeNoteDom(tutorial.notepad.datum)); }; };
instead of
tutorial.notepad.appendNotes = function (data, noteContainer) { for (var datum = null, _js_idx101 = 0; _js_idx101 < data.length; _js_idx101 += 1) { datum = data[_js_idx101]; goog.dom.appendChild(noteContainer, tutorial.notepad.makeNoteDom(datum)); }; };
A Simple Solution to a Simple Problem
Tempting as it is to consider patching Parenscript to address the above issues, it’s important to remember that Parenscript trades complete translation of Common Lisp for a reduction in Javascript runtime overhead.
Following Parenscript’s lead (and, indeed, that of Common Lisp’s DEFUN ), I can write a Parenscript macro (using DEFPSMACRO ) that simply hides the details of building a function and assigning it to a name in the namespace:
(ps:defpsmacro defun-in-namespace (namespace-list lambda-list &body body) "Defines a new function with the fully qualified Google namespace /namespace-list/. Assumes the namespace has been defined via goog.provide()." `(setf (ps:@,@namespace-list) (lambda (,@lambda-list),@body)))
Then, I can define the functions in the NOTEPAD-JS handler as follows:In a move that could have widespread implications for the enforcement of intellectual property law, internet service provider Comcast has refused to hand over identifying data on users accused of downloading copyrighted material, arguing that the plaintiffs were using the court system as an easy way to identify and sue otherwise anonymous individuals.
In a memorandum to a district court in Illinois, the company objected to four subpoenas that requested information on Comcast customers who may have obtained copyrighted content online using the distributed filesharing protocol BitTorrent. The company’s language was surprisingly strong, charging that the copyright holders were attempting to manipulate the court into using “its subpoena powers to obtain sufficient information to shake down” the defendants.
Comcast wrote in the memorandum that “plaintiffs should not be allowed to profit from unfair litigation tactics whereby they use the offices of the Court as an inexpensive means to gain Doe defendants’ personal information and coerce ‘settlements’ from them.”
All four copyright holders produce pornographic films, a factor that may be relevant in light of laws designed to protect individuals vulnerable to embarrassment from legal discovery. The move is an upset in an historically easy relationship between service providers and copyright holders.
The company also expressed concern that copyright holders – including, perhaps, representatives of the mainstream media industry as well as pornography distributors – were using the court system to do the dirty work of identifying allegedly illegal downloaders in order to pursue lucrative lawsuits against them.
“It is evident in these cases – and the multitude of cases filed by plaintiffs and other pornographers represented by their counsel – that plaintiffs have no interest in actually litigating their claims against the Doe defendants, but simply seek to use the Court and its subpoena powers to obtain sufficient information to shake down the Doe defendants,” reads the memorandum.
The pornography industry has been cast into chaos by the advent of broadband Internet connections – in large part because of communities that have sprung up, which produce and share pornographic material free of charge, in addition to the online piracy that has cut into the margins of paid material.
Posted By Jon Christian Jon Christian is a Boston-based reporter and blogger, particularly interested in the intersection of technology, civil rights and culture. At Tech.li, his beat encompasses Google, cloud and ultra-portable computing, haptic/cyberpunk/brain-in-a-tank news, and other cool stuff in the tech world. Tip him off at: Jon.Christian@Tech.li. Follow @Jon_Christian!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); Jon Christian is a Boston-based reporter and blogger, particularly interested in the intersection of technology, civil rights and culture. At Tech.li, his beat encompasses Google, cloud and ultra-portable computing, haptic/cyberpunk/brain-in-a-tank news, and other cool stuff in the tech world. Tip him off at: Jon.Christian@Tech.li. Follow @Jon_Christian!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs");
You might also likeBrooding emperor penguin with its chick approached by a rover camouflaged with a fake chick. Image: Le Maho, et. al.
Remote-operated vehicles which can be used to monitor penguins and other wildlife in their
natural habitat have less of an impact on animal behaviour than humans do.
Approaching wild animals to collect data can lead to stress for animals and jeopardises the significance of results for researchers.
How to study animals in their natural environment while minimizing human disturbance remains one of the challenges in ecology.
One tool for such studies is to tag with Passive Integrated Transponders (PIT tags), which have Radio Frequency Identification to monitor individual animals.
However, PIT tags can only be read when the animal with the tag is close to an antenna.
Yvon Le Maho of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in France and colleagues examined the feasibility of reducing stress on incubating king penguins by using a rover to read RFID tags.
They found that stress responses of these penguins were significantly lower when the rover approached compared to the presence of human researchers.
The authors also camouflaged the rover with a penguin model and tested it on the more shy emperor penguins.
The emperor penguins allowed the rover to approach close enough to read RFID tags.
Some chicks and adults even spoke, or squawked, at the camouflaged rover.
See what happens when the rover doesn’t dress as a penguin:
The research is reported in the journal Nature Methods.
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Both opponents and supporters took to the streets after Turkish lawmakers proposed a bill to postpone the sentencing of men convicted of sexual abuse. The bill was withdrawn on November 22 after public outcry. (TRT World and Agencies)
Leyla Tan was 14 years old when she fell in love with a 17-year-old boy from her village. "We didn't want to wait, so we eloped," she recalls. In a small village in Turkey's rural Sivas province, they had a traditional wedding ceremony. Family and friends attended. The next year, she gave birth to a child.
Two years later, Leyla's doctor noticed something strange during a routine visit. The girl was 16, and had a two-year-old child – which made her 14 when the child was conceived. The doctor called the police, who arrested Leyla's husband and charged him with sexual abuse of a minor.
Now, she says he is wrongfully imprisoned. "I love my husband and I know he loves me. This ‘justice' is ruining my family," Leyla says now. "I'm suffering with my kids and I am not the only one."
She says that she didn't know that it was illegal to be married at such a young age.
In villages like the one where Leyla grew up, it's common for teenagers to get married in religious ceremonies such as these. Many people don't even register their marriages officially until years later. Data from UNICEF estimate that one per cent of girls in Turkey get married before 15, and one in six before they've reached the legal age of 18 – a higher rate than in any European country.
There isn't any place in the world where teens don't skirt the rules to have sex. In Leyla's case, she was able to start a family with someone she loved, even if she was too young by some cultural standards.
But stories of those who marry young are not always love stories.
When Nurcihan was 11 years old, a 22-year-old man kidnapped her from her home in the coastal city of Adana. While police searched for her, the man raped her repeatedly over the course of several days.
Police found Nurcihan a week later, and the man was arrested – but while he was in prison, he managed to threaten the girl's family. He coerced them into changing their statement to the police, saying that the relationship was consensual. The court released him, and Nurcihan was forced by her family to marry the man who had raped her.
"I never stopped crying. Every day I was married was a rape. I threw up every day," Nurcihan said. Now 22 years old and free, she was only able to escape her detestable situation when her husband was arrested and jailed for a separate offence. But the experience scarred her for life.
Leyla and Nurcihan are but two out of thousands of women whose stories exemplify the controversy that erupted when a bill was put forward in the Turkish parliament on November 17.
The draft bill proposed suspending convictions for sexual abuse, "in the event that the perpetrator and the victim get married."
Protests over the proposal included an online petition to the parliament which garnered over 800,000 signatures.
Under the storm of criticism that followed, lawmakers scrapped the proposal.
"We have heard the criticisms and we have withdrawn the bill," Turkish Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag said on Tuesday.
Yet the uproar is only one more episode in what has continued to be a fierce debate in Turkey, in which both sides have failed to hear one another's concerns.
It's part of a debate around a confusing and polarised issue in Turkey which doesn't have any easy answers.
So what was the bill about?
The text of the proposal as presented in parliament on November 17 reads:
Should a sexual abuse case that has been committed before November 16, 2016 without the use of force, threats, deception or any other reason affecting free will;In the event that the perpetrator and the victim get married, the announcement of the sentence will be delayed;Should there already be a verdict, the execution of the sentence will be delayed.If during |
do with St. John.
But tearing it down isn't part of the plan for now.Welcome to the home of the Irish Redheads!
To the best redheads and redhead appreciators in the world, thank you!
For over seven years, the Irish Redhead Convention has been at the heart of the global redhead scene, the Crosshaven community and Irish summer festival calendar. But for now, sadly, we need to take a break.
We launched the Irish Redhead Convention with the aim to bring a community of redheads together for an unforgettable experience; to create exciting programme of redhead themed events; promote Crosshaven and Cork and stimulate economic activity, vitality and community pride in our region, while also raising awareness for the work of the Irish Cancer Society and the SunSmart campaign. To say we achieved this together is an understatement. The Irish Redhead Convention has become one of the best known little festivals in Ireland and the world, attracting global media attention and attracting redheads from all corners of the planet.
When we launched in 2010, we had little idea of the enormous impact our ginger gathering would have on redheads of all ages and the positive shifts in attitudes towards having red hair. We created more than just a festival; we created a family, lifelong friendships, a support network and years of wonderful memories.
However, the last couple of years have had their challenges. The festival has grown in size and demands and its associated costs and the investment of volunteer’s time have been increasing year on year. With little public funding and the lack of a main sponsor; ticket sales and the sponsorship and support of small local businesses have not been enough to cover the costs. We need to take stock and take a year out to try to resolve the issues so that we can once again the deliver the kind of festival that you are used to and deserve.
You can read a full and comprehensive report on the 2016 event here.
Until the next time, keep it foxy friends,
Irish Redhead Convention
PS: For those of you who cannot possibly imagine a year without the foxiness, the date of Saturday, 19 August 2017 will be marked in the calendar with a very informal gathering in Cronin’s Pub for any redheads who may come to the area. There will be music, red lemonade and ginger beer.
Below is a taster of what we got up in previous years. Indulge in the gingerness and imagine more redhead events to come!SUITCASES stacked to the roof of a hoarder’s home have hindered firefighters while putting out a blaze inside an inner west residence.
Four fire trucks rushed to Cromwell St, Croydon following reports of a house on fire about 3.55pm.
Upon arrival at the residence emergency services discovered it was home to a hoarder.
A spokesman for Fire and Rescue NSW said the suitcases were stacked in the front room where the fire started.
media_camera The house fire at Cromwell St, Croyden, was made all the more difficult because of suitcases stacked to the ceiling. Picture: Ross Schultz
He said they were “piled to the roof” and initially prevented firefighters from finding the seed of the blaze.
The resident is not believed to be at home because his car is not in the garage, according to the NSW Fire and Rescue spokesman.
The house is a ten metre by 15 metre residence with a separate garage, which was not damaged.
The fire has been extinguished and fire investigators have been called to determine the cause of the blaze.
Originally published as Hoarder’s possessions hinder firefightersIndia's demonetization campaign is not going as expected.
Overnight, banks played down expectations of a dramatic improvement in currency availability, raising the prospect of queues lengthening as salaries get paid and people look to withdraw money from their accounts the Economic Times reported.
While much of India has become habituated to the sight of people lining up at banks and cash dispensers since the November 8 demonetisation announcement, bank officials said the message from the Reserve Bank of India is that supplies may not get any easier in the near future and that they should push digital transactions. “We had sought a hearing with RBI as we were not allocated enough cash, but we were told that rationing of cash may continue for some time,” said a banker who was present at one of several meetings with central bank officials.
“Reserve Bank has asked us to push the use of digital channels to all our customers and ensure that we bring down use of cash in the economy,” said a banker. This confirms a previous report according to which the demonstization campaign has been a not so subtle attempt to impose digital currency on the entire population.
Bankers have been making several trips to the central bank’s headquarters in Mumbai to get a sense of whether currency availability will improve. Some automated teller machines haven’t been filled even once since the old Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes ceased to be legal tender, they said. Typically, households pay milkmen, domestic helps, drivers, etc, at the start of the month in cash. The idea is that all these payments should become electronic, using computers or mobiles.
This strategy however, appears to not have been conveyed to the public, and as Bloomberg adds, "bankers are bracing for long hours and angry mobs as pay day approaches in India."
"Already people who are frustrated are locking branches from outside in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Tamil Nadu and abusing staff as enough cash is not available," said CH Venkatachalam, general secretary of the All India Bank Employees’ Association. The group has sought police protection at bank branches for the next 10 days, he added.
Joining many others who have slammed Modi's decision, the banker said that "this is the fallout of one of the worst planned and executed government decisions in decades." He estimates that about 20 million people - almost twice the population of Greece - will queue up at bank branches and ATMs over the coming week, when most employers in India pay their staff. In an economy where 98 percent of consumer payments are in cash, banks are functioning with about half the amount of currency they need.
As Bloomberg notes, retaining public support is crucial for Modi before key state elections next year and a national contest in 2019, however it appears he is starting to lose it.
"We are bracing ourselves for payday and fearing the worst," said Parthasarathi Mukherjee, chief executive officer at Chennai-based Laxmi Vilas Bank Ltd. "If we run out of cash we will have to approach the Reserve Bank of India for more. It is tough."
* * *
The ongoing cash shortages follow Modi’s Nov. 8 unexpected decision to ban 500 and 1,000 rupee ($15) notes, a decision that sucked out 86% of currency in circulation and blindsided the nation. Bank officials reported that most top banks in the financial heart of Mumbai are now starting the day with anywhere between 800 million rupees to 1.2 billion rupees of cash, instead of the typical 1.5 billion rupees.
These currency chests are then shared with several branches, which are rationing supplies. Withdrawals are capped at 10,000 rupees per person instead of the 24,000 rupees limit set by the government, said a manager at a state-run Bank of India branch in the eastern state of Jharkhand.
In a Mumbai suburb, a branch of the nation’s largest lender, State Bank of India, was starting the day with about 600,000 rupees of cash that will run out in about an hour, compared with the 1.5 million they’d typically have, the manager said. in what has clearly become a physical cash run.
Shortage of cash in ATMs continues
* * *
To be sure, many employers are scrambling to adapt to the new cash-lite regime: "with pay day around the corner a lot of small and medium-sized companies are opting for prepaid cards over cash payments," said Naveen Surya, managing director of payments solutions company Itz Cash Card Ltd., who’s also chairman of the representative body Payments Council of India. "More than five million of these cards have been sold in India in the last one week" and sales of 40 million more are expected through December, he said.
Ride-sharing service Ola has partnered with fuel companies to help drivers get e-vouchers to fill up their tanks at Bharat Petroleum Corp. pumps in Bengaluru, the company said in a statement. Paytm, India’s largest digital wallet startup, has noticed a doubling in online recharges including a trend where individuals top up multiple mobile phones to help friends and family, the company said in its statement. Additionally, as Goldman notes, Paytm has experienced a 500% surge in daily user growth since the currency reform, according to The Indian Express.
Searches on 'Paytm' and 'ATM queues' still elevated
The government, too, is urging electronic payments. Card payment facilities were introduced in parliament’s dining hall on Wednesday, the Press Trust of India reported, citing Parliament’s Food Committee Chairman A P Jithender Reddy.
While large companies such as Hindustan Petroleum Corp. make 99 percent of their pay outs electronically, it still needs to work out a system with smaller sub-contractors, said finance director J. Ramaswamy. Indian Oil Corp. is opening State Bank of India accounts for all laborers at its Paradip refinery, Dharmendra Pradhan, India’s oil minister, said on Nov. 29 in New Delhi.
"I will request all our companies to encourage bank transfers for all such payments," Pradhan said.
Alas, as we warned previously, for a nation that remains vastly cash-based - and where 98% of consumer payments are in cash - any transition from physical to digital money will take far, far longer than the timeframe Modi has allotted himself for the demonetization transformation and, as we reported previously, it is only a matter of time before India's economy becomes crippled by money shortages to the point where not only India's economic output but the government itself will be in jeopardy.
One thing appears clear: foreign investors have decided not to wait and see how this experiment ends.
Foreign investors continue to be net sellers of Indian assets post currency reform
* * *
To get a sense of India's now-three week long cash-run reality, courtesy of one of our contacts on the ground in India, here are photos of lines in front on Indian ATMs and banks taken this morning between 10 and 10:30 am.NJPW New Japan Cup
March 8, 2015
Tokyo, Japan
Korakuen Hall
To those who joined Voices of Wrestling’s New Japan Cup pick’em contest (sponsored by IVPVideos.com), head over to voicesofwrestling.com/njcup15/standings to see where you stand after the second round. Let’s get right to it…
The second round of the New Japan Cup begins tonight! We’ve already seen some upsets in the first round as Okada was once again pinned by Bad Luck Fale, and Hiroshi Tanahashi fell to Toru Yano’s dreaded hair pull roll up. Fale and Yano, along with Tetsuya Naito, Yujiro Takahashi, Kota Ibushi, Togi Makabe, Katsuyori Shibata, and Hirooki Goto, advance to the next round of the tournament. While we have eight here tonight still in contention, by show’s end we’ll be down to four.
Jay White vs. Yoshi-Hashi: Wow, Yoshi Hashi in a singles match. This is fresh new territory, which speaks volumes of his push here. Really simple match. Y-H was on offense forever before White made a good babyface comeback. Y-H tried for his neckbreaker finish, but White transitioned into a rollup for a nearfall. Like most young lions, he fails, however, as he loses to a senton. The crowd was, at least, into the match and enjoyed it, but really nothing special. *3/4
https://twitter.com/SenorLARIATO/status/574595535946059776
Mascara Dorada, Ryusuke Taguchi, Tiger Mask, Manabu Nakanishi and Satoshi Kojima vs. Kushida, Jushin Liger, Hiroyoshi Tenzan, Captain New Japan and Tomoaki Honma: The usual rivals squared off with one another. Tiger Mask and Liger exchanged some mat wrestling, Kushida and Dorada exchanged some great back and forth (hope this is a match somewhere down the line), and even Honma and Nakanishi went at it. He and Taguchi go at it at one point with Taguchi hitting his own version of the kokeshi and actually connecting. Tenzan and Kojima tag in and Kojima lays into him with the chops. Crowd is really into this. CNJ is tagged in and headbutts Kojima to a big reaction. Everybody comes in and gets laid out by Taguchi’s butt attacks. Dorada comes off with a huge moonsault to the floor, wiping out a good majority of the wrestlers. CNJ gets a rollup on Kojima for a nearfall, but Kojima comes to his senses and eventually pins CNJ after a lariat. Pretty good match with good heat. ***¼
https://twitter.com/SenorLARIATO/status/574597960517992449
After the match, Kojima and Tenzan exchange words with one another. They have to be pulled apart, but it doesn’t end there. Kojima tears from his team and goes after Tenzan but it’s quickly. Kojima gets a mic and yells at Tenzan. He replies by cooly telling him off, at least I think that’s what happened. There’s hostilities brewing as they head toward their NWA title match, that’s for certain.
Yohei Komatsu and Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Yuji Nagata and Sho Tanaka: This is interesting. People popped big time when Tanaka got in the ring and chanted his name when the bell rang, facing off against Tanahashi. Tanaka got some spots in, but Tanahashi dominated him. Tanahashi tags in Komatsu and they go at it a big before Nagata is tagged in and he and Komatsu go at it. Nagata destroys him, working on his bum shoulder and pelting him with kicks before tagging to Tanahashi, who goes at it a bit before Nagata tags in Tanaka, who fires back with a huge deadlift gutwrench suplex. Komatsu comes in, wipes out Tanaka, then wipes out Nagata standing on the apron to the floor, which causes him to come back to the ring but Tanahashi wipes him out. Komatsu lays out Tanaka with a half nelson bridging suplex for a nearfall, then locks in the boston crab while Tanahashi and Nagata duke it out on the outside. Tanaka escapes, but Komatsu beautifully transitions into another boston crab. Tanaka tries valiantly to escape, but can’t, and soon taps out. Really great stuff, the crowd was super into this and that helped things a lot. ***½
Bullet Club (Tama Tonga, Karl Anderson, Doc Gallows and Cody Hall) vs. Chaos (Kazuchika Okada, Shinsuke Nakamura, Kazushi Sakuraba, and Tomohiro Ishii). Anderson and Shibata starts things off, and after some shadow boxing, Anderson spars with Sakuraba to less than desirable results.Nakamura and Tonga follow. Nakamura tags in Ishii and proceeds to no sell everything that Tonga gives him, including a dropkick. Tonga finally gets the heat with a botched thesz press as the rest of Bullet Club brawl on the outside. Cody Hall is tagged in and he’s up against Ishii. Never thought I’d see this, I gotta say. Overall, he looked green at times but wasn’t in long enough to look bad or anything. Jury’s still out here. Gallows continues the heat until he misses an elbow and Ishii lays him out with a deadlift suplex, which gets the crowd into the match. Okada is tagged in and cleans house. Nakamura is in, but it quickly turns into a free for all. Hall comes in and goes back and forth with Nakamura. He lays him out and motions for the razor’s edge but Ishii takes him out. Everyone comes in and brawls for a bit. Hall with a chokeslam but Nakamura dodges and hits a boma ye off the middle rope, then another one for the win. ***1/4
Togi Makabe vs. Yujiro Takahashi. Yujiro’s date for the evening was wearing quite the revealing outfit, and you know the New Japan cameramen made sure to zoom in to leave little to the imagination. Yujiro attacks early, taking him to the outside for the usual barricade shot. Makabe tries to make a comeback but Yujiro clips his leg and works it over. He hits the Miami Shine, but Makabe kicks out. Yujiro follows with a big buckle bomb that looked brutal, but Makabe comes back with a polish hammer and a big lariat. A spider german and the king kong knee drop secures the win for Makabe. ***1/4
https://twitter.com/SenorLARIATO/status/574618235229892609
https://twitter.com/SenorLARIATO/status/574619357189423105
Toru Yano vs. Kota Ibushi. Yano makes sure to have every gimmick in the book to wipe out Ibushi. He throws water at him, then trips him into a chair and rolls him up for a nearfall. Yano then fakes being low blowed for a rollup, then grabs the referee and rolls him Ibushi AGAIN for another nearfall. Ibushi comes back with some momentum. Yano tries to whip him into the exposed turnbuckle, but Ibushi hops to the top rope and launches off with a sunset flip for the win. This was the right length needed (read: short) and overall it was pretty entertaining while it lasted. *1/4
https://twitter.com/SenorLARIATO/status/574620701786836992
Bad Luck Fale vs. Tetsuya Naito. It’s back and forth to start, but when Naito tries for a dive on the outside Fale grabs him and bodyslams him to the floor. He takes Kiddani’s tie (he was on commentary) and chokes Naito with it before taking him back to the ring and working him over. Naito finds an opening by taking out Fale’s knee, securing an indian deathlock. Fale comes back to his feet, grabs Naito and throws him to the turnbuckle. He tries for the grenade but Naito blocks it, then Fale goes for it again but Fale transitions into the indian deathlock again. Fale powers out, but walks into a tornado DDT. He tries for the stardust press but Fale grabs him for the bad luck fall, only for Naito to escape. Fale nails him with a lariat and a grenade but Naito some how kicks out. Another Bad Luck Fall attempt, but Naito hurricanranas him into a pin for the win. Some really sloppy stuff, but the crowd was into it, so this was good. **¾
https://twitter.com/SenorLARIATO/status/574626015252770816
Hirooki Goto vs. Katsuyori Shibata. Mat wrestling to start things off. Another indian death lock. Maybe Shibata got the idea from the previous match. But of course, things soon break down and it becomes a back and forth slugfest. Shibata puts Goto in a figure four, but after reversing it Goto is lured back in but they eventually reach the ropes. A lot of back and forth here, both looking completely stiff in the process. Shibata drills him with kicks in the corner before dropkicking him right in the face. Goto comes back with his head to knee signature move. Shibata blocks a clothesline and lays out Shibata, selling his arm. He walks into an armbar by Goto but Shibata manages to escape. Two headbutts put Shibata down. Big backhand sends down Goto. He immediately motions for the GTS but instead opts for the penalty kick when Goto escapes, but Goto grabs the knee and hits a discus punch for a one count. A spinning side face slam doesn’t get it either. Goto tries for the shouten kai, and even though he tries his best to avoid it, Shibata is laid out with it and is pinned. Not as good as their other matches, but still a really good main event. ***¾
https://twitter.com/SenorLARIATO/status/574629749399646208Rand Paul has gone and united drone apologists and opponents with an op-ed explaining his opposition to David Barron’s confirmation without full transparency on the drone memos Barron wrote. It’s a good op-ed, though the only new addition from what he has said before is that any other drone memos Barron has written ought to be on the table as well.
It’s Ben Wittes’ and David Cole’s responses that I’m reluctantly interested in.
In addition to a lot of “trust me I know the man” defenses from Cole that I find utterly inappropriate for a lifetime appointment, both Cole and Wittes argue we’ve already seen the “Administration’s” logic on drone killing, so we have no need to see the memo itself. Cole cautiously doesn’t characterize what that standard is in his defense.
Second, the administration has in fact made available to all Senators any and all memos Barron wrote concerning the targeting of al-Awlaki – the core of the issue Sen. Paul is concerned about. So if Sen. Paul and any other Senator want to review Barron’s reasoning in full, they are free to do so. Moreover, the administration also made available to the Senate, and ultimately to the public, a “White Paper” said to be drawn from the Barron memo (though written long after he left office). Thus, no Senator need be in the dark about the Administration’s reasoning, and the public also has a pretty good idea as well.
Wittes, less wisely, does.
This idea of a trial in absentia followed by drone strike as a means of effectuating a death sentence is novel—and very eccentric. Paul never seeks to explain why wartime authorities are inappropriate for dealing with a senior operational leader of an enemy force who is actively plotting attacks on the United States. [snip] The legal standard for targeting a U.S. citizen the administration has embraced is limited to U.S. citizens (1) who are operational leaders of AUMF-covered groups, (2) who pose an imminent threat, (3) whose capture is not feasible, and (4) whose targeting is consistent with the law of armed conflict. Suspects in Germany or Canada or any other governed space would almost surely be feasible to capture and if not, because in a hostage-like situation, would be dealt with by law enforcement, including using law enforcement’s powers at times to use lethal force. The definition of the group of citizens covered is so narrow, in reality, that it has so far described a universe of exactly one person—Al Awlaki—whom the administration has claimed the authority to target.
Wittes, you see, is certain that not only did the Administration have evidence Anwar al-Awlaki was a “senior operational leader” of AQAP by the time they executed him, but they had that evidence by July 2010 when Barron signed a memo saying that the specific circumstances at hand justified killing Awlaki. But even if he’s seen it via some magic leak, the public has not.
As I’ve noted repeatedly — and as Lawfare has been sloppy about in the past — at the time Barron signed off on Awlaki’s execution, one of the chief pieces of evidence against Awlaki — a confession Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab had given as a proffer in a plea deal that never got consummated — was undermined by Abdulmutallab’s previous confession and other evidence (and would be undermined further, just days after Awlaki’s execution, when Abdulmutallab pled guilty without endorsing the claims about Awlaki included in that confession).
Now, I suspect the government didn’t present that nuance to Barron when he wrote his memo (just as the government lied to John Yoo and a series of other OLC lawyers as they wrote torture memos). I imagine the memo starts with a caveat that says, “Assuming the facts are as you present them and no other facts exist,” absolving Barron in case the government presented only partial evidence or worse, as it appears to often do in the case of OLC memos.
But it is possible that the government gave Barron really nuanced information, and he nevertheless rubber stamped this execution, in spite of the possibility that the case Awlaki was a senior operational official of AQAP by that point was overstated. It’s possible too that there’s a great deal of evidence to counterweigh the very contradictory information on the chief claim in the public record and absent any contrary evidence Barron thought it was a conservative legal decision.
One way or another, Barron participated in a tautological exercise in which the government presented unchallenged evidence showing that Awlaki was a senior operational leader that then served as justification for setting aside due process and instead having OLC — Barron — weigh whether or not Awlaki was a senior operational leader who could be executed with no due process.
This is why (egads) Paul is right and Wittes is wrong. Because the idea of a trial before you execute an American citizen is in fact the rule, and the idea of having an OLC lawyer judge all this in secret is in fact the novelty. It doesn’t matter whether the case laid out against Awlaki applies to him and him alone (though I doubt it does; I doubt it applies as well as supporters say, and complaints about the lack of specificity of it makes it clear it could too easily be applied for others).
But the big underlying point — and the reason why Cole and Wittes’ claim that Barron can’t be held to account here, only the Administration whose policy he reviewed can be, is wrong — is that tautology. What the memo shows and the white paper does not is that Barron was provided evidence against Awlaki and he willingly played the role of both saying that the underlying legal logic (what we see in the white paper) was sound but that the evidence in this case (what we haven’t seen in the memo) made this departure from due process sound. Barron signed off on both the logic and the evidence justifying that logic itself.
And for me, that’s enough. That’s enough to disqualify him — no matter how liberal or brilliant he is, both qualities I’d like to see on a bench — as a judge.
That’s enough for me. But those who want to push Barron through anyway ought to consider what they would need to show to prove that Barron’s decision was reasonable: the evidence Barron saw that he believed sufficient (and unquestionable, given the absence of rebuttal) to authorize a due-process free execution. It’s unlikely we’ll ever get that evidence, because the government won’t declassify it.
That’s the problem with this nomination, one way or another. No matter how sound the underlying logic, Barron played another role in Awlaki’s execution, certifying that the evidence merited getting to the underlying logic of denying a US citizen due process. Barron both approved an entirely parallel system to replace due process, and played the judge in that system.
Update: Katherine Hawkins reminds me that when David Cole wrote about the white paper shortly after it got released, he had trouble with precisely the thing he has no trouble now.
The white paper addresses the legality of killing a US citizen “who is a senior operational leader of al-Qaeda or an associated force.” Such a person may be killed, the document concludes, if an “informed, high-level official” finds (1) that he poses “an imminent threat of violent attack against the United States;” (2) that his capture is not feasible; and (3) the operation is conducted consistent with law-of-war principles, such as the need to minimize collateral damage. However, the paper offers no guidance as to what level of proof is necessary: does the official have to be satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt, by a preponderance of the evidence, or is reasonable suspicion sufficient? We are not told. Nor does the paper describe what procedural safeguards are to be employed. It only tells us what is not required: having a court determine whether the criteria are in fact met.
What determines whether that standard has been met is the same OLC lawyer who determined that such a standard would be appropriate.CAIRO – Following months of preparations, the Muslim Student Association in the University of Nebraska-Lincoln opens today a week-long event to educate fellow students on Islam and combat Islamophobia in the society.
“We’ve had numerous meetings and asked non-Muslims about the topics they would like to hear about,” MSA secretary Karez Hassan told The Daily Nebraskan on Tuesday, February 23.
“And from there we compiled a list of focuses that would be respectful and beneficial to the UNL campus and community.”
MSA began preparing for the event last fall and has worked with faculty advisor Hany Makkawy, as well as listened to non-member student input.
Held at the City Union, the educational events will run from Feb. 23 to Feb. 25.
The topics addressed will include the pillars of Islam, its beliefs and morals.
The Islamic Awareness Week was urged after Muslim UNL student was subjected to racism.
“The university and community immediately denounced this racism, and we were asked to organize an event to counter such actions and create a respectful and peaceful environment,” MSA president Sara El Alaoui said.
For members of the MSA, the discussions will extend a bridge between different cultures and faiths, resulting in correcting misconceptions.
Hassan said that understanding and unfair representation of Islam must be combated with true knowledge.
“I don’t counterattack with ignorance. Rather, we should have interfaith dialogue and use education as a weapon to guide those who are misguided about Islam,” Hassan said.
“Islamic Awareness Week will represent my faith in its true peaceful form, and I want non-Muslims to know what Islam truly is and not what the media portrays.”
Along with cultural events, the MSA will set a booth to answer questions about women in Islam and clear misconceptions and stereotypes.
El Alaoui said women can try on hijabs, share their experiences and receive a free shawl.
“Through this event, we hope to clear up the stereotypes about Islam that have been circulated through the media, uninformed people or even people who have some political agenda,” El Alaoui said.
“We should treat others for who they really are, not for the image that we build of them based on some stereotypes or social and cultural expectations, and I think that it is our responsibility as Muslims to teach our community and remind them of these concepts, in an effort to bring understanding, peace, harmony and lots of love.”by Sunny Hundal
This was Tory MEP Roger Helmer a few hours ago on Twitter:
Why is it OK for a surgeon to perform a sex-change operation, but not OK for a psychiatrist to try to “turn” a consenting homosexual?
Several hundred people on Twitter have since condemned Helmer for his homophobia.
But Roger Helmer MEP has a long history of such nonsense.
A couple of years ago Helmer said that the word homophobia was a “propaganda device”. He wrote on his blog:
And while we’re mentioning semantic issues, let me point out that the neologism “homophobia” is not so much a word as a political agenda. In psychiatry, a phobia is defined as an irrational fear. I have yet to meet anyone who has an irrational fear of homosexuals, or of homosexuality. So to the extent that the word has any meaning at all, it describes something which simply does not exist. “Homophobia” is merely a propaganda device designed to denigrate and stigmatise those holding conventional opinions, which have been held by most people through most of recorded history. It is frightening evidence of the way in which political correctness is threatening our freedom.
Mr Helmer is regularly allowed to spout his views on websites such as ConservativeHome.The Story:
Monopoly was first marketed on a broad scale by Parker Brothers on November 5, 1935..Today, an estimated 500 million players from around the globe have been mesmerized by the MONOPOLY® game since its creation. It remains a classic, passed down from generation to generation, making it the world's most popular game.
Although Monopoly is frequently said to have been invented by Charles Darrow in 1935, its origins actually go back to when Lizzie Magie, patented 748,626 (US) issued January 5, 1904, a game called "The Landlord's Game" with the object of demonstrating how rents enrich property owners and impoverish tenants. She knew that some people can find it hard to understand why this happens and what might be done about it and she thought that if Georgist ideas (that is, a supporter of political economist Henry George), were put into the concrete form of a game, they might be easier to demonstrate.
This original game was enjoyable but although patented it was not taken up by a manufacturer until 1910 when it was published in the US by the Economic Game Company of New York. Apart from commercial distribution, it spread by word of mouth and was played in slightly variant home-made versions over the years by Quakers, Georgists, university students and others who became aware of it. As it spread, its rules were changed, most notably in dropping the second phase of the game during which a Land tax was introduced to replace the other taxes, and the shortened game became known as "Auction Monopoly". It was often localized; the original fanciful property names being replaced by street names from the cities where the players lived. By the late 1920s it was known as just plain "Monopoly" and was played very much as it is now. One version of the game, commonly played in the Philadelphia area, had Atlantic City street name. In 1929 Ruth Hoskins began playing Monopoly in Indianapolis with her brother James and his friend Robert Frost "Pete" Daggett Jr., who was a friend of Dan Layman. In 1933, Charles B. Darrow played a game on oil cloth on his kitchen table, fell in love with the game's exciting promise of fame and fortune. He played "Monopoly" at home with his family and friends. But others soon heard of the game and ordered sets of their own. Later that year Charles Darrow patented and sold copies of the game as his personal invention. Darrow went to work, making hand-made copies of Monopoly and selling them for $4.00 apiece. When demand for the game grew beyond his ability to fill orders, he brought the game to Parker Brothers who first rejected it on the basis there were 52 design errors. Undaunted, Darrow continued to produce handmade editions on his own and was highly successful. Parker Brothers caught wind of the success and decided to buy the rights to the game. In 1935, owned by Parker Brothers, the MONOPOLY® game became America's best selling game. Parker Brothers subsequently decided to pay off Magie, and others who had copyrighted commercial variants of the game, in order to have legitimate, undisputed rights to the game, and promoted Darrow as its sole inventor. After buying up Lizzie Magie's patent for $500 and no royalties, Parker Brothers marketed a few hundred sets of The Landlord's Game and then buried it forever. Then it turned to a more dangerous flaw in the plans to rescue the firm with Monopoly: "A game surprisingly similar to Darrow's and known as Monopoly was played on homemade boards in the DKE house at Williams College in 1927 et seq. It developed in Reading, Pa., much earlier than that. "Almost exactly this same game as played at Williams was put on the market in Indianapolis early in 1932 through L. S. Ayres & Co. The name was changed to Finance for trademark reasons. Dan Layman's predecessor Finance. That cost more money: $10,000. But none of it went to Layman. A victim of the Great Depression, broke and desperate for money, he had sold his interest in Finance to a small games manufacturer, David W. Knapp, for $200. Once Finance was wrapped up, Parker Brothers turned to another Monopoly-like game called "Inflation," manufactured by a Texan named Rudy Copeland. Early in 1936 Parker Brothers sued Copeland for patent infringement. Copeland countersued, charging that Darrow's and therefore Parker Brothers' patent on Monopoly was invalid. If the details forming the basis for that charge had become public knowledge, Parker Brothers might never have gone to reap a fortune from Monopoly. But Parker settled the lawsuit immediately by paying Copeland $10,000 to surrender his rights and keep his mouth shut.
Decades later, when they attempted to suppress publication of a game called Anti-Monopoly, designed by Ralph Anspach, the trademark suit went all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States in 1983, and the court found in favor of Anspach because Darrow did not actually invent the game. There is no accounting for the unrivaled devotion that the MONOPOLY® game has garnered over the past sixty years. Some say it is the chance to build a fortune, take a risk, make an acquisition. Others insist it is the drama of competition. Edward P. Parker, former president of Parker Brothers suggested that the magic of the game MONOPOLY® is "clobbering your best friend without doing any damage."Just when we thought that--finally--we wouldn't have Al Gore to kick around any more, he resurfaces with a characteristically apocalyptic, know-it-all New York Times op-ed about global warming, "an unimaginable calamity requiring large-scale, preventive measures to protect human civilization as we know it."
How awful a calamity? "The displacement of hundreds of millions of climate refugees, civil unrest, chaos and the collapse of governance in many developing countries, large-scale crop failures and the spread of deadly diseases." Sounds almost as bad as a Gore presidency.
Leaving aside the school-marmish, patronizing attitude that makes him such a magnet for parody (recall the Saturday Night Live send-ups before the 2000 general election), how believable is Gore?
He's a phony--and a shameless one at that. In his op-ed, he refers to "tobacco companies block[ing] constraints on the marketing of cigarettes for four decades after science |
decisions constitute an expropriation of the "exclusive rights" conferred to Eli Lilly under the two drug patents, the company said in the notice of intent to submit a NAFTA claim filed June 13.
By stripping the company of its patents before they were expired, the courts deprived Eli Lilly of its "exclusive rights to prevent third parties from making, using or selling its patented product during the patent term" and cost the company money, the drug maker said.
The global sales of Straterra were $620.1 million in 2011 and sales of Zyprexa totalled $5.026 billion in 2010, the company said in its June document, which has the Canadian sales figures blacked out.
The company argues that by not rectifying the "judge-made law" on utility that expropriated Eli Lilly's exclusive rights as the patent holder, the government was guilty of expropriating Eli Lilly's investments, the company said, which is prohibited under Chapter 11 and entitles the company to compensation "equivalent to the fair market value of the expropriated investment."
Eli Lilly objects to the way Canadian courts interpret whether a drug has fulfilled its promise of being useful in the treatment of a certain condition. It argues that unlike other jurisdictions, Canada has an "elevated standard" when it comes to demonstrating the utility of a new drug and doesn't use the widely accepted threshold that demands only that patent holders show their invention has a "scintilla" of utility.
"In a series of decisions issued since 2005, the Federal Court of Canada and the Federal Court of Appeal have created a new judicial doctrine whereby utility is assessed not by reference to the requirement in the Patent Act that an invention be 'useful' but rather against the 'promise' that the courts derive from the patent specification," Eli Lilly wrote in its June notice of intent.
"This non-statutory 'promise doctrine' is not applied in any other jurisdiction in the world."
Medical innovation at risk
In its statement Friday, the company's patent counsel said that the Canadian courts' approach to assessing the promise of drug patents could deter companies from developing new drugs for sale in Canada.
"It’s impossible to know what specific 'promise' can be implied from an application, and how much data are needed to support it," Norman said. "If this pattern persists, the already challenging business of medical innovation will become all the more difficult in Canada."
But consumer rights groups and some patent lawyers say Canada's approach to patents is not that different in spirit to that of other countries and has generally worked in the favour of large drug companies like Eli Lilly, and that, in any event, countries have a right to define "usefulness" in their own way.
Various consumer advocacy organizations on both sides of the U.S.-Canada border have expressed concern over the company's attempts to challenge domestic court decisions before an international trade tribunal and over the broad investor rights that the NAFTA treaty affords to companies.
The Council of Canadians, the Washington, D.C.-based government watchdog organization Public Citizen and the global consumer rights group Sum of Us have all spoken out against Eli Lilly's complaint, and Sum of Us created an online petition calling on Eli Lilly to drop the suit.
Eli Lilly's NAFTA complaint is unprecedented and should worry the citizens of Canada and other NAFTA countries because the drug maker is not only challenging the invalidation of its particular patents but is challenging "Canada's entire legal doctrine for determining an invention's 'utility' and, thus, a patent’s validity," Public Citizen wrote in a brief on the case.
"While pushing for an entirely different patent standard, Eli Lilly, the fifth-largest U.S. pharmaceutical corporation, is demanding [$500 million] from Canadian taxpayers as compensation for Canada’s enforcement of its existing patent standards."
Eli Lilly seeking'monopoly patent protections'
While the tribunal can only award damages and can't force Canada to change its laws, some argue that the latter is, ultimately, what Eli Lilly is after.
The company's so-called investor-state challenge "marks the first attempt by a patent-holding pharmaceutical corporation to use the extraordinary investor privileges provided by U.S. 'trade' agreements as a tool to push for greater monopoly patent protections, which increase the cost of medicines for consumers and governments," Public Citizen said.
If Eli Lilly is successful in getting the NAFTA tribunal to approve its claim for compensation, it "could expose Canada to a slew of investor-state attacks from other drug companies that have had patents invalidated because their patent applications failed to show or predict that the medicines would provide the promised benefits," the group said.
In an interview with the American online news magazine Politico, Toronto attorney Lawrence Herman, a former trade official with Canada's foreign service, agreed that Eli Lilly is less interested in compensation than in changing Canada's patent law so that judges no longer have the leeway to make the kind of rulings they did in its case.The director of controversial advocacy group Cage has been convicted of an offence under the Terrorism Act for refusing to hand over the pin number for his mobile phone at Heathrow Airport.
Muhammad Rabbani, 36, was stopped under Schedule 7 on November 20 last year after returning home from a wedding in Doha.
He refused to give his pin or the password to his laptop, saying he had been stopped many times under the schedule before and had never been required to give these details.
Rabbani said he had highly confidential information on his device and that handing it to police would be a breach of his "personal and professional" privacy.
But on Monday he was convicted at Westminster Magistrates' Court of one count of wilfully obstructing a stop-and-search under Section 7 of the Terrorism Act.
Senior District Judge Emma Arbuthnot said: "I find he took a calculated risk and, as on certain earlier occasions, the police wouldn't take any further action.
"He took a calculated risk. At the time of the stop he was warned over and over he would be committing an offence if he didn't provide the information."
Muhammad Rabbani arrives at Westminster Magistrates' Court Credit: DANIEL LEAL-OLIVAS/AFP/Getty
The court heard that Rabbani refused to tell officers what he did for a living or give out his pin saying "it won't help you in any way" and that it breached his privacy.
Pc Tariq Chaudhry, the officer who conducted the search, said: "I asked him questions about his occupation and he said he was a director of a company but wouldn't go any further - he kept saying 'You don't need to and it won't help you in any way'."
Pc Chaudhry said that Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act gives officers their right to stop and search people "with or without suspicion".
Rabbani was repeatedly warned that he would be arrested if he failed to give his pin codes, but said he had never been asked to give this information during previous stop-and-searches.
In a prepared statement given at his second police interview in May this year, Rabbani said: "I considered that although the police were in law entitled to ask questions so that they could satisfy themselves I was not engaged in terrorist activity, that did not justify my in addition being required to expose all the sensitive contents of my phone to being copied and undoubtedly disseminated not just to police but to intelligence services and possibly elsewhere in the world - an unjustifiable, uncontrolled acquisition of material."
Supporters pray outside Westminster Magistrates' Court Credit: Tess Delamare/PA
Giving evidence on Monday, he said that he had a large volume of documents relating to a Qatari client allegedly tortured in the US on his devices.
"It was a case involving the US against an individual who was allegedly tortured over the course of 12 or 13 years in US custody," he said.
"There were around 30,000 (documents) which I was especially uncomfortable handling and I felt an enormous responsibility to try and discharge the trust that was given to me."
But Judge Arbuthnot rejected his defence, finding he had taken a "calculated risk" in not providing the information despite being warned of the consequences by police.
He was handed a conditional discharge, ordered to pay £600 costs and £20 victim surcharge.
Cage describes itself as an "independent advocacy organisation working to empower communities impacted by the War on Terror".
The organisation sparked controversy when it emerged Isis executioner Mohammed Emwazi, dubbed "Jihadi John", had sought advice from Cage over alleged harassment by the British authorities before leaving for Syria in 2012.In recent years, openness and collaboration have been close bedfellows with innovation. The global growth of Open Source, 3D printing, and cloud computing have challenged the traditional assumptions that innovation has to happen behind closed doors. Increasingly innovation is happening out in the open, furthered by a partnership between communities and companies.
George Bernard Shaw once said, “If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must man be of learning from experience.” It appears that the historical record shaped from previous battles between locked-in and opened-up such as Microsoft vs. Linux and Apple vs. Android are finding a new battleground: drones.
Smart Drones
While there are many companies making drones from toy quadcopters to professional applications, most take a similar proprietary approach of building their technology privately in-house.
An exception to this this rule is Berkeley, California based 3D Robotics. Co-founded by Chris Anderson, author of The Long Tail, Makers, Free, and ex-editor-in-chief of Wired magazine, the company is building products while working closely with a passionate Open Source community.
“I like to use smartphones as an analogy for where we are with drone technology today”, says Anderson. He continues, “We are currently at the iPhone stage, where we have launched the phone, but we don’t yet have the app store ecosystem.”
He isn’t wrong. The majority of drones on the market today are flying white boxes in which the hardware and software is secret. There is little for the tinkerer to play with, and thus there are limited ways in which makers, developers, and scientists have been able to expand and grow the technology.
To further Anderson’s smartphone analogy, 3D Robotics is taking the more open Android approach compared the traditionally closed Apple approach in the market.
From the Garage to the Market
The precursor to 3D Robotics was DIYDrones, a website Anderson created back in 2007 to further his growing interest in the technology of flying unmanned vehicles.
As a new community formed, DIYDrones increasingly became a developer community, turning its focus to building Open Source components for powering homebrew drones. Before long projects were available for autopilot, stabilization, telemetry, flight planning, visualization, and more; all key pieces in building a predictable, safe, flying machine.
“When I started DIYDrones, the community was initially creating both hardware designs and software” says Anderson. He continues, “Initially people would download a file, get their PCB fabbed, get their toolchain setup, and we thought this was fine – who can’t get a PCB fabbed?”
Before long more and more people were getting interested in DIYDrones, and many of these people were not skilled engineers. There was a growing demand for pre-built pieces of technology that could be more easily bolted together.
“We eventually realized that we had to go from boards in bags, to pre-soldered boards in bags, to pre-soldered boards in plastic enclosures, and then to drones. These people who were less sophisticated with the engineering aspects led us, almost kicking and screaming, into consumer electronics.”
The result was 3D Robotics. With over 200 staff and $100million+ in venture funding, 3D Robotics is no longer a garage-dwelling operation. It is taking on the market leader in the drone space, Chinese-based DJI.
Echoing Bernard Shaw’s belief that history often repeats itself, Anderson believes that history has taught us that collaboration and openness unlocks innovation. This has been visibly demonstrated in how Open Source and Linux is dominating infrastructure and the enterprise and how Android is dominating the smartphone market.
“Our assumption is that no one really knows what drones will be good for and we would be arrogant to presume that we do know,” says Anderson.
Anderson’s view, again echoing history, is that innovation comes from where you least expect it. If you empower the makers and hobbyists, the innovation will flow, and it will flow in surprising ways.
“We wanted to open it up so people could go beyond our own vision, to collaborate, and take it further. Who knows, some people may think this software could be adapted for autonomous cars and other areas too.”
SOLO
Anderson’s philosophy is materialized in 3D Robotics’ recent announcement of their SOLO drone.
A sleek, black, consumer-focused quadcopter, the SOLO is primarily marketed as a complete aerial solution for what Anderson calls “the golden age of storytelling.”
It features an autopilot, automatic land and take off, live video that streams from the drone to the controller, different flight and video modes for getting the ideal shot, and is designed to use the popular GoPro line of cameras. I haven’t got my hands on one yet, but it looks beautiful and simple to use.
While there is little doubt that the SOLO is one of the most advanced drones on the market, and is going head to head with the flagship DJI Phantom series, what is more interesting is the collaborative piece that Anderson was referring to earlier.
The SOLO features two Linux powered computers: one on the drone and one on the controller. The vast majority of the software stack from the kernel, through to the on-board services, flight controller, autopilot, and telemetry, is Open Source. All of this code is available publicly to be tinkered with, modified, refined, and improved.
To expand beyond just the internals being open, 3D Robotics also launched DroneKit in conjunction with the SOLO. This is a full Software Development Kit (SDK) that exposes a number of APIs for developers to write Android or Python code to run on-board the drone and elsewhere. DroneKit is, for all intents and purposes, the platform for building apps for the drone app store that Anderson feels is missing.
Not only this, but the SOLO also features an “accessory bay” which provides an open hardware interface for companies or individuals to build accessories that can not just physically plug into the SOLO, but also access the on-board computers, services, and data. This opens up the potential for companies or anyone with a 3D printer to expand the hardware capabilities of the SOLO itself.
Combined, this provides a comprehensive platform from the low level internals, through to on-board services, to hardware connectivity, and based on an existing Open Source platform, Linux. Essentially, the vast majority of the platform can be accessed, played with, and explored; all the ingredients needed for innovation and experimentation.
The DJI Phantom on the other hand, the market competitor to the SOLO, has a more limited SDK available on an application-only basis.
The Balance in Breeding Innovation
If Anderson is a betting man, it makes sense for him to bet on openness and innovation. Time and time again, smart, creative developers have built technology and services that have gone beyond the original capabilities of a product. This is why ecosystems are so important: people don’t love phones for the phone itself, they love them for the apps and services.
This all poses a challenge though. There is a delicate technology and social balance between an Open Source community of volunteer developers and a company that has had over $100 million invested in it.
Open Source communities commonly work in a culture where code is key. Reputation and ability is commonly defined by code output and quality, as well as the collaboration involved in building that code. This provides a relatively straightforward barometer for success, to separate the wheat from the chaff in a community.
In a company code is only one attribute though. The nuances required for commercial success such as partner relationships, customer requirements, certification, licensing, and trademarks, are often less visible or unfamiliar to many communities. This means that companies often have the benefit of information and commercial context, which their companion communities commonly lack.
This information asymmetry can often result in tension between communities and companies.
“Matt Mullenweg from Automattic (the company behind the popular WordPress platform) once told me that from time to time you will be forced to choose between the company and the community,” Anderson shares.
“His advice was to always choose the community as it is the long term, and the company is the short term. If you get the long term right, the short term will come around. Do the reverse and it all falls apart.”
It is sage guidance. Many Open Source projects have enjoyed a heyday that was later marred by an awkward balance between the volunteer and the steward.
Anderson has tended to this by forming DroneCode within the Linux Foundation, a respected working group that is the home of the Linux kernel as well as communities that relate to automotive, networking, carrier grade, and consumer electronics. The Linux Foundation has become something of a foundation of foundations in recent years, so it was a logical place to anchor this work.
DroneCode provides governance, process, and accountability that protects the community if, even in Anderson’s own words, “I take the red pill and turn evil.”
This is an important step. A comprehensive codebase means nothing in the Open Source world if the balance of power is unearned or unequal. Putting in place this governance piece adds the third key rail to a healthy collaborative environment – product, platform, and piece of mind.
Empowering Disruption
Historically many technologies have been born from subversive roots. People hacked Kinect devices to explore computer vision. Compaq Ipaqs were hacked to explore embedded Operating Systems. Games consoles were hacked to explore clustered computing. The very notion of voiding your warranty has not just proved to be a weekend hobby, but a significant function in innovation and evolving technology.
While 3D Robotics has a tough road to climb to compete with DJI’s global dominance, their focus on both the consumer and the maker is intriguing. Time will tell if SOLO will make the impact Anderson and co. want to see, but the combination of a truly consumer friendly drone matched with an expansively open platform opens up tremendous potential.
Part of the reason Microsoft became such a dominant player is that they fundamentally understood developers and went on to create a remarkable developer experience. If 3D Robotics get this right, and they seem to be making all the right noises, they will attract the right talent, and the talent will be loyal to their platform.
“When we think about our community we like to think about the architecture of participation,” Anderson says.
He continues, “While DJI initially ended up creating a superior solution as a package, our platform provides a better model, built around the social architecture of the web, robust participation, version control, spontaneous collaboration, and really good people. We attract the best and the brightest, people who work at Google or wherever during the day, and then work on drones at night. As such we have a place for these people to participate without quitting their jobs, so we get really good people.”
Anderson hits the nail on the head. Part of the reason Open Source has been so impactful is that it provides an on-ramp for smart people to play a contributory role in something bigger than just them. The aggregation of output from smart people has been shown to challenge big players, reinvent industries, and could help 3D Robotics compete more effectively with DJI with a platform of the people, not of the proprietary.
Magic
Arthur C. Clarke famously shared that “any sufficiently advanced technology is equivalent to magic.”
For many people drones are magic, even in these early days of the technology. What will happen next as we continue to combine flight with computer vision, networking, the cloud, location services, and more, will turn magic into practical magic for more and more people.
I believe Anderson and 3D Robotics are taking the right approach, but not one without risk.
Open Source has had a tremendous impact on the speed and availability of innovation, and with the right mix of people and platforms, the SOLO could be the equivalent of the first iPhone that ushered in a new era of smartphone technology. The risk is that platforms and technology are not enough: developer engagement, participation, and community growth will all be critical in helping this creativity and innovation bubble to the surface.'This will make our mission far more difficult in solving the growing problem of homelessness,' says Vice President Leni Robredo on the proposed ban on the conversion of agricultural lands
Published 6:00 PM, October 13, 2016
MANILA, Philippines – Vice President Leni Robredo called on President Rodrigo Duterte to cancel the government's plan to issue a moratorium on the conversion of agricultural lands, as proposed by Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) Secretary Rafael Mariano.
Robredo, who is also the chairperson of the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC), was one of the signatories in a position paper submitted by the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) to Malacañang.
Robredo said on Thursday, October 13, that the proposed ban will "further delay the housing and resettlement processes."
"By unnecessarily locking up the land resources for two years, including those that were already identified as suitable for socialized housing, this will make our mission far more difficult in solving the growing problem of homelessness," the Vice President stressed.
Robredo earlier revealed that there is a 1.4-million housing backlog that will reach 5.7 million by yearend. To address this, she said, the government has to build 2,600 homes per day in the next 6 years.
"This will further delay our efforts in Yolanda-affected and other disaster-stricken areas, since these sites are mostly within agricultural zones," said Robredo.
Mariano announced last month that Duterte agreed to impose a ban on the conversion of agricultural lands, which will immediately protect 4.7 million hectares already awarded to agrarian reform beneficiaries.
Economic sector's similar stand
The Department of Finance (DOF) and the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) are also not in favor of the moratorium.
Business groups earlier called on the government to review the DAR proposal since it could "set back the goal of developing more economic zones, expanding the manufacturing industry, accelerating infrastructure projects, and decongesting urban areas."
That statement was jointly released by the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI), the Foundation for Economic Freedom (FEF), the Makati Business Club (MBC), the Management Association of the Philippines (MAP), the Philippine Exporters Confederation (Philexport), the American Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines (AmCham), the European Chamber of Commerce (ECCP), and the Japanese Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines (JCCIP).
They argued that the administration should consider that there are agricultural lands considered unproductive that could be converted to yield their "highest and best use."
"Development of unproductive and idle agricultural land that could be better used for commercial, residential, and industrial uses will also be hampered, setting back jobs that can potentially be created in the manufacturing, housing, construction, and retail sectors," the groups said.
They also added that the moratorium could hurt the "approved conversions, stock distribution, and leasehold arrangements breeds" with investors prior to the Duterte administration.
Business leaders are instead urging the government to craft a "broader policy framework" that will strike a balance between expanding land use and addressing the threats to food security. – Rappler.comMobile Suit Gundam Wing, also known in Japan as New Mobile Report Gundam Wing[2] (新機動戦記ガンダムW(ウイング), Shin Kidō Senki Gandamu Wingu), is a 1995 Japanese mecha anime series directed by Masashi Ikeda and written by Katsuyuki Sumizawa. It is the sixth installment in the Gundam franchise, taking place in the "After Colony" timeline. As with the original series, the plot of Gundam Wing centers on a war in the future (specifically the 2220s) between Earth and its orbital colonies in the Earth-Moon system.
The series aired in Japan on the terrestrial TV Asahi network. It ran for 49 episodes; beginning on April 7, 1995 and ending on March 29, 1996. It received multiple manga adaptations, as well as video games. Four original video animation (OVA) episodes were produced including a retelling of the series, Operation Meteor, and a direct sequel, Endless Waltz. In 2010, Sumizawa started writing the novel Frozen Teardrop, another sequel to the series. While the series fared modestly well in Japan, it found greater success in the United States and popularized the Gundam franchise in the West.
Plot [ edit ]
In the distant future, Mankind has colonized space, with clusters of space colonies at each of the five Earth-Moon Lagrange points. Down on the Earth, the nations have come together to form the United Earth Sphere Alliance. This Alliance oppresses the colonies with its vast military might. The colonies wishing to be free, join together in a movement headed by the pacifist Heero Yuy. In the year After Colony 175, Yuy is shot dead by an assassin, forcing the colonies to search for other paths to peace. The assassination prompts five disaffected scientists from the Organization of the Zodiac, more commonly referred to as OZ, to turn rogue upon the completion of the mobile suit prototype Tallgeese.
The story of Gundam Wing begins in the year After Colony 195, with the start of "Operation Meteor": the scientists' plan for revenge against OZ. The operation involves five teenage boys, who have each been chosen and trained by each of the five scientists, then sent to Earth independently in extremely advanced mobile suits (one designed by each of the scientists) known as "Gundams" (called such because they are constructed from a rare and astonishingly durable material called Gundanium alloy, which can only be created in outer space). Each Gundam is sent from a different colony, and the pilots are initially unaware of each other's existence.
The series focuses primarily on the five Gundam pilots: Heero Yuy (an alias, not to be confused with the martyred pacifist), Duo Maxwell, Trowa Barton, Quatre Raberba Winner and Chang Wufei. Their mission is to use their Gundams to attack OZ directly, in order to rid the Alliance of its weapons and free the colonies from its oppressive rule. The series also focuses on Relena Peacecraft, heir to the pacifist Sanc Kingdom, who starts off as a seemingly ordinary girl until she gets caught up in the conflict between OZ and the Gundams; becoming an important political ally to the Gundam pilots (particularly Heero) in the process.
Production [ edit ]
The making of Gundam Wing was influenced by Mobile Fighter G Gundam with the idea of having five main characters. Originally, the series was meant to be titled Gundam Meteor after "Operation Meteor." Bandai suggested having a Gundam with the ability of transforming into a plane-like form. The writers worked together for one week conceptualizing the characters, mobile suits and first 40 episodes. Director Masashi Ikeda reacted to their work comparing it to the first Gundam series, Zeta and G all at once.[3] The series was more focused on drama than mecha, which the staff credits as one of the reasons for the show's popularity within the female demographic.
Writer Katsuyuki Sumizawa expressed difficulties in the making of the story as opposed to his work in novels due to the fact he relayed duties to other members. However, the handling of the five characters was made easy due to the setting.[3] Early sketches of the protagonists by Ikeda were handled by character designer Shuko Murase. He was cast due to his work with Ikeda in Samurai Troopers. The director wanted the designs to appeal to the female demographic. Originally, Duo Maxwell was set as the protagonist but was replaced by Heero Yuy. The staff members noted Heero was too different from previous Gundam protagonists and were afraid he would be unpopular. The voice casting was more difficult to do than the ones from previous series due to the different atmosphere.[3]
Following the series' ending, the staff members were asked by the studio to make a sequel due to its popularity. Neither Ikeda nor executive producer Hideyuki Tomioka intended to make a sequel for Gundam Wing. However, Sumizawa was bothered by the finale as he felt the series ended abruptly. Tomioka asked Sumizawa if he could write a continuation which he agreed.[3]
Media [ edit ]
Anime [ edit ]
Gundam Wing was not the first series in the Gundam franchise to be dubbed and distributed in the U.S. (the compilation movie version of the original Mobile Suit Gundam, as well as the OVAs War in the Pocket and Stardust Memory, preceded it by about two years), but it is well known as the first Gundam series to be aired on American television. This dub was produced by Bandai Entertainment and the voice work was done by Ocean Productions. [4] The series aired on Cartoon Network's weekday afternoon after-school programming block Toonami; premiering on March 6, 2000. In the first extended promo leading up to the series' premiere, voice actor Peter Cullen narrated the back story, evoking memories of Voltron's opening credits. The promo was said to be so riveting that Bandai decided to use it as the official promo for the series.[5]
It was broadcast in two formats; an edited version shown in the daytime on Toonami and an uncut version shown past midnight as part of Toonami's "Midnight Run." Examples of the edits included the removal of blood, profanity, atheism, and the word "kill" being replaced with the word "destroy" (this was extended to Duo's nickname, "The God of Death," changed to "The Great Destroyer," forcing the alteration of two episode titles), though the word "death" was mostly left intact. All Gundam Wing episodes have been released to VHS and DVD in the U.S. Differences between the two video systems is that the VHS episodes contain the edited version while the DVD episodes contain the uncut version.
Due to the closure of Bandai Entertainment, the series was out-of-print for sometime. On October 11, 2014 at their 2014 New York Comic-Con panel, Sunrise announced they will be releasing all of the Gundam franchise, including Gundam Wing in North America though distribution from Right Stuf Inc., beginning in Spring 2015.[6] Right Stuf released the series on Blu-ray and DVD in two sets in November 2017.[7] In addition, a collector's edition set containing the complete series, Endless Waltz, Operation Meteor and the Frozen Teardrop picture drama was released in December 2017.
OVAs [ edit ]
After the series ended, four original video animation (OVA) episodes, compiling various scenes from the series along with a few minutes of new footage, were released in 1996 as Gundam Wing: Operation Meteor I and II.
A three-part OVA titled Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz was produced in 1997 as a sequel to the TV series; plot-wise, it brought the "After Colony" timeline to a close. The OVA was also notable for its massive redesigns of all the Gundams by Hajime Katoki, such as the Wing Gundam Zero's new "angel-winged" appearance.[8] A compilation movie version of Endless Waltz (featuring additional footage, alterations of the music score and a different ending theme) was later released in Japan on August 1, 1998. Endless Waltz premiered on Cartoon Network in the U.S. on November 10, 2000. Both the OVA and movie versions of Endless Waltz were later released together on DVD.[9] Right Stuf released both OVAs on Blu-ray and DVD in December 2017 (though Operation Meteor remains un-dubbed).[7]
Manga [ edit ]
In addition to manga adaptations of the series and Endless Waltz, several manga sidestories have also been produced. Episode Zero is a prequel, detailing the events leading up to series; the stories have been collected in a volume that also contains one brief open-ended interlude, Preventer 5, that details an operation that occurs after Endless Waltz.[10] A coincident storyline to the series is presented in Last Outpost (G-Unit). Several sequel manga, occurring between Gundam Wing and Endless Waltz, have also been written: Blind Target, Ground Zero and Battlefield of Pacifists.[11][12][13]
The Gundam Wing, Battlefield of Pacifists and Endless Waltz manga series were published in English by Tokyopop, while Blind Target, Ground Zero and Episode Zero were published by Viz Communications. Another sequel manga detailing the future of the colonies entitled Tiel's Impulse was printed in 1998 and has not been published in the United States.
In September 2010, Gundam Ace magazine began serializing a manga titled New Mobile Report Gundam Wing Endless Waltz: The Glory of Losers that retells the events of the anime while incorporating facts from Episode Zero and the novel Frozen Teardrop. The manga also uses Hajime Katoki's Gundam redesigns from Endless Waltz and other subsequent media, instead of the original Kunio Okawara designs featured in the anime. Vertical began publishing English editions of the manga volumes, under the title Mobile Suit Gundam Wing Endless Waltz: Glory of the Losers, in July 2017.[14]
Novel sequel [ edit ]
In early 2010, Gundam Ace magazine announced they would serialize a "New Gundam Wing Project".[15] The project was eventually revealed to be a novel, titled New Mobile Report Gundam Wing: Frozen Teardrop. Written by Katsuyuki Sumizawa, the novel begins a new timeline, following the "Mars Century" calendar ("MC") which was the successor of the previous "After Colony" calendar.[16] According to an interview with the author, the novel spans backwards into the AC century and the Gundam pilots, Relena, and their children make appearances.
Other media [ edit ]
A fighting video game titled Shin Kidō Senki Gundam Wing: Endless Duel was developed by Natsume and released for the Super Famicom in Japan on March 29, 1996.[17] A second fighting game titled Shin Kidō Senki Gundam Wing: The Battle was developed by Natsume and released for the PlayStation in Japan on October 11, 2002 as the 13th volume of the Simple Characters 2000 series.[18] Gundam Wing characters and mecha have also appeared in several other video game series including Super Robot Wars, Gundam Battle Assault, Another Century's Episode, Mobile Suit Gundam: Extreme Vs. and Dynasty Warriors: Gundam.
Upon the series' debut in North America, Gundam Wing received a large roster of licensees for merchandise including wallscrolls, apparel, school supplies, skateboards, trading cards, model kits and action figures.[19]
Soundtracks [ edit ]
Openings
Ending
"It's Just Love!" by Rumi Ohishi (ep. 1–49)
"Just Communication" (Instrumental Version) by Kow Otani (Toonami Broadcast, ep. 1–49; the credits aired over a shortened version of the show's first opening animation)[22]
Insert songs
"Just Communication" by Two-Mix (eps. 3 & 49)
"Rhythm Emotion" by Two-Mix (eps. 36, 38, 39, and 41)
Reception [ edit ]
Gundam Wing was only a modest success in Japan during its initial run; it, along with G Gundam, was the only Gundam series of the 1990s that managed an average television rating over four percent. It was ranked number two in Animage magazine's Anime Grand Prix in 1996 and was also ranked number 76 in the publication's list of the 100 most important anime of all time.[23][24] The series is infamous within dōjinshi where authors tend to depict romantic relationships between several of the protagonists.[25][26]
Gundam Wing was a greater success in North America, however, and is credited with single-handedly popularizing the Gundam franchise among Western audiences.[27] Just over a week after its premiere on Cartoon Network on March 6, 2000, the series was the top rated program in all age groups.[28] During the summer of 2000, it remained as the first or second top-rated show among kids and teens during its twelve airings per week on the Toonami block. Gundam Wing was ranked the 73rd best animated series by IGN, calling the series "so good that even those opposed to anime have to give the show its due credit".[29]Esports fan? Check out these documentaries about competitive video games!
Patrick at Esports Maybe has watched countless esports documentaries and has a bit of an opinion on the best esports documentaries available. The criteria for any videos this Top 10 List is that they be freely available online. Sit back and enjoy the Esports Maybe Top 10 Esports Documentaries of 2015.
10) “Focus” (Street Fighter)
FOCUS is a riveting documentary presented by G4 Films and directed by Steve Hwang. Follow a year in the life of pro gamer Mike Ross as he prepares to do battle at EVO 2010 in Las Vegas.
9) “King of Chinatown”
8) “The Foreigner”
7) “Great Games”
Team Razer Presents: “Great Games”, the definitive esports documentary. It’s the universal sign-off for those players who know they’ve been beaten in the toughest mental arena of modern gaming: esports. “Great Games” follows 3 of the most well known esports today – StarCraft, Dota 2 and League of Legends – bringing the history and the people of the newest sporting frontier into focus.
6) “Frag” – The Movie (FPS)
A look back at the origins, the business of and the trials of esports and a look forward. “Below the surface of a simple game is an underbelly of corruption, money, partying, drugs, and even death.”
5) “Throne of Games” E:60 (DOTA 2)
4) “Road to Worlds” (League of Legends)
The road to Seoul for these League of Legends Champions has been long and now the world’s best teams remain. Relive the drama and final moments leading up to the 2014 World Championship in Seoul, Korea. Everyone is watching, will you?
3) “The Celebrity Millionaires of Competitive Gaming”
Today, there are more people in the world who play League of Legends than there are people who live in France. We wanted to look inside this rapidly expanding world of competitive gaming, so VICE host Matt Shea flew to South Korea, a country where so-called “esports” can either make you rich and famous or land you in rehab.
2) “Free to Play” (DOTA 2)
“Free to Play” is a feature-length documentary that follows three professional gamers from around the world as they compete for a million dollar prize in the first Dota 2 International Tournament. In recent years, E Sports has surged in popularity to become one of the most widely-pr |
of interest in our league, and we’re working through that process and that’s not stopping. Getting to 20 teams is not going to be that hard. For us the challenge is finding the right marketplace, right ownership and build something that is going to be here forever.”
June also looks to be an an exciting month for NASL, as the Board of Governors is scheduled to meet and consider expansion proposals from Chicago and possibly others. Typically, interesting nuggets leak out to the press from these meetings, and if the Chicago NASL group’s transparency continues, we should expect to hear from them directly without having to rely on gossip.
Announced NASL Teams
Puerto Rico FC
Set to debut in on July 2nd vs Indy Eleven, Puerto Rico FC is owned by NBA superstar Carmelo Anthony. Carmelo has appointed respected former MLS executive Tom Payne as team president and former NASL club Puerto Rico Islanders manager Adrian Whitbread to run the team. The club will call the Islanders’ old digs Juan Ramón Loubriel Stadium in Bayamon their home. The team has made initial signings of NASL veterans Pedro Mendes, Paulo Mendes, Chris Nurse, David Meves, Oliver Minatel as well as Puerto Rican nationals Joseph Marrero and Jorge Rivera in addition to Spaniard Ramon Soria Alonso.
June 2016 Update: Puerto Rico FC added defenders Rudy Dawson and Ramon Del Campo on the field, as well as NPSL standout striker Bljedi Bardic. They added popular Puerto Rican international Alexis Rivera to the front office as Community Relations Director. By the time we do our next update, they will have taken the field for their NASL debut against Indy Eleven on July 2nd.
More on Puerto Rico FC: http://www.puertoricofc.com/
San Francisco Deltas
Led by Silicon Valley entrepreneur Brian Andres Helmick, the San Francisco Deltas will debut in the 2017 Spring Season, playing out of Kezar Stadium. The club will invest several hundreds of thousands of dollars to make improvements at stadium. The Deltas have started to collect season ticket deposits on their web site. They have set August as their target date to have a manager in place.
June 2016 Update: The Deltas have sold out the first two stages of season ticket packages. They added experienced Brazilian GM Jose Carlos Brunuro to the front office. The Deltas could see pro soccer competition in the market as soon as 2017 from San Francisco City FC, who told Evan Ream of their intentions to go pro by next year or 2018, presumably in USL.
More on the San Francisco Deltas: http://sfdeltas.com/
Public NASL Efforts
Chicago
Peter Wilt is leading a group including Club9 Sports set on bringing a NASL team to Chicago. The club will present at the June NASL Board of Governors meeting with their eye on a Spring 2017 start. Chicago NASL has identified Soldier Field, Wrigley Field and US Cellular Field as its ideal places to play. The team solicited fan suggestions for its official name and colors on its web site, and they will narrow down the finalists and allow fans to vote on the name. The classic NASL moniker Chicago Sting is likely to be one of the options, having received a plurality of votes in the initial survey. Other fan suggestions included Chicago City SC, Municipal Chicago and Wild Onion FC.
June 2016 Update: Peter Wilt spoke with Midfield Press recently to discuss progress on the Chicago NASL effort. The Chicago NASL group is expected to seek official expansion approval at the NASL Board of Governors meeting later this month.
More on Chicago NASL: http://www.chicagonasl.com/ and Peter Wilt’s February 2016 AMA.
Philadelphia
Jonathan Tannenwald broke the story that the owner of the American Soccer League’s Philadelphia Fury, which plays in the South Jersey suburb Glassboro, is looking to partner with investors including a La Liga club to bring a NASL team to the Philadelphia market. The Philadelphia Fury is a classic NASL brand. Their potential investor group reported includes members from the Dubai and Las Vegas. SD Eibar’s friendly against the Fury at Rowan University was said to be related to these efforts. While Rowan University may not be an ideal location for a Philadelphia market team, it is one that the Fury are comfortable with.
Empire of Soccer added that Fury owner Matt Driver has not yet secured the investment necessary to move to NASL and that as of their report had not been in touch with the league office about their plans.
NASL Rumors With Multiple Sources and/or League Commentary
Nashville
Nashville is the subject of pro soccer efforts by both USL and NASL groups. The USL group, DMD Soccer, seeks to acquire the brand and assets of the supporter-owned NPSL team Nashville FC while providing a seat on the board to the current supporter-owners in the form of a supporters trust. DMD has been awarded a franchise by USL to start in 2018 contingent on building a soccer specific stadium. The DMD group includes investors with ties to health care companies including Marcus Whitney, chairman of Nashville FC, David Dell president and COO of LifePoint Health and Christopher Redhage, co-founder of ProviderTrust. Nashville FC previously indicated an interest in moving up to pro soccer in a recent interview with Midfield Press.
The NASL group is being led by former Tennessee Economic and Development Commissioner Bill Hagerty. “Nashville has reached the point as a sports market where it is ready to support a high-level professional soccer team,” Hagerty said. “We are engaged in discussions to create an ownership group to bring top-tier professional soccer to Nashville. I look forward to an ongoing discussion about what is best for Nashville and its professional sports future.”
NASL has officially come out in support of expansion to Nashville. “We absolutely believe Nashville would be a great fit for the NASL,” NASL spokesman Neal Malone said. “It’s home to a robust soccer community and it has a reputation for being an excellent sports city. We feel that there would be a lot of support, and you see that already with Nashville FC.”
Ultimately who wins the USL-NASL battle for Nashville may come down to who the city supports in terms of stadium funding. “The mayor supports the growth of soccer in Nashville and is supportive of all groups that want to bring a team here,” Mayor Barry spokesman Sean Braisted told the Tennessean. “It will ultimately be up to the private sector to bring their proposals to Metro. The United Soccer League is clearly moving in that direction, and we’ll see over time if there are others interested in coming to Nashville.” USL requires a soccer-specific stadium, while NASL does not, which may allow a NASL team to beat a USL team to market.
Celtic USA
British tabloid The Sun reported that Celtic FC looked at putting a team in NASL. Boston, Detroit and Hartford were cities Celtic FC considered according to an in-the-know Big Soccer poster. Boston may be blocked due to a marketing agreement between Celtic FC and the Boston Celtics. Celtic Underground recently reported the club executive Peter Lawwell will be traveling back to the USA this summer to re-engage NASL talks. Celtic Underground’s @celticrumours twitter account mentioned hearing talk of Philadelphia and the West Coast as locations the club was eyeing.
June 2016 Update: We examined the most logical landing spots for Celtic NASL, however nothing says they will follow the logical path. Meanwhile, the Celtic-affiliated Lansdowne Bhoys of the Bronx/Yonkers area of New York indicated an intention to go pro by 2018 amidst their US Open Cup run. Philadelphia may host a Scottish Premier League match between Dundee and Celtic next season.
Atlanta
Bill Peterson confirmed in a Big Apple Soccer report that the league is in discussions with two groups in Atlanta, despite the recent demise of the NASL Silverbacks and the impending launch of MLS’s Atlanta United FC. “We have two groups interested in Atlanta,” said Peterson. “They are trying to develop a game plan and build on what occurred the last several years.”
June 2016 Update: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that a NASL team may be coming to DeKalb County, just east of Atlanta. A group is looking at building a soccer complex that would host both a NWSL team, referred to as the Atlanta Vibe, and a NASL team, referred to as the Atlanta Chiefs. While the Chiefs brand is from the classic NASL era, its use is inadvisable in a contemporary context.
Orange County
Empire of Soccer reported in their January 21, 2016 piece on Bill Peterson that several sources are telling them that Orange County is one of the markets that NASL is discussing with interested potential ownership groups. NASL Orange County rumors circulated prior to that report suggesting the musician Sting was involved with the bid, first reported on Big Soccer by a poster known to get scoops and then backed by reporter Evan Ream. However Bill Peterson denied Sting’s involvement with a NASL bid on a podcast interview with Neil Morris on WRAL.
June 2016 Update: Nothing new, though we wouldn’t be surprised to hear of an Orange County group presenting at the upcoming Board of Governors meeting.
Las Vegas
Empire of Soccer reported in their January 21, 2016 piece on Bill Peterson that several sources are telling them that Las Vegas is one of the markets that NASL is discussing with interested potential ownership groups. A later EoS article dated January 27, 2016 includes a comment from Bill Peterson that an attempt to move the Scorpions brand to Las Vegas this past offseason was rejected by the NASL Board of Governors: “All the pieces weren’t in place,” he said. Since these comment appears to be from the same interview, it would seem Las Vegas is still in play but the Scorpions brand there may or may not be. Cosmos Country Podcast previously reported that a Las Vegas investor group was at the Board of Governors meeting in New York prior to the Soccer Bowl. Recent rumors on Big Soccer from an in the know poster suggest that USL may also be trying to bring a team to Vegas.
June 2016 Update: Nothing new.
Single Source NASL Rumors
San Diego
San Diego is one of the markets that NASL is discussing with interested potential ownership groups, according to Empire of Soccer’s January 21, 2016 article on Bill Peterson. San Diego is also the subject of MLS expansion rumors, with former San Diego Padres owner John Moores linked with a MLS bid. San Diego has also been the subject of USL rumors, with a recent one involving Landon Donovan launching a San Diego USL team denied by the US soccer legend on Twitter. Scratching The Pitch reported that a strong potential USL ownership that does not include Landon Donovan has emerged.
June 2016 Update: NBC San Diego reported that a group is close to securing a USL team for 2017 to play out of Torero Stadium.
NASL Rumors On Life Support
Los Angeles
Mentioned by an in-the-know BigSoccer poster who reported NASL interest along with San Francisco (turned out to be the Deltas) and Orange County, the rumor was that a group with links to Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim looked at bringing a NASL team to Los Angeles. The poster suggested the team could use the LA Aztecs name and target Mexican demographic, playing out of East LA. Unlike San Francisco and Orange County, NASL to LA has not been corroborated by any other sources or gained any momentum.
Prior to those rumors, Indy Week and Kartik Krishnayer reported in 2014 that a Los Angeles group was close to launching a NASL team to debut in the Fall 2015 season, with Kartik reporting that Eric Wynalda was involved. The Aztecs branding was in play here too. That bid obviously fell apart, but it demonstrates that Los Angeles has generated NASL expansion interest.
June 2016 Update: Nothing new.
New York United FC: The NASL news and rumor sphere was rocked on January 27, 2016 when Bill Reese tweeted a discovery that MP & Silva, owners of Miami FC, had applied for a trademark on “New York United FC.” Cosmos COO Erik Stover said in his March 2016 Reddit AMA, “I’m not sure what the reasoning of the trademark was. It could mean many, many things. I haven’t heard anything about an NASL team.” An alternative possibility to an outdoor soccer team could be an entry into Mark Cuban’s upcoming Professional Futsal League. Incidentally there is already a Cosmopolitan Soccer League team with prior use on the name.
June 2016 Update: It remains to be seen what the sale of MP & Silva to a Chinese private equity firm means for Miami FC, the New York United FC trademark and the exciting Americas Champions League concept that Riccardo Silva was developing.
Detroit
Detroit has come into focus as a target of MLS, with Detroit Pistons owner Tom Gores and Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert teaming on a bid. In September 2015, a Detroit expansion group presented at the NASL Board of Governors meeting alongside San Francisco and OKC, according to reporter Sulaiman Foralin. Neither group appears to include the successful NPSL side Detroit City FC, which previously made its desire to move up to the pros known as exemplified in this article by Crain’s Detroit Business. Prior to launching his MLS bid, Tom Gores was reported by Detroit News to have discussed helping Detroit City FC make the leap to pro soccer. The power of the Detroit City FC movement is demonstrated by the club’s fans raising over $740,000 for the refurbishment of Keyworth Stadium to serve as a new home that will support the team’s continued growth. It remains possible that if the MLS bid succeeds and excludes Detroit City FC, that the NPSL club could still go pro in the NASL.
June 2016 Update: The MLS bid throws NASL expansion to Detroit into question.
No Longer Appearing On The NASL List
Graduated: Miami FC. Rayo OKC.
Transferred: Hamilton, Ontario (to CanPL).
Flunked Out : Hartford City FC.
The United Soccer League continues to expand at a pace that puts the original North American Soccer League to shame. The league presently sits at 29 teams and seemed poised to end up in the mid-to-high 30s next season. With Reno 1868 already on deck for next year and the Austin Aztex looking to return, Nashville was the first in what may be a series of USL expansion announcements in the coming months. San Diego is rumored to be close to happening by the local NBC affiliate, and MountainStar Sports Group appears to be near bringing a team to El Paso.
Announced USL Teams
Reno 1868
Owned by Indiana Pacers billionaire Herb Simon, Reno will start play in 2017. Sacramento Republic FC recently played a friendly in Reno against the Liverpool FC U-21s before a crowd of 6,287 at 1868’s future home of Greater Nevada Field.
More on Reno 1868.
Austin
Technically not an expansion team, the Austin Aztex are on-hiatus from USL for 2016 due to flood damage to House Park. The Austin Aztex continue to work on their 2017 USL return, eyeing a potential stadium partnership with the rugby team the Austin Huns.
More on the Austin Aztex.
Nashville
DMD Soccer has been awarded a USL franchise for 2018 contingent on acquiring a soccer-specific stadium. They are also seeking to acquire the brand of Nashville FC. See NASL Nashville entry above for more details on the race between the two leagues for Nashville.
More on Nashville FC.
Rumored USL Teams
El Paso: MountainStar Sports Group is reportedly working to bring a USL team to El Paso. MountainStar owns the El Paso Chihuahuas AAA baseball team as well as FC Juarez across the Mexican border.
San Diego: NBC San Diego reports that USL is close to awarding a San Diego franchise to start in 2017 playing out of Torero Stadium. Scratching the Pitch and an in-the-know Big Soccer poster previously reported recent USL’s interest in San Diego.
Las Vegas: The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported in March that the USL was interested in bringing a team to Cashman Field in Vegas. USL spokesperson Brett Lashbrook told the Review-Journal that there was a precedent of minor league baseball and USL sharing a stadium. The Las Vegas 51s AAA team is looking to move out of Cashman into a new stadium.
LAFC2: Scratching The Pitch suggested the Orange County Blues might turn into LAFC2. LAFC2 was also reported by an in-the-know Big Soccer poster. Whether they are a new team or a rebranding of the OC Blues, LAFC2 could start next year, ahead of the parent club’s debut in MLS.
Birmingham: Scratching The Pitch reported Birmingham, Alabama as a potential USL city along with their own rumors on Nashville and San Diego USL teams.
Cleveland: Message board rumors should always be taken with a grain of salt, but Cleveland could follow on Cincinnati’s heels in USL, if rumblings from two local area posters (1, 2) on Big Soccer are to be believed.
Boise: Boise is another spot rumored for USL by a Big Soccer source that reported USL’s Nashville interest before the Tennessean story broke.
Lower League Teams Looking To Move Up To The Pros (NASL/USL)
FC Buffalo: In an interview with Midfield Press, FC Buffalo indicated that they are actively pursuing investors to help them take a step up to professional soccer, though they did not indicate whether they were interested in USL or NASL.
Albuquerque Sol FC: In an interview with Midfield Press, Albuquerque Sol FC set a target of 2018 for a move up to professional soccer. Albuquerque is more likely to go to USL than NASL due to their status as a PDL team, a league which is owned by USL. However they would not rule NASL out.
Lansdowne Bhoys: Celtic-affiliated Lansdowne Bhoys of the Bronx/Yonkers area of New York indicated an intention to go pro by 2018 amidst their US Open Cup run.
San Francisco City FC: San Francisco City FC has new investors that intend to take the team to a professional league by next year or 2018, reports Evan Ream. That league would likely be USL.
Detroit City FC and Nashville FC were covered above.
Major League Soccer’s official line is that it will continue to expand until it reaches 28 teams. We suspect MLS will top out somewhere between 28 and 32, putting it in line with the other major US sports leagues. Atlanta is set to join in 2017, with Minnesota likely accompanying them. Los Angeles FC will debut in 2018, with Miami ideally arriving at the same time. Should the Miami Beckham United group’s series of unfortunate events continue, MLS may look at have another bid replace them for 2018. Sacramento Republic FC would seem to be the most ready. This would buy Beckham two more years, as Garber has identified 2020 as the year for another round of teams.
According to the Associated Press, Garber offered a priority ranking of MLS expansion efforts. St. Louis and Sacramento lead the hunt for the 2020 pair of berths, with Detroit, San Diego, San Antonio, Austin and Cincinnati following in that order. One would think that San Antonio and Austin would be mutually exclusive.
Announced MLS Teams
Atlanta United FC
Set to debut in 2017, Atlanta United FC is owned by Home Depot founder Arthur Blank and will share Mercedes-Benz Stadium with Blank’s NFL Atlanta Falcons. They have already signed several players including former Atlanta Silverback Junior Burgos, who is on loan to the Tampa Bay Rowdies. Atlanta has setup an affiliation with the Charleston Battery of USL.
More on Atlanta United FC.
Minnesota United FC
Minnesota United will switch from the NASL to MLS in either 2017 or 2018, with 2017 looking more likely. The club may have to change its name in deference to DC United and Atlanta United FC. The team is working on plans for a soccer-specific stadium in St. Paul, Minnesota, aimed to be ready in 2018. Minnesota may play at the University of Minnesota’s TCF Bank Stadium for a season in the likelihood it joins MLS in 2017.
More on Minnesota United FC.
Los Angeles FC
Set to debut in 2018, Los Angeles FC’s ownership is led by venture capitalist Henry Nguyen, entrepreneur Peter Guber and NBA exec Tom Penn, and includes famous names such as Magic Johnson, Mia Hamm, Nomar Garciaparra, Will Ferrell and Tony Robbins among its investors. The club is building its stadium in downtown Los Angeles, on the site of the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena. A venue it controls in a location away from the Carson-based Galaxy will give LAFC a distinct advantage that Chivas USA never had as the second MLS team in the LA market.
More on LAFC.
Miami
David Beckham’s star crossed saga to bring Major League Soccer to Miami continues to hit snags. The Beckham group identified a piece of land in the Overtown section of Miami, but have balked at demands from Miami-Dade County. Beckham’s investment group includes media mogul Simon Fuller and Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure. The Qatari owners of Paris Saint Germain were said to be getting involved, but talks reportedly broke down.
MLS Contenders
Sacramento Republic FC
Sacramento is the MLS bid that has it all. They have a strong fan base in USL, support of the local government, a downtown stadium plan and an investor group that includes NFL (49ers) and NBA (Kings) owners. Sacramento is the odds-on favorite for the 25th MLS expansion spot, and could debut earlier than Miami if Beckham’s group cannot get their stadium situation nailed down.
More on Sacramento Republic FC.
Saint Louis FC
When the NFL Rams departed St. Louis for Los Angeles, Major League Soccer perked up about the opportunity to bring MLS to St. Louis. The city has long been a target of MLS, dating back to when the Philadelphia Union beat out a Jeff Cooper-led St. Louis expansion bid. The MLS2STL group exploring a potential MLS bid includes the Jim Kavanaugh of the USL Saint Louis FC club, former Anheuser Busch president Dave Peacock and St. Louis Cardinals president Bill DeWitt III.
More on Saint Louis FC.
Detroit
Detroit Pistons owner Tom Gores and Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert are teaming up on a bid to bring MLS to the Motor City. The fact that Detroit is one of the largest US markets MLS is not in today and its impressive investor group means it joins Sacramento, St. Louis and San Antonio as MLS expansion frontrunners.
San Diego
Former San Diego Padres owner John Moores showed interest in bring MLS to San Diego. Moores was recently involved in a bid for Everton FC. Like St. Louis, San Diego becomes a very appealing opportunity for MLS should the Chargers leave San Diego for LA, despite MLS already having two teams in Southern California. In the near term, the city is the subject of new USL rumors (see above).
San Antonio FC
Spurs Sports & Entertainment launched the USL San Antonio FC with the express intent of bringing the team to MLS. San Antonio FC essentially replaced the San Antonio Scorpions of NASL when the county bought the rights to Toyota Field from Scorpions owner Gordon Hartman. As part of the deal SS&E made with the city and county, it will have to pay them a penalty if the team is not in MLS after six years.
More on San Antonio FC.
Austin
Aztex owner Rene van de Zande and Bobby Epstein, CEO of the Circuit of the Americas, have been working to bring a MLS team to Austin. Austin’s inclusion in Don Garber’s recent list of MLS expansion candidates is somewhat surprising, since the city is located so close to San Antonio. Austin has struggled to keep their USL team afloat while San Antonio has a strong track record of success dating back to the Scorpions in NASL.
FC Cincinnati
Successful new USL franchise FC Cincinnati reached out to MLS to inquire about expansion, but was told it may take a few years. Their impressive box-office success has forced Cincinnati into the conversation for the 24-28th MLS franchise berths.
More on FC Cincinnati.
Las Vegas: David Beckham turned up in Las Vegas to speak in support of a Las Vegas stadium to lure the NFL Oakland Raiders, leaving one to wonder if Sin City is emerging as a backup plan to Miami. “I’m excited about what we’re doing in Miami,” Beckham said. “It’s something that I’m very committed to, something that as an ambassador of the league now, as an owner of a franchise that is going to be very special for the people of Miami, I’m excited. I’m excited for the chance of an MLS team to be able to come to Vegas, it’s special.”
Las Vegas Sands Group board member Jason N. Ader is interested in investing in a Las Vegas MLS team. MLS rejected Las Vegas bid supported by Mayor Goodman and Findlay Sports and Entertainment previously. It may be telling that Las Vegas did not appear on Garber’s prioritized list of expansion locations reported by the AP.
The Rest of the Field: Local reporters have connected the Carolina Railhawks and Tampa Bay Rowdies to MLS moves as part of articles on their stadium efforts…. The Charlotte Independence have expressed interest in a move to MLS, though unlike Cincinnati their attendance track record is hurting, not helping…. A USL team with strong attendance going for it, Louisville City FC, also seeks a spot in MLS, though it is unlikely the league would admit a market that small at this stage, especially with a more attractive situation so close by in Cincinnati.
Canadian Premier League
NASL seemed close to announcing a Hamilton expansion team in May 2015, but the bid disintegrated in the face of the Traffic Sports scandal. The Hamilton group has announced it will join the forming Canadian Premier League.
Duane Rollins reports the CanPL will likely look like the Canadian Football League minus Edmonton, meaning that in addition to Hamilton, Calgary, Winnipeg, Saskatchewan, as well as placing “second” teams in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver are likely out as options for NASL. Rollins also reports that the Ottawa Fury is expected to defect to this league, while FC Edmonton plans to stay with NASL. The Canadian Premier League is expected to start play in 2018.Image by Simon Davison via FlickrBeing a geek is both time-consuming and expensive, and being a gamer-geek even more so. Sadly, with our economy in perpetual shambles, the latter seems to have become an even more difficult issue than the former. So how’s a gamer supposed to afford new titles as well as incidentals like, y’know, food?
Subscription-based rental services like GameFly can alleviate both the sting of current generation game prices and the hassle of driving to your local retailer to stand in line with the rest of the yahoos, but this comes at a cost. That cost, of course, is the lack of personal ownership. The disc isn’t yours; it’s merely in your possession.
While renting is a fiscally responsible move, it goes against that innate nerdy urge to procure, to collect. But for those of us who are unable to resist that damnable desire to acquire there is a solution. To paraphrase Ash Williams, one merely needs to shop smart.
Stay Informed:
The first step to properly budgeting your meager gamer dollar is simple; do a little research. Familiarize yourself with release dates and prioritize. This is especially important during the inevitable rush of top-shelf titles that flood the market in the fall and early winter months. Sure, we all want Little Big Planet, Fable II, Gears of War 2, Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia, Dead Space, and Animal Crossing: City Folk, but the fact that their release dates are so closely clustered means that we probably can’t snag them all on launch day. So pick your pony. Remember that with the rare exception of titles that are somehow perpetually out of stock (and thus subject to eBay price gauging) and a few first party exclusives that manage to retain their value far into their lifespan, game prices generally drop after several months on-shelf. So pick up your must-have titles now, and don’t be afraid to wait a while on your second-tier choices.
Read Reviews:
Another way to ensure that you’re getting the most bang for your buck is to keep a keen eye on game reviews. Remember, it’s the uninformed consumer who propagates the steady flow of shovelware to systems like our beloved Nintendo Wii by making indiscriminant purchases. Of course it is important to note that reviews are, by their very nature, fairly subjective, so sites like Metacritic that compile multiple reviews for easy digestion are quite helpful. Also keep in mind that the score is not always the sum total of a videogame review. As time permits, read (or at least skim) through the reviews themselves, and look for common themes and complaints. If multiple reviewers call a title to task for poor enemy AI or sloppy level design, chances are there’s a notable problem.
Embrace the Demo:
The best barometer by which to gauge a game’s true appeal is actually trying it yourself. Whether at a game kiosk at a local retailer or via downloadable demo, taking a title for a test drive on your own terms is a great place to start. Xbox LIVE Marketplace and the Playstation Network Store offer scores of free demos for practically every game imaginable, and, while Nintendo doesn’t generally make Wii demos available, their new Nintendo Channel does afford you the opportunity to download demos of some DS titles using your console. Take a game for a spin. Kick the tires. Smell the tiny pine tree dangling from the rearview. Then make the call. A demo should feature a game’s strengths, and, should you find yourself yawning through this virtual highlight reel, chances are the title’s not for you.
Don’t Be Afraid to Trade-In or Buy Used:
The game industry abhors the buying and selling of used games, and with good reason. While Activision didn’t see a dime in additional revenue from that used copy of Guitar Hero III you scored, GameStop made a killing by essentially selling the same game twice. (It’s been estimated that EB/Gamestop makes about 31 cents on the dollar on new software sales, as opposed to nearly 50 cents on the dollar on the sale of used games.) Sure, chances are you’re getting hosed on the trade-in price, but a couple of extra bucks in-hand is a bit more functional than an entertainment center full of games you’re never going to play again. The same can be said for buying used games; that five or six dollar premium you pay for a new game over a used copy might not seem like much, but every little bit helps.
Harness the Power of Gaming Communities:
In addition to chain stores and local independent retailers, you can also trade games via online communities like Goozex. This example uses a point system to quantify the value of titles that you trade, and said points can be used to "buy" games from other users. They typically charge a nominal fee for the privilege of using their trade matching system, but, assuming you’re using a reputable service, it’s a small price to pay for a fair trade. Community sites can be used not only for trading, but also to find great deals at online and brick-and-mortar retailers. The most obvious example of this is Cheap Ass Gamer, a robust and interminably active BBS-based community that’s users are quick to point out gamer-centric Gold Box deals at Amazon, special trade-in promotions at EB/Gamestop, universal price drops, previews of Sunday ad circulars, and discount deals at big box stores. In the continuing struggle to stretch your gaming dollar, a site like CAG is your WMD: not necessarily elegant, but deadly effective.[So many cups, so few wins, one Ottawa man discovers/YouTube]
Roll up the rim is back and that means everyone thinks they are about to win a new car!
Or at least a doughnut, to start.
YouTuber Matt Day and his friend Michael Sutherland-Shaw sat down with 23 Tim Horton’s rollable rimmed coffee cups hoping to make a profit off their hot investments.
They purchased various sizes from various locations over three weeks, safeguarding the empty cups that were potentially holding treasures within their rims, like breakfast sandwiches or snack packs of Timbits.
The video shows all 23 cups displayed on the table, and Day and Sutherland-Shaw talk about the fact that this literal pile of garbage could hold a mini fortune.
“Twenty-three cups, I’m thinkin’ 23 winners,” estimates Day.
“I’m thinking 23 Honda Civics,” replies Sutherland-Shaw.
The pair begins unrolling the rims and slowly but surely, watch their dreams of a new car evaporate.
In total, the pair won only one free coffee, from a medium-sized cup. 1-22 ratio, the guys find themselves with one free coffee, from a medium sized cup.
Is a 1-22 record enough for these two fellows?
“I’m actually heartbroken,” said Day.(Last Updated On: December 10, 2018)
So what exactly are the New York Knicks thus far? Lovers? Fighters? ‘Cause all my life, they’ve been fighting?
Alright, before I begin I just want everyone to know that I am just as die-hard a Knicks fan as the next guy. Ya boy John McClane here. But, I’m also a realist. The Knicks have honestly surprised us all, so if someone tells you that they thought this team would be 9-7 right now, I’ll show you a lying sack. Just like every other season, New York fans’ emotions and comments present a roller coaster. “Knicks are back,” “Knicks stink,” “Knicks are messing with our minds,” “Knicks are a playoff team,” “Trade everyone, but Kristaps Porzingis.” Trust me, I’ve said it all already and we’re only a little over a month into the season.
The Knickerbockers have shown us glimpses of what the future may hold for New York fans. No longer the hot shit piles we’ve been, our team looks ready to take on the responsibilities of a middle-of-the-road NBA team. With that being said, what are the Knicks? Are they good? Are they streaky? Just an average team? Are they a playoff team? Or, are they simply toying with us only to then rip our hearts out and light them on fire like Mola Ram (James Dolan) in the Temple of Doom.
With as much fun as I am having this season watching the Knicks, you New York fans probably want me to say words like They’re good, They’re back, and Playoffs. Sorry, I won’t be saying that. But for the record, I hope I’m wrong.
The Knicks are just an average, beat the teams you should, only win at home, can’t beat the best kind of NBA team. I know, I know, we beat the Cleveland Cavaliers on the road, but that’s Cleveland every year. They suck farts to begin the season and end up competing for the ship; so I don’t look much into that win.
The Knicks got SMOKED in Boston, Toronto, Orlando and Oklahoma City. They looked awful – like filthy hangover after a weekend bender awful. Simply put, they can’t play away from the Garden. The Knicks clearly need to do something to get them amped for road games, and those douchey handshakes won’t work. Unless they look like this..
Not having the home atmosphere gets their minds all distorted and they forget how to play team ball. Every away game, minus Cleveland, I’ve wanted to cut my eyes out. All the teams they lost to on the road are playoff teams, minus Orlando. Oh yeah, James Harden and Andre Drummond also tea bagged them at home, and those teams are also playoff teams. They get waxed by the good teams and beat the butt teams they should, like the Kings, Suns, Nets, Clippers. But seemingly only at home.
Did I also mention streaky in the my assessment of the Knicks thus far? Well, the Knicks are streaky — albeit more consistent than they were in last year’s Bermuda Triangle Offense. And if people disagree now, just wait, because they will get even streakier as the season progresses. Porzingis started the season like Michael Jordan in Space Jam and cooled off slightly, but that was to be expected in my opinion. Tim Hardaway Jr. has been insanely streaky this season. He stinks, he’s starting to earn his contract, he’s a gunner, he doesn’t shoot enough, blah blah. Hardaway is the poster child for these streaky Knicks. However, he has been finding his groove, so hopefully I’ll eat these words.
tim hardaway jr with a HUGE shot and shimmy after pic.twitter.com/ciesmGR5tK — nbaayy (@nbaayy) November 16, 2017
The defense is perhaps the streakiest of all. Some games they look like they’re defending America from an alien invasion, ain’t nobody gettin’ in. Then other times they look hungover from the home win a few games before and the recent flight. The Knicks like to run on teams, but when teams run on them they don’t get back and are vulnerable to NBA Street dunks all day. Then they get down on themselves, start pushing the tempo, force shots, and visibly look like they don’t want to play. Don’t even get me started on their interior defense on the road. It’s absolutely pathetic, enough said.
Again, I love this team and always will. But other New York fans like me are also critical of this team because of our passion and long-awaited need for a winning product. New York is thirsty to see the Knicks win. The Knicks are fun right now and I hope they can keep it up, but history has taught us that sustainability for this team is not likely. They were 14-10 and in the third seed in the conference last season before spending the rest of the year carving their place as the NBA laughing stock.
I know I probably missed some things, but I got some other things cooking for another post that will be relevant and a spinoff to this one. “The Knicks issues people forget.” Comment on the article and tell me if you agree or completely disagree with my assessment of our beloved Knicks. Let’s get some New York fans chatter going here on Spleaze.
Featured photo h/t: Fansided (Photo by Elsa/Getty Images)
Follow me on twitter @scooochie for more New York Sports noise. Knickstape.
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Like this: Like Loading...“Tobias Harris 2.0”
“Skinner version of Paul Millsap”
“Why didn't we just take Monk or Issac?!”
These were my mentions on draft night |
Everyone needs to know what the rules are. A few good rules keep things calmer. 5. Let some things slide. Ignore what you can't change. Don't ignore violence! 6. Keep it simple. Say what you have to say clearly, calmly and positively. 7. See that Dr's. orders are followed. Take medications as they are prescribed. Take only medication that is prescribed. 8. Socialize and carry on business as usual. Reestablish family routines quickly as possible. Stay in touch with family and friends. Take vacations. 9. No street drugs or alcohol. They make symptoms worse. 10. Pick up on early signs of relapse. Note changes such as inappropriate fear, annoyance, etc. 11. Solve problems step by step. Make changes gradually. Work on one thing at a time. 12. Lower expectations, temporarily. Use a personal yardstick. Compare this month to last month rather than last year or next year.month rather than last year or next year.
How to Avoid Relapses
1. Provide a structured, supportive, tolerant, low stress environment. Set clear expectations of behavior and review them carefully. Give your relative clearly defined tasks, but keep expectations moderate. Learn to expect and tolerate some degree of deviant behavior. Have a set routine in the household with regular hours for meals, tasks, and other activities. 2. Keep home atmosphere as calm as possible. Each family member should speak for themselves and be allowed to finish what they are saying. Don't "mind-read" what another family member is thinking or feeling. Allow each family member to handle their own communication with another family member. Don't ask a brother to tell a sister. Do it yourself. Remind each other of that. 3. Do not get emotionally overinvolved with your relative. Give them psychological and physical space (ex. let them go to their room or take a walk). Keep criticism and over enthusiastic praise to a minimum. Don't be overly intrusive of your ill relative's thoughts or feelings, like saying, "you wouldn't like that kind of work" or "you really don't like so and so". Expect that they may rest or pace a lot, and indulge in unusual but harmless behavior. Allow this. Adopt an attitude of "Benign indifference" and a decreased focus on the details of the ill person's behavior. 4. Put limits on hostile or bizarre behavior. Often deviant behavior or delusional verbalizations will decrease if he is told, in a non-emotional way, that it is not appropriate. If your relative has paranoid ideas (like they feel people are out to hurt them) don't argue them out of it. Just sympathize, saying it must be upsetting to feel like that. Be very clear but calm about the consequences of continuing with disruptive, hostile, or aggressive behavior. 5. Help in providing stimulation and treatment. Recognize changes in the person that signal they are ready for more indepence, or need more help if doing less well. Inform doctors, therapists, etc. of changes in person's condition. Provide stimulation without stress. Visits, outings, etc. are good only if the ill person is interested and can function acceptably. Discovering this is a trial and error procedure. Families can help explore available community programs. Become a knowledgeble aggressive advocate and your relative will get better care and do better. 6. Take care of yourself. Families must take care of themselves. Share your frustrations with others. Join AMI/FAMI Support Groups. Enjoy outside interests, too. Increase your outside social contacts. Make sure all family members have their needs met, not just the sick person. 7. Remember: The future is unpredictable and stay with the present. Reduce expectations for a rapid recovery. Reduce pressure on the patient for performance. Modify overall expectations and strike a reasonable balance between realism and hope.
Communication Skills
Effective communication with schizophrenic patients is particularly important because they are so easily overwhelmed by the external environment. Skillful communication can make an enormous difference in the ability of patients and families to resolve the problems of daily living.
Good communication involves: 1. Knowing when to communicate
to communicate 2. Knowing what to communicate
to communicate 3. Knowing how to communicate.
When to Communicate
Don't discuss something important when you are angry or upset. It's hard to think clearly, listen well, and focus on constructive solutions. Before talking to your relative, take as much time as you need to calm down.
What to Communicate About
Since schiophrenia is a serious disorder that affects not only the patient but others around the patient, there are usually several problem areas that family members want to address. Bringing up several problems at once will overwhelm your relative, so it's best to select one problem at a time. Choose one problem area that is really important, then focus on a specific behavior you'd like your relative to change. For ex., say, "John, please stop playing your radio so loudly after 10 p.m." Don't say, "John, you're too noisy at night."
How to communicate
Communication has two levels, verbal and nonverbal. Verbal communication is the what you actually say. Keep all your verbal communication simple, brief, and specific. Nonverbal communication refers to how you say it--your tone of voice, posture, eye contact, facial expression, and physical distance between speakers. The nonverbal "message" that comes across is often more important than the the verbal message.
Guidelines for non-verbal communication:
1. Stand close to your relative, but don't crowd his/her personal space.
2. Convey interest, concern and alertness through your body posture and facial expression.
3, Maintain eye contact with your relative.
4. Speak calmly and clearly.
Expressing positive feelings.
1. Look at the person.
2. Say exactly what the person did that pleased you.
3. Tell the person how their behavior made you feel. (Bad ex.: "You are nice to have around the house." Good ex.: "I like it when you do a nice job cleaning the kitchen").
Making a positive request.
1. Look at the person.
2. Say exactly what you would like the person to do.
3. Tell how it would make you feel.
4. Use phrases like "I would like you to...." or "I would really appreciate it if you would....."
Expressing negative feelings.
Look at the person. Say exactly what the person did that upset you.
Tell the person how it made you feel.
Suggest how the person might prevent this from happening in the future. (Bad ex. "You are a frightening person." Good ex. "I get very nervous when you pace around the room.")
Active listening
1. Look at the speaker.
2. Attend to what is said.
3. Nod head, say, "Uh-huh".
4. Ask clarifying questions.
5. Check out what you heard.
Following are examples of positive language that you can use with someone with NBD From Dick and Betsy Greer, these statements can aide in communicating w/someone w/NBD.
STATEMENTS OF ENCOURAGEMENT
Phrases that display confidence
"I know you'll do fine."
you can handle it."
I'll trust you will work it out "You'll make it!"
Phrases that recognize effort and improvement: "Look at how much you accomplished so far."
"Looks like you put a lot of work into that."
"Looks like you made a real effort."
"You took a lot of time thinking things through."
"You have done more than you realize."
"If you look at your progress, you'll see that..." (be specific).
"It took a lot of courage for you to follow through. "
Phrases that display acceptance:
"I like the way you approach that."
"I'm glad you enjoy learning."
"I'm glad you feel good when you succeed."
"You look pleased. I am happy for you."
"Since you are dissatisfied, what could you do to improve the situation
so you are more content?"
"I know you're really pleased with it. "
Phrases that acknowledge appreciation, strengths, and contributions:
"I really appreciated your help; it made my job a lot easier and I was
able to get everything completed."
"Your idea really helped us think things through."
"Thanks, that helped a lot."
"We really need some help, and you have the special skills we need.
Would you help?"
"I really enjoyed hearing what you had to say. It helped."
"I can use all the help you would be willing to offer. "
-- From the Family Reference Book of AMI-Van Nuys.
BOUNDARIES
or "Why doing less for your relative shouldn't make you feel bad."
As a caregiver for someone with a neurobiological disorder ("NBD" formerly known as'mental' illness) you may think:
"Since the other person needs so much done, I'll do absolutely everything I can for as long as I can."
...or
"Because the other person is so needy, I will do whatever they want, whenever they want, for as long as they want." However admirable these thoughts appear, they can create problems for your caregiving. Here are two reminders. * You need to establish boundaries for your own good. Yes, it's true - the other needs you. Yes, you can help, and yes, you may find meaning in doing that. But, no, you don't have to do it all. And, no, you don't have to do it to your own detriment. Being always with another and doing constantly for another allows you no time to meet your own needs. And you have very important needs to be met. If you're not careful, you'll soon be on your way to exhaustion and burnout. Some boundaries for you to set are physical. Some things are simply too strenuous for you to do. Some hours are too long for you to keep. Some chores you cannot continue to perform with relief. Other boundaries for you to set are emotional. If you identify too completely with the other's pain or fear or other strong emotions, you will be in danger of making them your own. Your responsibility is to handle only one person's feelings - yours. Remember also that setting limits to your caregiving will make room for other caregivers. Family members and friends may wish to share in these duties. It's one way they can cope with what has happened, and one way they can show their love. * You need to establish boundaries for the other person's good. One way you can respect the other is to give them their own space. They need their privacy just as before - perhaps to read or mediate or write. They may wish to look out the window and do nothing at all. If you do not provide for this solitary time, the one in your care may not have the strength or the heart to do so. The other person needs the freedom to do things on their own as a matter of self- esteem, and perhaps for continued recovery. If you insist on doing too much, the other has too little opportunity to flex their muscles. And there are several kinds of muscles they may need to flex. Good boundaries give the other this added benefit: you can be a more objective presence in their life. Your insight can be more accurate and your feedback can be more useful. All in all, establishing boundaries is one of the most thoughtful things you can do. It can even draw you closer together. An excerpt from Chapter 8 of: When You're the Caregiver: 12 Things To Do If Someone You Care For Is Ill Or Incapacitated, by James. E. Miller. (Courtesy VA/AMI)
World Schizophrenia Fellowship Pamphlet #17 - SCHIZOPHRENIA: HOW SHOULD ONE BEHAVE?
It may seem odd to ask "How should one behave towards a person with schizophrenia or allied disorder." However, most people do not understand what it is that makes it difficult for people with the disorder to communicate. The general public feels embarrassed and sometimes frightened to hold a conversation with a person who has mental illness. This pamphlet tries to give some pointers as to how to behave and is for families and for the general public.
We have learned that we need to speak slowly and clearly to persons with schizophrenia: to make the sentences short so that they are not too complicated; to wait to make sure that what we are saying is reaching the person.
Why is this technique useful?
A person with schizophrenia replies: "My concentration often floats in and out so that I only hear part of a sentence. Maybe I will miss two or three words. This will make it very difficult for me to understand. Recently I went on a family outing. There were other families there and I could hear everything that everyone was saying to everyone else. The sound and all the people moving about came in on me so much I began to get quite frightened. I was agitated and irritated at the same time. I felt I wanted to defend myself in some way. My dad took me to a quiet place where we sat and had a cup of tea. We didn't talk about it. We just sat and drank our tea and I began to feel less threatened."
Structure and Instructions
We have been advised that people with schizophrenia need structure in their lives; that routines are comforting and predictable and therefore useful to someone whose medical condition often makes life unpredictable. It is suggested that it is useful to help them set up a schedule and a few tasks to accomplish. at certain times of the day or week.
Is it possible to achieve this?
Some people with schizophrenia are very disabled or become disabled from time to time. It is not always possible for them to follow a schedule, although it is beneficial to try to maintain a definite routine. However, when your relative/ your client/ friend attempts a task but isn't able to complete it or does it wrong it is not at all helpful to say things like: "Can't you get anything right?" or "Let me do it!" even when you are very frustrated. Break tasks into simple components to create the possibility of success, and to encourage the feeling of being useful. Give only one instruction at a time.
Maintaining Equilibrium
Sometimes you may feel you are walking on broken glass when your relative or someone you know is having a particularly difficult time. At that time you have to summon up all your energy so that you can maintain their trust while at the same time maintaining equilibrium at home. Here are some ideas towards that goal. Many of these behaviours should also be adopted by the general public. Be Friendly
Be Accepting
Be Encouraging
Make time to listen
Include them
Treat them with respect
Avoid the following:
Being patronizing
Being critical
Pushing them into situations they are not comfortable with
into situations they are not comfortable with Being gloomy
Arguing with them, or with others while they are present
with them, or with others while they are present Giving them a lecture or talking too much
or talking too much Getting yourself into difficult situations with them.
Sooner or later when a person has Sz a crisis will occur. When this happens there are some things you can do to reduce or avoid the potential for disaster. Here are a few pointers:
Remember that you cannot reason with acute psychosis.
. Remember that the person may be terrified by his/her own feeling s of loss of control.
s of loss of control. Do not express irritation or ange r.
r. Don't shout.
Don't use sarcasm as a weapon.
as a weapon. Decrease distractions :turn off TV, Radio, dishwasher, etc.
:turn off TV, Radio, dishwasher, etc. Ask any casual visitors to leave - the fewer people the better.
- the fewer people the better. Avoid direct continuous eye contac t.
direct continuous t. Avoid touchin g the person.
g the person. Sit down and ask the person to sit down also.
When people move
Often, a relative or friend will move or change his circumstances in some way without informing anyone. Social workers and other mental illness professionals are inclined to tell parents to "Let him take responsibility for doing this," or "It will be a learning experience for her." This type of advice indicates to us that many people in the helping professions do not understand the nature of schizophrenia. Our advice differs. We know from experience that many persons with Sz are often unable to take responsibility for informing others about such matters. If we leave them to do so we are likely to end up dealing with the much more complicated mess that will have to be sorted out when the consequences of this lack of action come about. Examples are: pension/social assistance cheque fails to arrive and the person is cut off from benefits; bank communications, bills, etc are not received and not paid. Rent is neglected; possessions are left behind; premises are left uncleaned. Our advice is look after these matters if you suspect your friend/ relative won't. People like to feel that they are in control of their lives. Sometimes it is difficult to persuade someone with schizophrenia to do what is best for them. Thus it is useful to offer a choice. "Will you take a walk now or after lunch", might be a way to suggest a walk, a shower, or any activity that you may feel useful or enjoyable. People with schizophrenia often have feelings that change very frequently, so that what someone may refuse at this moment he/she may agree to do later in the day/week.
Going to the Doctor
A lot of people of my acquaintance complain that all psychiatrists are good for is prescribing pills or giving injections? and perhaps that's truSome people seem to want to go to the psychiatrist and get some real counselling. They'd like to talk about their housing and they'd like to talk about what the psychiatrist can do to help them get back to work or at least what would be their strengths if they tried. I don't know whether anyone has a psychiatrist who will help like this. Usually it's See the social worker?. But one of the men I see when I go for my appointment says the social worker is never in when he comes for his appointment. The trouble with me is that I have such high anxiety just walking in the out-patient door that by the time the doctor says Come in?, all I want to do is get out of there! So it's a case of him saying How've you been?? and me saying Fine? and then responding that way to every question he asks me. He's trying to help but I'm about to explode. So I guess all my psychiatrist is good for is prescribing pills.?
Holiday time
I dread holiday times when families are all supposed to get together, eat and drink and generally enjoy each others? company. For me, times like these bring back feelings of disappointment, resentment, sadness and a whole host of other emotions. Christmas, for example, has not been a good time for me or the family for many years. There were times my brother was in hospital, times he was home but barely stable, times he had to be taken to hospital during the holiday, times the police came. If I dread it, what does it mean to him? When he thinks a lot is expected of him, he usually handles it well for a few hours, but after that he crashes? - I mean he retreats to his inner self, or he gets extremely agitated. Last year each visiting family member took my brother aside for a mini-visit, a one on one chat and that seemed to work a little. At least he knew everyone cared. But when it came to the big dinner he disappeared to his room. He just cannot process a lot of noise, people,snatches of conversation - it's just too much for him.?
Do you help frail old ladies across the street?
Use some of that attitude in rethinking your treatment and interaction with a person who suffers from schizophrenia who may live near you. This doesn't mean that you need to be overly friendly, but don't ignore them, engage them in conversation, but don't be intrusive. People with Sz, like a physically frail person, cannot defend themselves as well as a person in full possession of physical powers. They are also often on heavy doses of medication which may slur their speech or make them react slowly. Take into account that sometimes the person may be anxious and may withdraw. Let people withdraw, but leave the door open. Maybe ask them to visit you when they feel they are able. Offer a cake or a plant or some other friendly gesture. Send or drop off a postcard/ greeting card with a brief, friendly message every so often.
AdvertisementThe Nepal earthquake tragedy has once again underscored the need to take measures in India itself to prevent a similar catastrophe. This has to begin with buildings in which people live and work. In the past 25 years, over 25,000 people died in major earthquakes in India and 95% of them were killed due to building collapse, according to disaster management experts.One of the first areas that needs reform is civil engineering education. Although 84% of houses in India have brick masonry walls made of fired/unfired bricks or stones, according to the 2011 Census, only 3% of undergraduate civil engineering and architecture curricula deal with these materials. Most of the studies are devoted to construction with reinforced cement concrete (RCC).“There is no doubt that the curriculum contents in undergraduate courses on masonry construction should be given some more attention,” said D K Paul, emeritus fellow at IIT Roorkee’s earthquake engineering department and an expert on earthquake-resistant construction.Surprisingly, earthquake-resistant construction is not taught at all at the undergraduate level in engineering courses and comes in only at postgraduate levels, even though 59% of the country falls in regions that are “liable to seismic damage” as per the National Institute for Disaster Management’s seismic zoning.“Earthquake-resistant design and construction is not being taught at undergraduate level. The design of earthquake-resistant construction is taught at postgraduate level and, therefore, budding engineers and architects are not exposed to design principles. Therefore, they resort to software which specializes only on RCC construction. Masonry construction with earthquake-resistant design is barely practised in India,” said Shailesh Kumar Agrawal, executive director of the Building Material and Technology Promotion Council under the housing ministry.What needs to be done to make this vast number of unreinforced buildings safe? The solution is technique called retrofitting, which is building in horizontal and vertical steel reinforcements under the guidance of an engineer. Such retrofitting would cost about 20% of the total cost of a new building, according to Agrawal, although it will vary according to specific conditions.Another major concern is the multi-storied housing that has mushroomed in urban areas. These are built on a framework of RCC beams and pillars with brick walls added later. Experts say that with proper earthquake-resistant design, these buildings can be safe.“Multi-storeyed RCC pillars & beam construction would only be safe if it is designed based on earthquake-resistant design principles and that design is implemented at the site with strict quality control of material and placement of reinforcement (steel). The principles for RCC construction are different from masonry construction, but the basic philosophy is same. Vertical and horizontal bands are normally used for masonry construction, whereas ductile detailing is used for RCC construction,” Agrawal said.A common feature in urban multistoried housing is the parking space created at the ground floor level by having no walls, just pillars or stilts. Such buildings are very vulnerable and dangerous unless special measures are taken, Agrawal said.“The deficient building with open ground storey can be retrofitted by providing additional symmetrically placed shear walls or bracings or energy absorbing devices,” said Paul.0
Paramount Pictures has been ramping up the marketing campaign for Ghost in the Shell over the last few days, and indeed Collider’s own Steve Weintraub has been in Tokyo covering some very splashy events for the live-action adaptation. We got our first promising look at footage by way of the trailer debut this weekend, and during a roundtable discussion with reporters (for which Collider was in attendance), director Rupert Sanders (Snow White and the Huntsman) also broke a bit of news himself: Clint Mansell is composing the score for Ghost in the Shell.
Indeed, the wonderfully talented Requiem for a Dream and The Fountain composer will be handling the score for the sci-fi film, and it actually feels like a perfect fit. Ghost in the Shell is all about questioning one’s own reality, as Scarlett Johansson plays a cyborg field commander. Mansell’s work is often very obtuse and foreboding, and he’s tackled plenty of semi-horror films like Stoker and Black Swan throughout his career, so a sinister undercurrent could be just what Ghost in the Shell needs.
We recently learned that filmmaker Darren Aronofsky has enlisted Jóhann Jóhannsson to score his upcoming film, marking the first time in the director’s career that he’s not working with Mansell. In the meantime, Mansell is expanding his horizons having just worked with Joe Wright on the Black Mirror episode “Nosedive” and collaborating with Duncan Jones on the upcoming sci-fi pic Mute.
Mansell’s one of the most exciting composers working today, and Ghost in the Shell is the first blockbuster-type movie he’s tackled since his days of Doom, Sahara, and Smokin’ Aces, so it’ll be interesting to see what he comes up with.
If you’ve missed any of our recent Ghost in the Shell coverage, peruse the links below.Hello everyone!! Kahotan here! (@gsc_kahotan)
A while back I used to have quite an addiction for coffee jelly with a dash of cream on the top! The little containers they come in are were also so cute… I haven’t had any in awhile now, but I have this strange urge to have some now!
Anyway, today I’m going to be taking a look at…
Nendoroid Tanya Degurechaff!
From the anime series ‘Saga of Tanya the Evil’ comes a Nendoroid of Tanya Degurechaff! She comes with three face plates including a tough-looking standard face, her iconic sneering face as well as a crazed face plate with gritted teeth. The Nendoroid can be displayed saluting, equipped with a rifle or in various other poses that bring out the military feel from the series. She also comes with a cup and saucer to display her enjoying a cup of coffee. Her military cap can be removed for even more posing options. Be sure to add the expressive Tanya to your collection!
“Well then comrades, it’s time for war!”
From the anime series “Saga of Tanya the Evil” comes a Nendoroid of Tanya Degurechaff, the elite rationalist girl who lives in the world filled with both magic and gunpowder smoke fill the air! Even her saluting pose has been faithfully converted into Nendoroid size!
The details of her military outfit has been faithfully included down to the buttons and slack of her pants! The hair she has tied up at the back is connected with a Nendoroid joint allowing it to be moved around for various different nuances in posing! (σ・∀・)σ
▲ The messy look of her hair has also been preserved so nicely!
Tanya also comes with alternate parts to display her with her rifle! ☆
A pose that brings out her tough looking side for when she needs to discipline her subordinates! (‘-‘*)(,_,*)(‘-‘*)(,_,*)
The rifle is very intricately detailed and also includes a musket! ♪
▲The metallic parts use a metallic paint making them look cold and heavy!
Along with the rifle, she also comes with this lovely little part! ♡
A Coffee Cup & Saucer!
The cup filled with coffee can be held by Tanya to display her taking a little relaxation time! You can pose her together with the western-style HACOROOM to create a cafe-like display for more everyday life kind of scenes!
As you can see above, her hat can also be removed for a quick change of style! In the hat’s place she comes with a long curly hair part to faithfully complete her hairstyle! (*´ｪ`*)
Anyway, let’s move onto her different face plates! Along with the standard expression above, she also comes with…
– Sneering Expression –
Her iconic smile ready to ridicule anyone she speaks to!
The asymmetrical eyes are quite a rare sight on a Nendoroid, but they capture Tanya’s cunning personality so effectively! ♥
I swear she can see right into my soul!! (((( ;°Д°))))
– Crazed Expression –
A CRAZED EXPRESSION HER EYES TURNED GOLD!
This allows you to pose Tanya when she is in complete battle mode thanks to the influence of Being X! ((´д`●))三((●´д`))
The crazed smile that shows off all of her spiky looking teeth capture her crazed personality so effectively!
▲ Displayed with the rifle. Whoever is in front of her is doomed…
There are all sorts of expressions and parts to mix and match allowing for various poses from the series and original poses too! ♡
Be sure to add the adorable Tanya the Evil to your collection!
Nendoroid Tanya Degurechaff!
She’ll be up for preorder from the 27th June 2017!!
In addition, orders from the GOODSMILE ONLINE SHOP will come with a Glowing Operation Orb Part as a bonus! Be sure to consider it when preordering!
Another item that will be going up for preorder on the same day that suits her character rather well is this Dioramansion 150: Battlefield!
Displaying figures with a special display often makes a collection look more appealing, but at the same time preparing a special display case is a huge amount of effort. We heard the cries for an easier display option and created this Dioramansion series of display backgrounds! They are simple to use and can be used as a photography kit or simply as a complete display background! There are various different ways to connect the plates together allowing you to easily create your own customized display space for your figures! These new additions to the Dioramansion series are 150mm x 150mm in size which works great with Nendoroid figures!
Connect, stack and display your favorite figures with these assemblable Dioramansion background panels!
Be sure to consider adding one to your order as a display background her Tanya or other Nendoroids! ☆
▲ Check the GOODSMILE ONLINE SHOP for other Dioramansions!
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S U M M E R W O N F E S I N F O R M A T I O N!!!
⇒ http://whl4u.jp/en/
The product and booth information for the Good Smile Company and Max Factory’s joint booth at WonFes “WONDERFUL HOBBY LIFE FOR YOU!!” has been announced today!! Be sure to take a look at the site above for more details!! ヽ(●´Д｀●)ﾉ
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Planning Team / Kahotan / Twitter ID：@gsc_kahotan
English Updates: @gsc_kevinA testing protocol has been created to help design new chemicals that won’t interfere with hormone regulation
US scientists have come up with a system to assess whether a chemist's latest synthetic product is an endocrine disruptor – a chemical that interferes with hormone regulation in animals and humans.
As industry seeks replacements for endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs), such as bisphenol A and some flame retardants, it often discovers that the replacements are no better, and sometimes worse, than what is being replaced. This is because the replacements have been designed using the same flawed tools as their parent chemicals and because of the lack of adequate EDC testing. Now, a team led by Pete Myers, chief executive and chief scientist at Environmental Health Sciences, Virginia, has come up with a way to address this using a system they call TiPED (tiered protocol for endocrine disruption).
TiPED detects endocrine-disrupting action in new chemicals. The system consists of five testing tiers ranging from broad in silico evaluation up through specific cell- and whole organism-based assays. ‘It’s a voluntary programme to be used by chemists, with the help of environmental health scientists, as they work with new chemicals in the lab before they move into the market,’ Myers explains.
Most of the assays used in current regulatory processes are decades old and the process for updating them is laborious, says Myers. Also, current tools such as quantitative or structure–activity analysis and high-throughput screening using in vitro assays do not address the complexity of the endocrine system. TiPED, by contrast, is designed to evolve as the science on EDCs develops and it broadly interrogates the endocrine system for EDC impact, he adds.
Tiered trapdoors
At each tier, the assays determine whether sufficient evidence is available to conclude that the chemical is not an EDC. If tests for the chemical are negative on one level, it can move to the next, more stringent tier. This saves money and resources by catching serious problems early, Myers says. If the tests are positive, then the chemist has a choice: to stop working on the chemical or redesign it using information provided by the assays.
EDCs affect male and female reproduction and have been linked to cancer, neuroendocrinology problems, thyroid dysfunction, obesity and metabolic disorders, among many others. They are widely used in consumer products and as agricultural and industrial chemicals so exposure is common. As a result, businesses are searching for ways of eliminating endocrine-disrupting characteristics from their products. The Endocrine Society – the world's largest scientific and medical association focusing on how hormones work and how to treat hormone-related diseases – has identified EDC action as one of their biggest health concerns, says Myers.
But the question remains: how could the system be implemented and where would it be based? ‘We are exploring several options that include hosting by a university or starting a not-for-profit or company. It is even possible that government agencies may become partners with us in offering this service to chemists and chemical companies,’ says Myers.
‘This is a thought-provoking paper that should prove useful for chemists in industry, academia, non-government and government institutions,’ says Retha Newbold, head of the developmental endocrinology section in the laboratory of molecular toxicology for the National Institute of Environmental Health Services, US. ‘Some may consider the paper to be too green or to have too much of an environmental agenda; however, the proposed tiered testing for endocrine-disrupting substances could prove cost-effective and economically profitable if it results in less regulation because chemicals are developed that are inherently safe from their inception.’""" Cal Leeming [Simplicity Media Ltd] - March 2011 cal.leeming [at] simplicitymedialtd.co.uk """ ##################################################### # multihost.py ##################################################### from django.conf import settings from django.utils.cache import patch_vary_headers import socket class MultiHostMiddleware : def process_request ( self, request ): try : host = request. META [ "HTTP_HOST" ] if host [ - 3 :] == ":80" : host = host [: - 3 ] # ignore default port number, if present request. urlconf = settings. HOST_MIDDLEWARE_URLCONF_MAP [ host ] if settings. HOST_MIDDLEWARE_URLCONF_MAP_RESTRICT. has_key ( host ): if not socket. gethostname () in settings. HOST_MIDDLEWARE_URLCONF_MAP_RESTRICT [ host ]: raise Exception, "The requested site is not authorized to be served from this node." except KeyError : pass # use default urlconf (settings.ROOT_URLCONF) def process_response ( self, request, response ): if getattr ( request, "urlconf", None ): patch_vary_headers ( response, ( 'Host',)) return response ##################################################### # settings.py ##################################################### if not os. environ. has_key ( 'DJANGO_ENVIRONMENT' ): raise Exception, "You must provide environ DJANGO_ENVIRONMENT (dev/prod)" # Place environment specific overrides in here if os. environ [ 'DJANGO_ENVIRONMENT' ] == 'dev' : DEBUG = True elif os. environ [ 'DJANGO_ENVIRONMENT' ] == 'prod' : DEBUG = False DATABASES = { 'db1' : { 'ENGINE' : 'django.db.backends.mysql', 'NAME' : 'db1', 'USER' : 'db1', 'PASSWORD' : 'db1', 'HOST' : 'db1' }, 'db2' : { 'ENGINE' : 'django.db.backends.mysql', 'NAME' : 'db2', 'USER' : 'db2', 'PASSWORD' : 'db2', 'HOST' : 'db2' }, } """Monkey Patch to allow imports from the webapp dir, and also not have to specify an absolute template location. This lets you specify relative paths to the webapp across multiple nodes.""" import os PROJECT_PATH = os. path. abspath ( os. path. dirname ( __file__ ) + "/" ). replace ('\\ ', "/" ) TEMPLATE_DIRS = ( PROJECT_PATH + '/templates/' ) """ Determine which default database we should use. Because this webapp runs on multiple servers in different context, we need to override this here """ if socket. gethostname () =='sws01.internal' : DATABASES [ 'default' ] = DATABASES. get ( 'db1' ) # Cache settings CACHE_BACKEND ='memcached://cache01.internal:11211/' TMP_DIR = os. path. realpath ( PROJECT_PATH + '/../../tmp' ) elif socket. gethostname () == 'node02.internal' : DATABASES [ 'default' ] = DATABASES. get ( 'db2' ) TMP_DIR = os. path. realpath ( PROJECT_PATH + '/../tmp' ) else : raise Exception, "Unable to determine which node we are" """ Now make sure those paths are OK """ if not os. path. isdir ( TMP_DIR ): raise Exception, "Configured settings.TMP_DIR path does not exist." HOST_MIDDLEWARE_URLCONF_MAP = { # Control Panel "cp.website1.com" : "webapp.sites.website1.urls", # Status page "cp.website2.com" : "webapp.sites.status2.urls", # Members area "cp.website3.com" : "webapp.sites.status3.urls", } # Restrict certain hostnames to only be served from specific nodes HOST_MIDDLEWARE_URLCONF_MAP_RESTRICT = { # Status page "resource.heavy.page.com" : ( "sws01.internal", ), } MIDDLEWARE_CLASSES = ( 'webapp.multihost.MultiHostMiddleware', )Sharing is caring. (bengrey/flickr)
Problem: It’s a problem, or a dilemma, as old as time. Let’s rehash, quickly. Your classic prisoner’s dilemma involves two prisoners being interrogated separately. If both deny committing the crime, they serve a short prison sentence. If both confess, |
The New York Times by name.
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Fox and Friends rebroadcast the accusation later in the morning, this time citing Trump’s tweet, creating the perfect Fox–Trump–Fox confirmation loop. In that broadcast, Trump apologist and Fox and Friends contributor Pete Hegseth, newspaper in hand for dramatic effect, repeatedly referred to the “failing New York Times.”
“That’s one of the other reasons it’s ‘the failing New York Times’—it’s not just failing in its credibility, it’s failing our country,” Hegseth said, while his co–hosts, with no apparent irony, launched into a rant about the “role of media today.”
Watch the Fox and Friends segment here:
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The New York Times has a different version of events:
But a review of the record shows that information made public in a Pentagon news release more than three weeks before the Times article, and extensively covered at the time by numerous news media outlets, would have tipped off Mr. Baghdadi that the United States was questioning an important Islamic State operative who knew of his recent whereabouts and some of his methods of communication. Further, the information in the Times article on June 8 came from United States government officials who were aware that the details would be published.
Oops. Of course, the White House would not comment on Trump’s tweet.
On Sunday, Politico reporter Hadas Gold tweeted that the Times sent a letter to Fox requesting an on–air apology and tweet about the “malicious and inaccurate segment…”
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Read The New York Times’ entire account here.More than two decades before Tex McIver was involved in what he calls the "tragic" accidental shooting of his wife, he was indicted by a grand jury in charges related to another shooting.
According to court documents obtained by 11Alive News and confirmed by witnesses involved in the 1990 case, McIver was indicted by a DeKalb County Grand Jury for aggravated assault, criminal damage to property, and possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime.
According to the indictment, he endangered the lives of three teenagers by firing shots into a Ford Mustang they were in on February 27, 1990.
The police report indicates three neighborhood young men were sitting in the car near McIver’s house late one night when McIver arrived home and let his dogs out.The 18-year-old and 20-year-old reported to police McIver came out of his house with a gun, fired two shots into the air, then fired two more shots at the vehicle as they fled. They said one of those bullets hit the the gas tank. No one was injured. At the time, one of the teens told police his mother was friends with the McIvers.
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According to police reports, McIver denied firing a weapon but said he chased the teens on foot because he was worried about burglaries in the neighborhood.
MORE | High-powered Atlanta couple involved in fatal shooting
PHOTOS: Diane McIver Photos provided to 11Alive Photos provided to 11Alive Photos provided to 11Alive Photos provided to 11Alive Photos provided to 11Alive Photos provided to 11Alive Photos provided to 11Alive Photos provided to 11Alive Photos provided to 11Alive Photos provided to 11Alive Photos provided to 11Alive
The charges were dropped in September of 1991. According to court documents, “the victims do not wish to prosecute. The defendant has paid restitution to the victims.”
11Alive's Val Hoff contacted one of the victims who confirmed the matter was handled privately but declined further comment.
McIver's attorney, Stephen Maples, says his client felt threatened at the time of the 1990 shooting. According to the police report, "He said he was worried about burglaries and vandalism in the neighborhood".
Maples said the teen's parents pushed for charges to be filed at the time, but later dropped those charges. McIver paid $2,931 to repair damage to the Mustang caused by the gunshots.
Tex McIver underwent a psychological evaluation at the time, where we was found to not have aggressive tendencies.
Twenty-six years later, McIver's wife Diane was shot while sitting in the passenger seat of their car. Tex was sitting in the back, and their best friend, Dani Jo, was driving. They were traveling near Piedmont Park in Midtown.
PHOTOS | Diane McIver memorial images Memorial sign on the Corey billboard overlooking I-75/85 in downtown Atlanta on Sept. 29, 2016. Memorial sign on the Corey billboard overlooking I-75/85 in downtown Atlanta on Sept. 29, 2016. Memorial sign on the Corey billboard overlooking I-75/85 in downtown Atlanta on Sept. 29, 2016. Memorial sign on the Corey billboard overlooking I-75/85 in downtown Atlanta on Sept. 29, 2016. Memorial sign on the Corey billboard overlooking I-75/85 in downtown Atlanta on Sept. 29, 2016. Memorial sign on the Corey billboard overlooking I-75/85 in downtown Atlanta on Sept. 29, 2016.
Tex told 11Alive News he fell asleep holding a gun while in the back seat. He says he woke up minutes later and realized he had accidentally fatally shot his wife. Dani Jo drove them to Emory University Hospital. Diane McIver was rushed into surgery, but did not survive.
An autopsy report says Diane died from a gunshot wound to her back. That bullet, according to the report, traveled from right-to-left, back-to-front, and downward.
Thursday, Maples said Diane was conscious after the shooting. He says the drive to Emory University Hospital took just five minutes.
Tex McIver says he's passed a polygraph about what happened that night.
A spokesperson with the Atlanta Police Department said, "our homicide investigators are working diligently" as they continue to investigate the case.
Stay updated on this and other stories by downloading the FREE 11Alive News app now in the iTunes store or on Google Play.Laura Benanti Calls Out Ringing Phone During She Loves Me
The phone went off during a matinee performance of the acclaimed Broadway revival.
Laura Benanti, who stars in the current Broadway revival of She Loves Me, drew attention to a ringing phone during a matinee performance April 30. The phone went off during her performance of “Will He Like Me.” At first, the actress softly said “hello,” and kept singing. As the ringing continued, she later said “I’ll wait” and eventually, “we’ll all wait,” and the orchestra stopped. When the ringing stopped, she picked up where she'd left off.
The actress took to Twitter the following day to announce the disturbance occurred during her “quietest, most vulnerable moment.” Read Benanti's tweet below:
Anyone saying I shouldn't have called out the ringing during my quietest,most vulnerable moment during yesterday's matinee can suck my phone — Laura Benanti (@LauraBenanti) May 1, 2016
Benanti also posted a link to “Look Up,” a song performed with The Skivvies about theatre etiquette. “A gentle reminder,” tweeted the actress. The tune provides advice to audience members tempted to use mobile devices during a show.
“We’re acting, we’re singing. Is that your phone that’s ringing? Don’t you realize that that thing should be turned off?” sings Benanti.
Watch “Look Up” below:
She Loves Me began previews February 19 and officially opened March 17 at Studio 54. The production, directed by Scott Ellis and choreographed by Warren Carlyle, stars Byron Jennings, Benanti, Zachary Levi, Gavin Creel, Michael McGrath and Jane Krakowski. Musical direction is by Paul Gemignani; orchestrations are by Larry Hochman with dance arrangements and incidental music by David Krane.
The classic musical comedy tells the story of two parfumerie clerks who, unbeknownst to each other, are corresponding romantically. She Loves Me features a book by Joe Masteroff, lyrics by Sheldon Harnick and music by Jerry Bock, based on a play by Miklos Laszlo.
Tickets for She Loves Me are available by calling (212) 719-1300, online at RoundaboutTheatre.org and in person at Roundabout’s Studio 54 Box office, 254 West 54th St.A major government agency is looking to blanket the US with cameras that will never stop their surveillance. But don’t worry privacy pundits, those cameras will be spying on the sky, not civilians. NASA’s All-sky Fireball Network is a series of cameras that track meteorites as they enter the atmosphere. With careful triangulation, NASA can not only know where the meteorites will land, they can determine where they came from as well. It’s not meant to be a warning system, but it could help scientists recover space rock, and it will definitely give us information to help build the next generation of spacecraft, which have to contend with damage from meteors. One of the coolest parts of the All-sky Fireball Network is that it’s fully automated. Meteors are detected by a computer which sends images, video clips, and data analysis to William Cooke, head of NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office. Now you can get the same information as Cooke, too – the All-sky Fireball Network’s website publicly records all the data for you to peruse. Want to see the meteors from last night? Here they are. With only three cameras operational, the All-sky Fireball Network is still pretty small, but as it expands across the US it could serve as a great example of how automated video systems will transform our understanding of the world, and universe, around us.
Each of the All-sky Fireball Network’s cameras is a black and white video recorder that captures the entirety of the night sky around it. They don’t miss anything. With one camera in Huntsville, Alabama, another in Chickamauga, Georgia, and the last in Tullahoma Tennessee, the network can monitor a significant portion of the sky in that part of the US. With a large area of overlapping coverage, NASA can use variations in position, movement, and intensity between cameras to determine where a meteorite is coming from and where it is headed as well as its relative speed and size. Over the region it monitors, the All-sky Fireball Network is king. Nothing big gets by without being recorded. As William Cooke told NASA Science News:
“If someone calls me and asks ‘What was that?’ I’ll be able to tell them. We’ll have a record of every big meteoroid that enters the atmosphere over the certain parts of the U.S. Nothing will burn up in those skies without me knowing about it!”
Cooke plans on expanding the network considerably in the future. The first step is upgrading to 15 cameras across the eastern half of the US. NASA is actively soliciting schools, planetariums, and science centers to host the devices. If you’re a principal or curator interested in the project contact Cooke to learn more about participating.
From 15 cameras the All-sky Fireball network could expand to an even larger surveillance of the night sky. Cooke is focused on the US east of the Mississippi for now. There are other networks that cover parts of the (less densely populated) regions of the nation to the west. What sets the All-sky Fireball Network apart from these other systems, however, is that it’s fully automated. Other sky surveillance programs require humans to actively sift through the camera feeds as they spy on the stars. All-sky Fireball takes advantage of modern narrow AI programs that can identify objects in video footage, generate clips, and analyze results. We’ve seen commercial programs, like Vitamin D Video, that do the same for CCTV and web cameras. NASA’s All-sky Fireball Network uses ASGARD (All Sky and Guided Automatic Realtime Detection) which was developed at the University of Western Ontario with funding from NASA and Canada. ASGARD not only handles all the data processing (which is considerable) it also automatically pushes the results to the web. All Cooke has to do is read emails, and all you have to do is go to the website and browse. Spying on meteorites is easy!
Which brings up an interesting question: will this sky surveillance lead to more invasive/advanced forms of security surveillance? Perhaps, but not intentionally. ASGARD is a work in progress, and it continues to improve. Any new computer AI tracking techniques could probably be leveraged to be used in other video surveillance systems. Yet that’s clearly not how NASA is hoping to focus its efforts. The All-sky Fireball Network is really centered on meteorite tracking, and it’s primarily hoping to use information gathered to better understand the speed and size of objects that travel into Earth’s near orbit. If NASA can determine how often a spacecraft-damaging chunk of rock flies by, they can better design future spacecraft to survive. There’s also a good chance that they’ll recover many more meteorites that hit the ground. As one of Cooke’s assistants told NASA Science News:
“Most meteorites fall in the ocean, lakes, forests, farmer’s fields, or the Antarctic…and the majority of those meteorites will never be found. But our system will help us track down more of them.”
Not only will the system help us find these rocks, they’ll tell us their most likely origin. As Cooke puts it: “And when we collect the meteorite chunks, we’ll know their source. I could be holding a piece of Vesta in my hand. It would be like a free sample return mission!”
Advanced video analysis is scary when it arrives with security surveillance, but when it’s packaged as science it just seems cool. It should be interesting to see how All-sky improves as it gets bigger. Between upgrades to ASGARD and the expansion of the network, we’re likely to have a tracking system that automatically detects all the big objects passing above the US. That will open up new avenues of inquiry that we simply don’t have at present. As with many other branches of science that are being upgraded with narrow AI, astronomy should experience an explosion of opportunities for new researchers to explore. Science is growing. That’s always awesome.
Practical applications may be scarce, but who knows, perhaps the All-sky Fireball Network will eventually evolve into a project that could track objects deep in space. We desperately need a system that can find asteroids hurtling towards our planet. Don’t believe me? Well, maybe this video will change your mind. Enjoy…and keep watching the skies!
[screen capture and image credits: NASA]
[sources: NASA Science News, NASA’s All-sky Fireball Network]The much-awaited semi-annual competitive sports program that boasts of bringing top idols together on one field is coming back. The lineup for this year’s Lunar New Year special of Idol Star Athletics Championship has been announced.
The championship, which has become one of the most highly watched shows during the holiday season in South Korea, sees younger talent and senior idols come together for friendly competition, also giving their fans an opportunity for some much sought after interaction. Hundreds of participating idols are split into groups, and then made to compete against other groups, as well as against their own group members. They also get the chance to show their athletic abilities, along with competitiveness, sportsmanship, and teamwork.
Along with events like sprints, hurdles and relays, the championship also holds competitions for swimming, javelin, rhythmic gymnastics, archery, table tennis, basketball and others. The newest edition will also include male aerobics.
The competition, however, is never without controversy as it also known for its routine accidents, which can lead to idols often sustaining injuries that interfere with their schedules following the event.
Recording for the Lunar New Year “Idol Star Athletics Championship,” which will be broadcast by Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation (MBC), will take place Feb. 16.
Here is the full lineup for the upcoming program, revealed by MBC on Friday:
Boy bands — B1A4, B.A.P., EXO, NCT, SF9, NU’EST, Mad Town, MONSTA X, BTS, VIXX, VICTON, Seventeen, Snuper, ASTRO, UP10TION, IMFACT, KNK and TEEN TOP.
Female artists — AOA, EXID, Gugudan, LABOUM, Lovelyz, Red Velvet, Melody Day, MIXX, Berry Good, Brave Girls, SONAMOO, GFriend, Oh My Girl, Cosmic Girls, TWICE. FIESTAR, Jeon Min Kyung, Heyne and Rui.Tomer Solel is a Financial Analyst at I Know First. He graduated from Cal Poly Pomona with a bachelor’s degree in applied mathematics.
Algorithmic Trading Evolution To Artificial Intelligence And Machine Learning
Summary
The two methods used for algotrading are high-frequency and quantitative trading.
and quantitative trading. The steps in understating machine learning include providing the framework, giving examples to learn from, fitness function, sequential, and generalization requirement. Everyone wants to report results as accurate as possible and as fast as possible.
, giving examples to learn from, fitness function, sequential, and generalization requirement. Everyone wants to report results as accurate as possible and as fast as possible. A genetic algorithm is another type of algorithm. The steps in a genetic algorithm include combination, mutation, crossover, and selection; hence the name “genetic algorithm”.
algorithm is another type of algorithm. The steps in a genetic algorithm include combination, mutation, crossover, and selection; hence the name “genetic algorithm”. Our algorithm predicts over 3,000 markets in 6 different time horizons for short and long term for stocks, commodities, ETF’s, interest rates, currencies, and world indices.
The I Know First daily market heat map includes signal and predictability for different stocks, and recently, in a swing trading report, the I Know First Algorithm Performance crushed the S&P 500’s performance.
Introduction
I Know First is a financial startup that provides a daily investment foresight based on a predictive advanced self-learning algorithm. It was founded by Dr. Lipa Roitman, and its current CEO is Mr. Yaron Golgher. The algorithm is based on artificial intelligence and machine learning that incorporates neural networks and genetic algorithms, helping it to predict over 3,000 markets on a daily basis.
Methods of Algotrading
The two methods of algotrading are high-frequency and quantitative trading. High-frequency trading uses the intelligence that goes down to milliseconds. What it does is it places and quickly cancels small orders to find the right price at which trading can happen, and to detect trends. A human simply cannot compete with the volume of information that this real-time intelligence goes through. The problem with this high-frequency trading is that its technological costs are enormous and that there is a high competition but a low profit. In addition, governments are clamping down on this method because it is unfair to the retail investor, since the high-frequency trading traders have the first choice in the trade, leading to the ban of the method in some places in Europe and Canada. The other method of algotrading is quantitative trading. In this method, algorithms analyze the structure of the market and its trends to find predictable patterns and to trade upon that. This method is suitable for most investors. Overall, both algotrading methods have pros and cons.
Machine Learning
The most important thing in stock market prediction is speed. An example is the Dow Jones, which in 2008 came out with an advertising campaign which claimed that their service had beaten other news services by 2 seconds in reporting an interest rate cut by the Bank of England. To achieve that fast speed, we need to understand what the steps of machine learning are. The first step is providing framework using mathematical tools and programming tools. The next step is to give examples to learn from using inputs and outputs. The ensuing step is to make a fitness function, with an example being to make more good predictions than bad ones. The next step is the sequential step, and the final step is the generalization requirement which is critical for the forecasting ability; it is the step where we discover the laws connecting the input and output, cause and effect.
There are different artificial intelligence types. Deep learning models high-level abstractions in data by using multiple processing layers with complex structures. Ultra-deep learning detects the change in paradigms. It combines supervised and unsupervised AI into a more intelligent system. There are many steps in machine learning. The first is to provide framework using mathematical and programming tools. The second step is to prepare data by converting nonstationary data into stationary data. The next step is to make an estimation regarding the number of parameters. Then finally, you can build the model, and pick your algorithm. We need to find the local and global minima. The local occurs at the steepest descent while the global appears searching uphill. This artificial intelligence approach is in the root of the I Know First predictive algorithm.
Genetic Algorithms
Another example of an algorithm is a genetic algorithm. This type is a search algorithm. It is used for the most difficult problems, where there might be unknown relationships or there might not be any relationships at all. The reason behind the name is that each solution is like a chromosome in genetics. The genetic algorithm uses different ways to improve the gene pool. One way is the combination, where two solutions are combined in hopes of producing a better solution. Another way is mutation where a solution is modified in random places in hopes of producing a better solution. A different way is a crossover, which imports a solution from a similar problem, and the last way is selection, where those who are the fittest survive.
I Know First Algorithm Features
As previously mentioned, the I Know First algorithm analyzes, models, and predicts over 3,000 markets for the short and long term. Those markets include stocks, commodities, ETF’s, interest rates, currencies, and world indices. The I Know First client base has also been growing and now includes larger institutions, hedge funds, family offices, investment managers, financial advisors, and professional investors. We want to try to predict market trends. To retain and attract investors, a firm should be able to beat the S&P 500. Those investors face challenges. That’s because, customers expect strong and consistent returns, even though in reality the market is evolving beyond previously established theories. Also, investment firms need to stay one step ahead in order to be the first to recognize trends and take advantage of opportunities. They are looking for the most advanced tools to enhance their performance. The I Know First algorithm tries to use all of those tools when it makes its predictions.
Daily Heat Map
The I Know First algorithm produces a daily market heat map. That market includes two indicators. The first is the signal which is the predicted movement of the asset, and the second is the predictability indicator which is a historical correlation between the prediction and the actual market movement.
Recently, I Know First published a swing trading report, detailing the overall performance of the algorithm for this successful strategy. From July 1st, 2014 until November 30th, 2015, the I Know First algorithm returned 98.96% while the S&P 500 increased by just 6.13% during the same period. That is an astonishing 92.83% difference.
Looking at the individual development of, I Know First returned 33.92% using its top contributors, outperforming the S&P 500 by 26.79% in that aspect.
Conclusion
The main features of the algorithm that make it so reliable are that it works daily, in 6-time frames, tracks over 3,000 markets, is self-learning, adaptable, and most importantly it becomes more and more accurate with every prediction as it constantly tests multiple models in different market circumstances. This algorithm offers predictions for aggressive investors as well as conservative investors. This heat map also provides different colors to give investors the exact strength of each prediction. The I Know First algorithm also has a proven track record of constantly beating the S&P 500. The use of algorithms is the future of financial analysis.
[slideshare id=31890180&doc=i24slideshare-140304072606-phpapp02]Today the Los Angeles Times ran a review of a book by a professor named Grace Lasdun. Lasdun describes her terrifying ordeal of being stalked by a madman. "Imagine," the review bids us, that a stalker "seemed affectionate, then convinced of a deep connection, then became furious and set upon destroying your life." The book — and review — tells the tale of how a stalker became convinced of a relationship with Grace Lasdun, then went on campaign of deranged hate, deluging Ms. Lasdun with dozens of anti-Semitic emails and an internet campaign of untruths, accusations of plagiarism, and vile communications with Lasdun's employers and colleagues. Her life was changed.
But this review asks something that is too rarely asked. What responsibility does Lasdun bear for a deranged stalker pursuing her, imagining a relationship that she did not want? Did she lead him on? Did she give the wrong signals? Does her language in describing the stalking suggest an unbecoming entitlement? "This lack of perspective," as reviewer Carolyn Kellogg calls it, calls into question the entire way Grace Lasdun describes her stalking. Kellogg explains how Lasdun's description of the stalker suggests a preoccupation with appearance and a lack of awareness of power differentials that might have contributed to the stalking — "Lasdun reveals actions that may have contributed to her problems without seeing the connections. She likes their flirtatious emails but at one point realizes they have become too much and suggests breaking off contact."
Reviewer Carolyn Kellogg also shows an admirable sense of empathy for the stalker, asking us to question "could Lasdun have managed his growing affections differently"?
OK. I lied.
The stalked professor — the author of the book is not Grace Lasdun. It's James Lasdun. The stalker was not a man. It was a woman. Patterico discussed the story as a compelling tale of what it is like to be stalked by a crazed person. Speaking as another subject of deranged stalkers, I admit it resonates.
The rest is a correct description of Carolyn Kellogg's review.
You were seriously creeped out by the start of this post, weren't you? The seeming apologia for a stalker — and the victim-blaming regarding "Grace Lasdun" — made your skin crawl. The themes I noted, the words I quoted, touched on every vile what-did-she-do-to-ask-for-it trope you've ever heard about erotomania or stalking or rape or pervasive harassment. "Look at this terrible stalking — what kind of role did she have in encouraging it? What wrong signals did she send?"
It is inconceivable that the Los Angeles Times would have run this book review if, in fact, the stalking victim had been "Grace Lasdun" rather than "James Lasdun." It is nearly inconceivable that the Los Angeles Times would have run such a victim-blaming piece about a man stalking a woman — at least, not without widespread denunciation and outrage.
So — why is it so easy for Carolyn Kellogg to write a "what did the victim do to encourage this" when the stalkee is a guy, and the stalker a woman? Is it a mere double-standard? Does the answer lie with the vapid doctrinaire views seeping out from academia hinted at by Kellogg's reference to "obliviousness... to power relationships"?
You could write the Los Angeles times or Carolyn Kellogg to ask them yourself. But be polite. After all, nobody deserves abuse from a deranged stalker, and it would be twisted to ask what they might have done to invite it.
Last 5 posts by Ken WhiteDjango is a free and open source web application framework, written in Python, which follows the model–view–controller architectural pattern. It is maintained by the Django Software Foundation (DSF) and its primary goal is to ease the creation of complex, database-driven websites.
This tutorial applies to Debian 7. (but might work on the similar distributions). Before we start with the installation, we need to make sure that our system and our repositories are up to date and then we need to install and create virtualenv.
# sudo apt-get update # sudo apt-get upgrade # sudo apt-get install python-virtualenv # sudo virtualenv /opt/virtualenv
We have now created the directory which will be the home for virtualenv. Before we proceed with Python packages installation, we need to activate our virtualenv.
# source /opt/virtualenv/bin/activate
We will now notice that see that (virtualenv) has been appended to the beginning of the terminal prompt. This will help us know when our virtualenv is active and which virtualenv is active (in case we have multiple virtualenv’s on the VPS). Now it is time to install Django. To do this, we will use pip, a Python package manager much like easy_install :
# pip install django
We now have Django installed. The next step is the database. Most Django users prefer to use PostgreSQL as their database server. It is much more robust than MySQL and the Django ORM works much better with PostgreSQL than MySQL, MSSQL, or others. We don’t need Virtualenv active for PostgreSQL installation, so we can deactivate it:
# deactivate
Then we need to install dependencies for PostgreSQL to work with Django and install PostgreSQL database service:
# sudo apt-get install libpq-dev python-dev # sudo apt-get install postgresql postgresql-contrib
PostgreSQL is now installed on our VPS. Next thing to install is nginx. We will use nginx as web server, since it fast, light-weight server and compatible with Python. To install it, we simply execute:
# sudo apt-get install nginx
Gunicorn is a very powerful Python WSGI HTTP Server. It is a Python package we need to first activate our virtualenv to install it. With our virtualenv active, we are going to run this command:
# source /opt/myenv/bin/activate # pip install gunicorn
Gunicorn is now installed in our virtualenv. At this point we have everything we need installed. Now, we need to proceed with the services configuration process. We will start our configuration with PostgreSQL. With PostgreSQL we need to create a database, create a user, and grant the user we created access to the database we created. Start off by running the following command:
# sudo su – postgres
Then, we run this command to create your database and once we have now a database that is named newdb, we will create database user:
# created newdb # createuser –P
We will get a series of 6 prompts during the process. The first one will ask you for the name of the new user. The next two prompts are for our password and confirmation of password for the new user. For the last 3 prompts just enter “n” and hit “enter”. This just ensures your new users only has access to what you give it access to and nothing else. Now we can start PostgreSQL console and set access for the new user that we just created:
# psql # GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON DATABASE newdb TO newuser;
Now that we have database with user that is able to access it, we need to set those parameters in our Django project. We are going to create new Django project. In order to do that, we need to change to virtualenv directory, activate it and then create new project:
# cd /opt/myenv # source /opt/myenv/bin/activate # django-admin.py startproject newproject
We should be able to see a new directory called “newproject” inside our virtualenv directory. This is where our new Django project files live. In order for our project to be able to talk to our database we need to install a additional packages with using pip (while virtualenv still active).
# pip install psycopg2
Now, we change into our new project’s directory and edit settings.py file using our favorite editor. The database settings in the file should look like:
DATABASES = { 'default': { 'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.postgresql_psycopg2', # Add 'postgresql_psycopg2','mysql','sqlite3' or 'oracle'. 'NAME': 'newdb', # Or path to database file if using sqlite3. # The following settings are not used with sqlite3: 'USER': 'newuser', 'PASSWORD': 'password', 'HOST': 'localhost', # Empty for localhost through domain sockets or '127.0.0.1' for localhost through TCP. 'PORT': '', # Set to empty string for default. }
Now, we should move to our main project directory and make sure virtualenv is activated. Once we make sure that virtualenv is active, we can run the following command so that Django can add its initial configuration and other tables to our database:
# cd /opt/virtualenv/newproject # source /opt/myenv/bin/activate # python manage.py syncdb
We should get some output describing what tables were installed, followed by a prompt asking if you want to create a superuser. This is optional and depends on if we want to use Django’s authentication system or the Django admin.
Gunicorn configuration is very specific to our applications needs. First we will go over running Gunicorn with default settings. Here is the command to just run default Gunicorn:
# gunicorn_django --bind **your-fully-qualified-domain-name.com**:8001
If we now point our browser to our-fully-qualified-domain-name.com:8001, we should get the Django welcome screen. Using the command above, we started one worker process only. In production environment we will need more than one. We can control the number of processes from the command line, so if we want to start 5 worker processes, the command will be:
# gunicorn_django –workers=5 --bind **your-fully-qualified-domain-name.com**:8001
If we want to rung Gunicorn and user other than root, then we have:
# gunicorn_django --workers=5 --user=nobody --bind **your-fully-qualified-domain-name.com**:8001
Since we might end up having a lot of different input parameters, it is better if we just create configuration file and use that when starting Gunicorn. We can create our configuration file in virtualenv directory for example ( /opt/virtualenv/gunicorn_cfg.py ), and put the following configuration for the setting we used before:
command = '/opt/myenv/bin/gunicorn' pythonpath = '/opt/myenv/myproject' bind = '127.0.0.1:8001' workers = 5 user = 'nobody'
Now, if we want to run the server, we should execute the following command:
# /opt/myenv/bin/gunicorn -c /opt/myenv/gunicorn_config.py myproject.wsgi
The “-c” flag, tells gunicorn that we have a config file we want to use, which we pass in just after the “-c” flag. We also pass in a Python dotted notation reference to our WSGI file so that Gunicorn knows where our WSGI file is. For further information about Gunicorn, please read the Gunicorn documentation found at gunicorn.org for more on this topic.
The last thing we need to do is to configure nginx. Since we are only setting NGINX to handle static files we need to first decide where our static files will be stored. We should open our settings.py file for our Django project and edit the STATIC_ROOT line to look like this:
STATIC_ROOT = "/opt/virtualenv/static/"
Now that you’ve set up where your static files will be located, we need to configure NGINX to handle the static files and be able to connect to Gunicorn. We should create a new file named /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/newproject and put the following content inside:
server { server_name **your-fully-qualified-domain-name.com**; access_log off; location /static/ { alias /opt/virtualenv/static/; } location / { proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8001; proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Host $server_name; proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr; add_header P3P 'CP="ALL DSP COR PSAa PSDa OUR NOR ONL UNI COM NAV"'; } }
In order to apply settings, we need to restart Nginx and we are good to go:
# sudo service nginx restart
We are done are ready to go now. We can repeated the procedure for creating new application, have another Gunicorn instance running on another port and have additional nginx configuration file. That way we will be able to have many projects and host many website on our VPS.
Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter for news, updates and announcements – @vexxhost.Image caption The brothers moved to Edlington just three weeks before the attack to live with foster parents
Two brothers who tortured two other children in South Yorkshire have been granted lifelong anonymity.
The boys, then aged 10 and 11, lured their victims to a ravine and carried out a "sadistic" attack in Edlington, near Doncaster, in 2009.
They were sentenced to five years' detention in 2010 and granted anonymity until the age of 18.
The High Court has now given them lifelong anonymity on the grounds they would be "at serious risk of attack".
Live updates on this story and others from South Yorkshire
Sir Geoffrey Vos - who heard the brothers have new identities and are now both in their late teens - said he was satisfied the anonymity order was in the public interest.
He said he would outline his reasoning in writing at a later date.
Image caption The attack happened near the Doncaster village of Edlington
The brothers, who admitted causing grievous bodily harm, were released earlier this year after a decision by the Parole Board, but lawyers sought an injunction to extend their anonymity as one of the boys approached his 18th birthday.
It was claimed that to identify them would breach various sections of the Human Rights Act.
Anonymity places them alongside only four other individuals who have lifelong protection of new identities:
Mary Bell, who was given a new identity after she convicted of murdering two young boys when she was 11
Jamie Bulger's killers Robert Thompson and Jon Venables
Maxine Carr, who was convicted of conspiring to pervert the course of justice over the murders of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman.
The brothers' victims, aged nine and 11, were throttled, hit with bricks, made to eat nettles, stripped and forced to sexually abuse each other in the attack.
A sink was dropped on the older boy's head, and the younger boy had a sharp stick rammed into his arm and cigarettes pushed into the wound.
Parts of the attack were recorded on a mobile phone.
Image copyright Julia Quenzler Image caption The boys were initially granted anonymity until they were 18
The brothers moved to Edlington just three weeks before the attack to live |
reach a breaking point within the imagination or dream (Neptune) pursued by a culture. Many cultures are now questioning whose imagination (Neptune) will rule (Saturn) the future (Uranus).
In general, it seems that creating a new organizing vision or story or symbol (Uranus-Neptune) will not come easy—so says Saturn, who enters Capricorn at the end of 2017. In this climate, the Saturn-Uranus-Neptune generation is or will soon be experiencing the call to bring forth their greatest gifts, which may involve various ways of being a bridge (Saturn-Uranus) for a new vision (Uranus-Neptune) of reality (Saturn).
However, that bridge must be built within first, and negotiating the different and even contradictory impulses which may emerge in the crucible of the Saturn return will require not just skill but a good deal of lovingkindness. May the insight and wisdom potential of astrology be available to this generation at the threshold, and may we all be open to the uncertainty as if it were ground fertile for our seeds of compassion.
Again, the Saturn Return Survey is located here: http://bit.do/SaturnReturn
Questions about the survey? Please contact Erica Jones at survey@realimaginal.com.About Erica Jones: Erica Jones, M.A. Integral Ecology, has pursued astrology since 2006, principally studying archetypal astrology with Richard Tarnas. She has presented her work in such fora as the Queer Astrology Conference and the San Francisco Astrological Society. Erica incorporates ecological awareness and an engagement with mythopoetic dimensions to promote personal, social and ecological well-being, by synthesizing studies of mythology, depth ecopsychology, dream work and systemic (family) constellations. She publishes Real Imaginal, which is devoted to the renewal of the planetary archetype Neptune: http://www.realimaginal.com. You may contact Erica at erica@realimaginal.com.
The Saturn Return Survey may be accessed here: http://bit.do/SaturnReturn
The survey is open to those born on the following dates:
Feb. 15, 1988 – May 26, 1988 Dec. 3, 1988 – Dec. 9, 1988 Nov. 12, 1988 – Jan. 21, 1989 Aug. 13, 1989 – Oct. 10, 19
Erica Jones, MA – Astrologer
* http://www.realimaginal.com
Where imagination meets Earth
email : artemisian42@gmail.com
phone : 415-609-4209 or 707-895-4740
AdvertisementsNearly a decade ago, FBI agents arrested a 24-year-old legal permanent resident from Afghanistan in the U.S. who was charged with conspiracy to bomb the New York City subway system.
A tool approved by Congress in 2008 helped federal officials catch this man, Najibullah Zazi, and prevent him from carrying out his plot. That tool is set to expire Dec. 31, and a debate has been brewing among lawmakers about where a reauthorization should fit on the spectrum of balancing broad surveillance powers and protecting individuals' privacy.
To unravel the 2009 plot, officials relied on the authority provided by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act's (FISA) Section 702. They used it to expose an email address used by an al Qaeda courier in Pakistan, which revealed communications with an unknown person located in the U.S. who was seeking advice on how to build explosives. The National Security Agency (NSA) passed the information along to the FBI, which identified the man as Zazi. After he and his co-conspirators were arrested, the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, an independent executive branch agency, said that, "Without the initial tip-off about Zazi and his plans, which came about by monitoring an overseas foreigner under Section 702, the subway bombing plot might have...succeeded."
Congress is now wrestling with how to modify the program, last renewed in 2012, and dubbed the "crown jewels of the intelligence community" by former FBI Director James Comey. Documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden in 2013 revealed that the government has used this capability to collect data, which has intersected with Americans' communications.
The program authorizes the government to collect electronic communications of foreigners outside of the U.S. and acquire foreign intelligence information, sometimes crossing paths with communications involving Americans. The program cannot be used to specifically target Americans anywhere in the world, it cannot be used to target anyone located inside the U.S. and it cannot be used to target a foreign person while intending to obtain communications of an American.
A lengthy 2014 report by the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board said that the "the information the program collects has been valuable and effective in protecting the nation's security and producing useful foreign intelligence" and it had found "no evidence of intentional abuse."
Several proposals to tweak the program have been pending in both chambers. Here's what they aim to do:
Extend FISA through 2025, but add more transparency: Senate Intelligence bill
In late October, the Senate Intelligence Committee advanced the FISA Amendments Reauthorization Act, offered by Chairman Richard Burr, R-North Carolina, which would extend the sunset of FISA to Dec. 31, 2025. It would require more transparency for Sec. 702 targets through reporting to Congress, provide additional privacy protections for U.S. citizens and enhance penalties against leakers, among other provisions. The legislation would require the attorney general and director of national intelligence to adopt clear procedures for querying data acquired incidentally under Sec. 702. It would also codify a practice known as "about" collection that the NSA halted earlier this year in which Sec. 702 collected Americans' emails and text messages that were exchanged with people abroad that just mentioned targets or information like email addresses for foreigners whom the agency was spying on.
Extend FISA through 2023, but add protections: House Judiciary bill
The House Judiciary Committee recently advanced its measure, the USA Liberty Act, sponsored by Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Virginia, and Ranking Member John Conyers, D-Michigan. While they said their bill preserves the core purpose of Sec. 702 to prevent terrorist plots, it would create a new framework of protections and transparency requirements to protect civil liberties.
The bill stresses that the main reason to to query 702 databases is to return foreign intelligence information. If the government, however, wants to access content from the databases in criminal investigations, the bill would require the government to first obtain a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) with some exceptions including communication with a known terrorist and emergencies.
It would reauthorize Sec. 702 for another six years through Sept. 30, 2023.
The Department of Justice opposes the measure, according to lawmakers, and Attorney General Jeff Sessions said last week that the original act, as passed and previously reauthorized, is constitutional, suggesting he would prefer a "clean" reauthorization.
"I believe it works and I am worried about additional burdens, particularly a warrant requirement which could be exceedingly damaging to the effectiveness of the act," Sessions said. "We're willing to talk to you about some of the concerns that exist out there. Hopefully we can work our way through it and accept the concerns and fix the concerns you have without going too far."
Meanwhile, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said that the bill "falls short" from what's needed to protect Americans from warrantless government surveillance.
"The bill would still allow the CIA, NSA, FBI, and other agencies to search through emails, text messages, and phone calls for information about people in the U.S. without a probable cause warrant from a judge," said ACLU Legislative Counsel Neema Singh Guliani in a statement.
End "about" collection: Leahy-Lee bill
On Friday, Sens. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, and Mike Lee, R-Utah, teamed up to introduce the USA Liberty Act, modeled after the House Judiciary bill. It would codify an end to "about" collection, increase protections for queries of Sec. 702 data and extend warrant protections to Americans and people in the U.S. for queries of Sec. 702 contents in both national security and ordinary criminal investigations.
Tighten rules about surveilling Americans: Wyden-Paul bill
Two major privacy advocates -- Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon and Rand Paul, R-Kentucky -- have unveiled the USA RIGHTS Act. Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, Dean Heller, R-Nevada, and Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts, are among those backing the bill. It would require government officials to obtain a warrant before searching further into Sec. 702 data for communications involving Americans. A bipartisan group of lawmakers have introduced a companion bill in the House.
The Constitution Project has endorsed the Wyden-Paul bill, says senior counsel Jake Laperruque, who called Sec. 702 "one of the most invasive surveillance authorities we've seen in the modern era."
"It's really significant that you have this authority, that without ever obtaining probable cause or suspicion or going to a court for any type of approval for individualized surveillance, targets over 100,000 people," he said.
Clean reauthorization of 702, make permanent: Cotton bill
Earlier this year, Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Arkansas, introduced legislation that would offer a "clean" reauthorization of Sec. 702 and extend the program permanently. Sessions and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats endorsed a clean, permanent reauthorization in a September letter to congressional leaders.
In an effort to persuade Congress to back a clean reauthorization, senior Trump administration officials have pointed to a series of cases in recent months.
The NSA, for instance, tracked down the man who was second in command for the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, Haji Iman, using Sec. 702's collection authorities. Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats revealed the operation to the public, declassifying it for an open congressional hearing earlier this year. The NSA, and other intelligence community agencies, spent over two years from 2014 to 2016 searching for Haji Iman. Using 702, they collected intelligence involving Haji Iman's close associates and ultimately identified his location and tracked his movements, Coats said. In March 2016, U.S. forces tried to capture Iman and two of his associates by shots were fired at the aircraft used by the U.S.
"U.S. forces returned fire, killing Haji Iman and the other associates at that location. Subsequent -- subsequent Section 702 collection confirmed Haji Iman's death," Coats described to lawmakers. "As you can see from this sensitive example, Section 702 is an extremely valuable intelligence collection tool, and one that is subject to a rigorous, effective oversight program."
The U.S. also used information collected through 702 to help Turkish authorities nab the man responsible for the attack on an Istanbul nightclub earlier this year. NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers has also publicly confirmed that the intelligence community used Sec. 702 to support its conclusion that Russia tried to interfere in the 2016 presidential election.
In the nearly 10 years since Congress enacted the legislation that established Sec. 702, Coats said that there have been "no instances" of intentional violations of 702. Out of three billion Internet users, there were 106,469 authorized targets in 2016 and about 1,939 Americans were unmasked last year based on data collected under Sec. 702.
A "senior NSA analyst" told reporters in September that when section 702 was started in 2008, it was a "game changer," and has become a "critical tool," and a "critical essential ingredient" in the fight against terrorists living overseas. A "senior US government official authorized to speak on behalf of his agency," called 702 legally "irreplaceable," and the "single most important statute the NSA has."
A former senior intelligence official told CBS News that lawmakers don't seem to fully grasp the extent of how Sec. 702 is used.
"It is used for more than terrorism and I think that people tend to forget that. It's an important source of foreign intelligence in a number of areas," the source said. "Although some of the uses are classified, the government has said that among other things, it's used in cyber crime and combating the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. It's not only a counterterrorism tool, and I think for that reason some of the proposals that say it should only be used for terrorism are missing the mark."
None of the bills that are pending would prevent officials from using 702 for other foreign intelligence purposes besides terrorism.
Because lawmakers are divided over a reauthorization, experts say it's difficult to predict which of the legislative measures will prevail. Congress may even have to approve a short-term extension to buy more time for negotiations.
Laperruque said he suspects there will be "hype to get this done" because the program could shut down sooner than the end of the year.
"For a program of this scale, the [intelligence community] has to sort of go into a wind-down mode a couple of weeks earlier than that. They can't just shut off 702 on New Year's Eve," he said. "They both for logistics, and the way their systems work, start preparing for that in advance. Because this is a significant collection authority they need to brace for what happens if the system gets turned off and they lose their ability to collect for a day or even for a few hours."
CBS News' Andy Triay contributed to this report.THIS POST MAY CONTAIN AFFILIATE LINKS. PLEASE READ DISCLOSURE FOR MORE INFO.
When a kettle needs to be ‘descaled’, that means that there’s been a buildup of minerals (called ‘lime’) inside the kettle that not only
looks bad but also makes the kettle take longer to boil and wastes electricity in the process because the lime build-up prevents the heating element inside the kettle from conducting heat to the water properly. If you don’t descale it then the element will eventually burn out, and then you’ll end up having to throw away what would have been
a perfectly good kettle had you taken proper care of it and go out and spend money on a new one. You don’t want that, do you? Of course not, nobody wants that, not even George Bush wants that.
When you descale your kettle, you can use vinegar or citric acid, I recommend vinegar because it not only works better but it’s much easier than juicing a couple of lemons. If you’re using vinegar, mix it with some water in a roughly 50/50 ratio. As an added tip, you can also use this method to get rid of lime in your bathtub–just mix half water and half vinegar, leave it overnight, then pull the plug to let it drain the next morning. Here’s an excellent video that shows you precisely what to do:BEIRUT – Protesters in Suweida have clashed with regime loyalists during a rally held by the activist “You Broke Us” group railing against mismanagement of the Druze-populated province.
Dozens of demonstrators gathered Thursday in the center of the provincial capital, holding up banners against “corruption” while chanting for “freedom and dignity,” according to the local Swaida Khabar outlet.
A video of the protest shows the young activists chanting “We won’t bow… but to our God,” while also launching a broadside against Wafiq Nasser, the regime’s Political Security Branch chief in the province.
“O’ you Wafiq [Nasser] the deceiver [or traitor]… the people of Suweida can’t be humiliated,” the crowd yelled.
"You Broke Us" protesters rally Thursday in Suweida. (YouTube/Swaida Khabar)
The peaceful protest quickly degenerated into chaos, however, with Swaida Khabar reporting that regime loyalists massed around the rally.
“The ‘Shabiha’ members tried to attack the protesters, leading to a fistfight between the two sides,” Swaida Khabar’s correspondent said.
The reporter added that a regime loyalist proceeded to open fire into the air “to intimidate protesters,” however the demonstration continued until it ended without any further problems.
A video uploaded by the “You Broke Us” campaign shows part of the scuffle, with a gunshot ringing out near the end of the clip. The activist group has not issued any formal statement on the incident, claiming only that “Hezbollah members opened fire in the air to disperse the protesters.”
The scuffle at Thursday's "You Broke Us" protest.
Thursday’s protest was the latest organized by “You Broke Us” since early March. Although the demonstrations started off by criticizing the arbitrary firing of teachers called up for military service, they have since taken an increasingly broader anti-regime tone.
In its rally cry for the latest protest, “You Broke Us” defiantly announced that “we won’t be silent” while daring Suweida Governor Atef Nadaf to “say whatever you want about us.”
“History is recording that there are youths in this country still steadfast and continue speaking and their voices are growing much more [stronger] than before.”
“You Broke Us” listed four main demands for the protest, including: a “united Syria” and “one people with one fate,” the end of corrupt policies that have collapsed the value of the Syrian pound, and preventing “mafiosos” from carrying arms in an arbitrary fashion in the province.
The student-led movement also indirectly slammed the Syrian regime’s military and security policies, but instead of pointing the finger at Damascus, it called on the “UN and the international community” to take a “decisive stance… concerning the siege of cities, destruction and violence, and arbitrary arrests.”
The campaign also sounded a dire warning over the situation in Hama Central Prison, which inmates took over last week in a bid to negotiate the release of political prisoners with Damascus. According to “You Broke Us,” the jail “stands at the gates of a humanitarian disaster.”
Amin Nasr translated Arabic-language material.Entire website open-sourced at: https://github.com/grokit/website_grokit_ca/. Feel free to make pull requests if you find mistakes!
Speed Of Computing
Goal: accumulate all reference material to answers questions such as: "You are running a web service that does X, how many servers do you need?".
Example Question
You run a web service where 1000 users upload a 700 kB picture every second (assume that nothing else happen on this system). How many frontend and backend machines do you need?
Tentative Answer
The bandwidth required is 1000 * 700 * (2**10) = 0.667 GBps = 5.34 Gbps. Since a frontend instance will likely handle ~ 1Gbps, you need 6 instances at the very least.
Now, you can assume that those frontend instances will pass that data to backend machines. Since you can expect a much higher throughput in machine-to-machine data transfer (given the they are in the same cloud), you only need 1 backend instance to handle that load (assuming 10Gbps transfer data rate).
However, that backend will need to store that data. Assuming sequential writes, you can write 1 picture in ~2 ms (remember that if you cannot assume sequential writes, every seek on a non-SSD drive will take ~10ms). This means that you need at least two backend instances in order to handle the write speed. You probably need to shard the data across many more machines if you do not want to run out of space, but 2 machines can handle the load.
Reference Table: Speed of A Computer
L1 cache reference 0.5 ns Branch mispredict 5 ns L2 cache reference 7 ns (14x L1 cache) Mutex lock/unlock 25 ns Main memory reference 100 ns (20x L2 cache, 200x L1 cache) Creating a new thread 5,000 ns Send 1K bytes over 1 Gbps network 10,000 ns 0.01 ms 100 MB/s Read 1 MB sequentially from memory 250,000 ns 0.25 ms 4 GB/s Round trip within same datacenter 500,000 ns 0.5 ms Read 1 MB sequentially from SSD 200 MB/s Write 1 MB sequentially to SSD 150 MB/s Read 4K randomly from SSD 65 MB/s Write 4K randomly from SSD 20 MB/s Write 1 MB sequentially to HD 10,000,000 ns 10 ms 100 MB/s Read 1 MB sequentially from HD 20,000,000 ns 20 ms 50 MB/s (80x memory, 20X SSD) Read 4K randomly from HD 180,000 ns 0.18 ms 0.75 MB/s Intra rack Datacenter operation 0.5 ms? Inter-rack datacenter operation 5 ms? Disk seek 10 ms (20x datacenter roundtrip) Send packet US-West->US-East->US-West 30 ms Send packet CA->Netherlands->CA 150 ms
Table credit:
A funny thing that has been pretty much constant since the beginning of computing is that "you can read the whole content of the computer's memory in about 1 second". It was true in the 1970s, and it is still true today (note that the size of the memory has grown exponentially).
Reference Table: How Much Traffic Can Machine X Handle
Public IP Amazon EC2 Instance 1 Gbps Private machine-to-machine Amazon EC2 Instance 10 Gbps
Those numbers could be slightly off (see references below). Please do update me if wrong :).
Reminder: SI Units
Time:
Second (s) 1 Millisecond (ms) 1e-3 Microsecond (μs) 1e-6 Nanosecond (ns) 1e-9 Picosecond (ps) 1e-12
Data:
Byte (b) 1 2^0 Kilobyte (kB) 1e3 2^10 Megabyte (MB) 1e6 2^20 Gigabyte (GB) 1e9 2^30 Terabyte (TB) 1e12 2^40 Petabyte (PB) 1e15 2^50
Fun distinctions:
b is bit (1 bit), B is byte (8 bits). 'b' or bit is rarely used, prefer B / bytes. The exception is in networking, where the speed is usually expressed in bits, such as 1Gbps (1 gigabit per second = 1e9 bits / s).
(1 bit), B is (8 bits). 'b' or bit is rarely used, prefer B / bytes. The exception is in networking, where the speed is usually expressed in bits, such as 1Gbps (1 gigabit per second = 1e9 bits / s). kB = 1000 bytes or 1024 bytes depending on context. 1000 is the proper SI quantity, in computing 1024 is generally used (since it is a power of 2). In doubt, kB = 1024 bytes.
kb ~= 125 bytes (1000 bits). Generally speaking, avoid using kb, use kB instead.
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date: ['2014-05-01']
category: ['rfc']
tags: ['rfc', 'viewA']
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DisqusEarth's atmosphere happens to be essential to life, but in all other regards, it's an astronomer's worst enemy. Air is responsible for poor seeing when it bends light chaotically, causing telescopic images to waver and smear. And it's responsible for poor transparency when it absorbs and scatters light, causing faint objects to appear even fainter than they really are. Seeing is a subject for another discussion; this article focus on transparency and its close cousin, atmospheric extinction.
[fw-embed-media url="https://s22380.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/Meteor_Altitude.jpg" url_large="" alt="" caption="" credits="Casey Reed" width="" height="" align="right"]Considering how thick the atmosphere is, it's a miracle that we can see stars at all. If all the air were to condense into a liquid as dense as water, it would cover our planet to a depth of 10 meters (33 feet). If you think how murky even a few feet of water can be, you'll realize that air isn't so bad after all. In fact, over short distances, clean air is almost perfectly transparent. Unfortunately, the distances in question aren't short.
The atmosphere has no sharp upper boundary. NASA calls anybody who's flown higher than 50 miles (80 km) an astronaut, but air drag is still much too strong at that elevation for a satellite to orbit. If the atmosphere could somehow be made uniformly as dense as it is at sea level, it would extend up to 8,400 meters, just below the highest Himalayan peaks. But because air thins out as you get higher, only two-thirds of the atmosphere lies below that elevation. Do a Web search on "standard atmosphere" for more information.
Extinction, Scattering, and Absorption
Astronomers who specialize in photometry need to compensate for atmospheric extinction: the reduction in a celestial object's apparent brightness when its light passes through the atmosphere. This depends on three factors:
The transparency (clarity) of the air.
Your elevation above sea level.
The altitude above the horizon of your celestial target.
In this article, to avoid confusion, we will carefully restrict the meanings of "elevation" and "altitude" as described above, though they're interchangeable in normal usage.
Extinction has two components: absorption, where light is stopped cold in its tracks, and scattering, where light is diffused away from its original source. Thin fog scatters light, and smoke absorbs it. Scattering is more pernicious for astronomy, because it not only dims the object that you're observing, but also reduces contrast by brightening the background sky.
Rayleigh Scattering and Ozone Absorption
Our atmosphere absorbs most of the infrared and ultraviolet radiation that hits it. That's fortunate for us, because ultraviolet from the Sun would fry us all to a crisp in a matter of minutes if we weren't protected by the ozone layer. However, ozone absorbs only one or two percent of all light that's visible to the human eye. And as long as the air is clear, the rest of the atmosphere absorbs hardly any visible light at all. This is no accident: our eyes have evolved to make maximum use of the fairly narrow range of wavelengths that happen to penetrate the atmosphere.
[fw-embed-media url="https://s22380.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/RayleighGraph.jpg" url_large="" alt="" caption="" credits="S&T Illustration" width="" height="" align="right"]But even perfectly clean air scatters quite a lot of light through the process called Rayleigh scattering. This effect is much stronger for blue light than for red, which is why the daytime sky is blue. Without scattering, the sky would appear black even at midday.
Extinction at 510 nanometers, the bluish green wavelength to which human night vision is most sensitive, is what matters most to deep-sky observers. According to Daniel W. E. Green's article Magnitude Corrections for Atmospheric Extinction, for at observer at sea level viewing a star directly overhead, Rayleigh scattering reduces the star's brightness by 0.145 magnitude at this wavelength. (Other sources yield values closer to 0.140 magnitude.) Ozone absorption removes another 0.016 magnitude, so the total extinction at sea level is roughly 0.16 magnitude for a star directly overhead if the air contains no impurities whatsoever.
At higher elevations, there's less air above you, so Rayleigh scattering is smaller. Subtract 0.03 magnitude from the zenithal extinction for every 2,000 meters of elevation. For instance, the observatories atop Mauna Kea, at 4,200 meters, experience a zenithal extinction around 0.010 magnitude when the air is perfectly clear.
Celestial Altitude and Airmasses
The closer your target is to the horizon, the more air you have to look through, and the more degraded your view gets. The amount of air directly overhead is called one airmass. (The actual amount of air in one airmass varies depending on your elevation above sea level.)
[fw-embed-media url="https://s22380.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/airmasses.jpg" url_large="" alt="" caption="" credits="Casey Reed" width="" height="" align="right"]For a star 30° above the horizon, you're looking through two airmasses. At 10°, 5.6 airmasses, and for an object on the horizon, 40 airmasses. The number of airmasses is approximately 1/sin(), though this needs modification near the horizon because of Earth's curvature. See Green's article for a more accurate formula.
Extinction is usually measured in magnitudes per airmass. For instance, let's say that extinction is 0.16 magnitudes per airmass, the best it can ever get at sea level. Then a star overhead appears 0.16 magnitude fainter (86% as bright) as it really is, a star 30° above the horizon, with 2 airmasses to look through, appears 0.32 magnitude fainter, or 74% as bright, and an star 10° above the horizon appears 0.90 magnitude fainter, or just 44% as bright.
You can see from this example why it's so important to view objects when they're as high as possible above the horizon.
Aerosol Optical Depth
In practice, air is never perfectly clean, so stargazers usually have worse things than Rayleigh scattering to obstruct their views. That's especially true in the summer, when natural pollutants such as dust and forest-fire smoke are at their worst, and humidity combines with emissions from power plants and motor vehicles to form smog. Generically, these pollutants are called aerosols: microscopic solid or liquid particles suspended in the atmosphere.
Reduction in visibility due to aerosols is called aerosol optical depth (AOD). Optical depth is the term used by atmospheric scientists for what astronomers call extinction. Both are usually measured on logarithmic scales, but optical depth uses "natural" logs with a base of e (roughly 2.718), while astronomical magnitudes are based on the fifth root of 100 (roughly 2.512). Multiply by 1.086 to convert optical depth to magnitudes.
[fw-embed-media url="https://s22380.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/modis_crop.jpg" url_large="" alt="" caption="This satelllite image shows smoke from a forest fire in the northern Rocky Mountains spreading across the United States." credits="Tony Flanders" width="" height="" align="right"]Aerosol optical depth in the 550-nm wavelength is monitored by satellite. The IDEA website provides one good way to access this data. See our article on Forecasting Haze for other suggestions.
Crisp nights, typical in the western US, have a 550-nm AOD of 0.1 or less. An AOD of 0.2, still good enough for most deep-sky observing, is more common in the eastern US. But on hazy summer nights, the AOD can rise to 0.5 or greater, making all but the brightest deep-sky objects dull or invisible.
Extinction is about 10% stronger at 510 nm than 550 nm. So if you multiply 550-nm AOD by 1.2 (10% for the different wavelength and 10% for the difference between AOD and magnitudes), and add 0.16 for Rayleigh scattering and ozone absorption, you should get a fairly accurate estimate of atmospheric extinction at 510 nm in magnitudes per airmass.
Putting it All Together
Let's put this all together with two examples. First, we're at sea level on a mediocre but not terrible night in the eastern US, with AOD=0.2, and viewing a star 30° above the horizon. Baseline extinction is 0.16 magnitude per airmass, and aerosols add another 0.2 × 1.2 = 0.24, for a total extinction of 0.40 magnitude per airmass. The line of sight to the star passes through two airmasses, so total extinction is 0.80 magnitude. That means that only 48% of the star's light makes it through the atmosphere.
Second, we're atop Mauna Kea, at 4,200 meters, and AOD=0.04, which is rather poor for this site except when it's downwind of a volcanic eruption. We've previously calculated the baseline extinction as 0.10 magnitude per airmass, and aerosols add another 0.05, for a total of 0.15 magnitude per airmass. For a star 30° above the horizon, that means 0.3 magnitude extinction, so 76% of the star's light is still visible.
If you have Excel on your computer, you can compute extinction for yourself using this handy spreadsheet.Freshman Rep. Vance McAllister (R) told a local newspaper on Monday night that he does not plan to resign from Congress following the release of a video showing the married congressman, who ran for office on a conservative Christian platform, kissing a staffer.
In an interview with The News-Star, the Louisiana lawmaker said that he plans to stand for reelection this fall, “unless there is an outcry for me not to serve.”
“So far there has been an outpouring of support, not for my actions, but for me to continue to represent the people," he told the paper.
Representative McAllister also said that he has asked his wife and five children for forgiveness, telling The News-Star: “I have fallen short as a husband and a father, and I feel more ashamed than you can imagine.”
On Monday, another local news outlet, Ouachita Citizen, had released surveillance footage from outside McAllister’s district office in December that shows the federal lawmaker kissing a paid staffer.
McAllister, a college dropout and Army veteran, was a relative unknown when he won a special election on Nov. 16 in Louisiana’s Fifth Congressional District, beating out party officials' preferred candidate, Neil Riser, with 60 percent of the vote. His campaign was in large part self-funded, using millions earned in the oil and gas business.
Though McAllister ran for office on a platform just to the left of Mr. Riser, McAllister told The New York Times in November that “my opponent was so far to the right you couldn’t help but be a little bit left.” On the whole, McAllister styled himself as an upstanding Christian who would go to Washington – to which he had never been, until attending the swearing-in ceremonies – to “do right” and support conservative values.
When he got to Washington, he invited one of the controversial stars of the reality TV show "Duck Dynasty,” which ends each episode with a prayer, as his guest to the State Of the Union address. The star, Willie Robertson, had endorsed McAllister during his election campaign.
Aides to McAllister told The News-Star that the staffer seen on the video has been dropped from the congressman's payroll. CNN reported that the staffer’s husband is asking for a divorce.
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The Washington Post reported that the staffer in the video worked part-time for less than $22,000 a year and that she was one of the few members of McAllister’s staff who had been hired under his tenure, not under former Rep. Rodney Alexander (R), who McAllister replaced.
The staffer and her husband donated $10,400 dollars to McAllister's campaign in October 2013, according to Federal Election Commission records. At the time, the staffer was listed in federal campaign finance records as self-employed in the cosmetology field.Journalists across the country picket in solidarity with SABC staff. View gallery here.
Johannesburg – Journalists at the SABC’s head office in Johannesburg were reportedly locked in the building, and prevented from joining a protest outside in support of journalist’s rights.
Karima Brown of the Independent group said the journalists were locked inside the building in Auckland Park, after expressing a desire to join the protest.
“We’ve just received word that they have been locked inside. We need to stay here and demand that they let them out and join us,” Brown told News24’s Mpho Raborife in Johannesburg.
According to various reports on Twitter, the disciplinary proceedings for a second set of three suspended SABC journalists was suspended abruptly on Friday, amid protest action in both Cape Town and Johannesburg over their charges.
Zwelinzima Vavi, who is at the protest in Johannesburg, said COO Hlaudi Motsoeneng called the urgent meeting at the Johannesburg head office before he could fly off to the Durban July.
"We just received word that they are locked inside. We need to stay here and demand that they let them out & join us" says @KarimaBrown — Mpho Raborife (@MsRaborife) July 1, 2016
Vavi says Hlaudi has called an urgent meeting for employees inside the building before he takes his flight to Durban for #DurbanJuly #SABC — Mpho Raborife (@MsRaborife) July 1, 2016
Hearings of suspended SABC journos postponed until next week @eNCA #SABCcensorship #SABCPicket — Lindiwe Sithole (@THATlindz) July 1, 2016
One of the suspended SABC journos giving statement after her DC #SABCPicket pic.twitter.com/W3VL7SleMq — Lindiwe Sithole (@THATlindz) July 1, 2016CHICAGO, IL - DECEMBER 4: Jay Cutler #6 of the Chicago Bears on the field during warmups before a game against the Dallas Cowboys at Soldier Field on December 4, 2014 in Chicago, Illinois. (Photo by David Banks/Getty Images) Bears quarterback Jay Cutler. (David Banks/Getty Images)
By Tim Baffoe-
(CBS) Thank you, Chicago Bears. We’re so proud of you.
You could have just coasted through the rest of this playoff-less season, ho-humming with an “it is what it is” attitude about being part of the NFL blob that oozes out the year somewhere between 5-11 and 8-8.
Not you, though. You didn’t quit on |
a traumatic experience for Akira and is thought to have considerably darkened his world view.
He was a fan of the films of Satyajit Ray
Several of his films have been remade in America as westerns. Seven Samurai (1954) ("The Seven Samurai") was remade as The Magnificent Seven (1960), and Yojimbo (1961) ("The Bodyguard") was remade as A Fistful of Dollars (1964). In addition, The Hidden Fortress (1958) ("The Hidden Fortress") was a major inspiration for the "Star Wars" saga, which takes many inspirations from westerns and is often referred to as a space western. Common story elements include Gen. Makabe, who became Obi-Wan Kenobi; Princess Yuki, who became Princess Leia and whose trick of disguising herself as a handmaiden would later be used by Queen Amidala; and the farmers from whose viewpoint the film is told, Matashichi and Tahei, whose constant bickering inspired C-3PO and R2-D2.
One his closest friends was Ishirô Honda, the writer-director behind Gojira (1954).
He was infamous for his perfectionism. Among the related tales are his insisting a stream be made to run in the opposite direction in order to get a better visual effect, and having the roof of a house removed, later to be replaced, because he felt the roof's presence to be unattractive in a short sequence filmed from a train. He also required that all the actors in his period films had to wear their costumes for several weeks, daily, before filming so that they would look lived in.
Although his "samurai" films are considered the archetypal samurai films over the rest of the world, they were actually considered atypical in Japan. Most Japanese samurai films had been set in the 18th & 19th centuries, when a peaceful Japan was at the peak of its nationalism, with the largest number of bushido code-adhering samurai. Kurosawa's films typically feature individualistic "ronin" (masterless samurai) rather than true "samurai" and a majority are set in the far more chaotic feudal periods (16th-17th centuries) when the Japanese were engaged in civil war.
His favorite Japanese director was Kenji Mizoguchi
He named the film that made him want to work in cinema as Abel Gance's film La roue (1923), particularly certain kinetic shots of trains.
He was a fan of the work of Sergei M. Eisenstein, who, like Kurosawa, edited his own films.
He believed his years as an assistant director were invaluable. In Japanese cinema at that time, assistant directors dabbled in virtually every aspect of film production and Kurosawa, among other things, learned all about editing, set-decorating, costume-design and working with actors. Almost all of the assistant directors in Kurosawa's day were aspiring to become full-fledged directors. He felt that it was a shame that, in more modern Japanese cinema and in America, the assistant director doesn't accrue as much experience and usually permanently stays as an assistant director throughout his career and that there would be a great number of excellent directors had they had his training.
Many of the characters in his period films were loosely based on historical figures.
He was made a Fellow of the British Film Institute in recognition of his outstanding contribution to film culture.
Is not related to Kiyoshi Kurosawa
His mentor was 'Kajiro Yamamoto'.
Awarded the French Legion of Honor, 1984.
Awarded the Kyoto Prize, 1994.
Interviewed in "World Directors in Dialogue" by Bert Cardullo (Scarecrow Press, 2011).
A theoretical interpretation of his work can be found in "Akira Kurosawa and Intertextual Cinema" by James Goodwin, published by Johns Hopkins in 1994.
Like his fellow World Cinema masters, Ingmar Bergman (who started in live theater) and Federico Fellini (who started in journalism) he came to cinema via circumvention after working as a painter.
His family, when traced back a few generations, were samurais from the Akita Prefecture. Kurosawa said later that his father, who was tall, with a commanding presence and worked as a fitness instructor, had a bearing he thought was samurai-like. Unlike his father, Kurosawa himself was never athletically inclined.
The Akira Kurosawa School of Film was launched in April 2015, offering an online Master of Fine Arts in Digital Filmmaking.
Keisuke Kinoshita, Kurosawa Akira, Ichikawa Kon and Kobayashi Masaki formed their own company Yonki No Kai ('Club Of The Four Knights') in 1969 to assert an independent film making process and escape the studio system.
He was a close friend of Honda Ishiro, the director of the early Godzilla films.
His last name is pronounced KU-RA-SA-WA.
Ingmar Bergman was a huge fan of his films.
He was a huge fan of American westerns; in particular those directed by john ford.
Personal Quotes (34)
For me, film-making combines everything. That's the reason I've made cinema my life's work. In films painting and literature, theatre and music come together. But a film is still a film.
Human beings share the same common problems. A film can only be understood if it depicts these properly.
The characters in my films try to live honestly and make the most of the lives they've been given. I believe you must live honestly and develop your abilities to the full. People who do this are the real heros.
With a good script, a good director can produce a masterpiece. With the same script, a mediocre director can produce a passable film. But with a bad script even a good director can't possibly make a good film. For truly cinematic expression, the camera and the microphone must be able to cross both fire and water. The script must be something that has the power to do this.
In all my films, there's three or maybe four minutes of real cinema.
So long as my pictures are hits I can afford to be unreasonable. Of course, if they start losing money then I've made some enemies.
It is quite enough if a human being has but one field where he is strong. If a human being were strong in every field it wouldn't be nice for other people, would it?
Good Westerns are liked by everyone. Since humans are weak, they want to see good people and great heroes. Westerns have been done over and over again, and in the process a kind of grammar has evolved. I have learned much from this grammar of the Western.
I like unformed characters. This may be because, no matter how old I get, I am still unformed myself.
When I start on a film I always have a number of ideas about my project. Then one of them begins to germinate, to sprout, and it is this which I take and work with. My films come from my need to say a particular thing at a particular time. The beginning of any film for me is this need to express something. It is to make it nurture and grow that I write my script- it is directing it that makes my tree blossom and bear fruit.
Human beings are unable to be honest with themselves about themselves. They cannot talk about themselves without embellishing.
To have not seen the films of Ray is to have lived in the world without ever having seen the moon and the sun.
Being an artist means not having to avert one's eyes.
[on Mikio Naruse ] Naruse's Method consists of staging one very brief shot after another; but when we look at them placed end-to-end in the finished film, they give the impression of one long single take. The fluidity is so perfect that the cuts are invisible... A flow of shots that looks calm and ordinary at first glance reveals itself to be like a deep river with a quiet surface disguising a fast-raging current.
I believe that what pertains only to myself is not interesting enough to record and leave behind me. More important is my conviction that if I were to write anything at all, it would turn out to be nothing but talk about movies. In other words, take'myself', subtract'movies', and the result is zero.
{on witnessing the aftermath of the 1923 Tokyo earthquake, and the ensuing riots] Amid the expanse of nauseating redness lay every kind of corpse imaginable. I saw corpses charred black, half-burned corpses, corpses in gutters, corpses floating in rivers, corpses piled up on bridges, corpses blocking off a whole street at an intersection, and every manner of death possible to human beings displayed by corpses. When I involuntarily looked away, my brother scolded me, "Akira, look carefully now". Looking back on that excursion now, I realize that it must have been horrifying for my brother, too. It had been an expedition to conquer fear.
[on Toshirô Mifune ] Mifune had a kind of talent I had never encountered before in the Japanese film world. It was, above all, the speed with which he expressed himself that was astounding. The ordinary Japanese actor might need ten feet of film to get across an impression; Mifune needed only three. The speed of his movements was such that he said in a single action what took ordinary actors three separate movements to express. He put forth everything directly and boldly, and his sense of timing was the keenest I had ever seen in a Japanese actor. And yet with all his quickness, he also had surprisingly fine sensibilities.
[on his discovery of Toshirô Mifune during casting of Drunken Angel (1948)] I am a person who is rarely impressed by actors, but in the case of Mifune, I was completely overwhelmed.
[on Kenji Mizoguchi ] Of all Japanese directors I have the greatest respect for him.... With the death of Mizoguchi, Japanese film lost its truest creator.
I begin rehearsals in the actors' dressing room. First I have them repeat their lines, and gradually proceed to the movements. But this is done with costumes and makeup on from the beginning; then we repeat everything on the set. The thoroughness of the rehearsals makes the actual shooting every time very short. We don't rehearse just the actors, but every part of every scene - the camera movements, the lightning, everything.
The role of a director encompasses the coaching of the actors, the cinematography, the sound recording, the art direction, the music, the editing and the dubbing and sound-mixing. Altough these can be thought of as separate occupations, I do not regard them as independent. I see them all melting together under the heading of direction
Unless you know every aspect and phase of the film-production process, you can't be a movie director. A movie director is like a front-line commanding officer. He needs a thorough knowledge of every branch of the service, and if he doesn't command each division, he cannot command the whole.
A film director has to convince a great number of people to follow him and work with him. I often say, although I am certainly not a militarist, that if you compare the production unit to an army, the script is the battle flag and the director is the commander of the front line. From the moment production begins to the moment it ends, there is no telling what will happen. The director must be able to respond to any situation, and he must have the leadership ability to make the whole unit go along with his responses.
Movie directors, or should I say people who create things, are very greedy and they can never be satisfied... That's why they can keep on working. I've been able to work for so long because I think next time, I'll make something good.
A film is never really good unless the camera is an eye in the head of a poet.
[on watching Solaris with Andrei Tarkovsky] Tarkovsky was sitting in the corner of the screening room watching the film with me, but he got up as soon as the film was over and looked at me with a shy smile. I said to him, "It's very good. It's a frightening movie." He seemed embarrassed but smiled happily. Then the two of us went to a film union restaurant and toasted with vodka. Tarkovsky, who does not usually drink, got completely drunk and cut off the speakers at the restaurant, then began singing the theme of Seven Samurai at the top of his voice. I joined in, eager to keep up. At that moment, I was very happy to be on Earth.
Never having seen a Satyajit Ray film is like never having seen the sun or the moon.
Jean Renoir, John Huston,
Civilization has poisoned humanity. The backbone of a good film is the filmmaker's humane character. If we are not honest to ourselves, we will never be able to make decent films. Actually, it doesn't mean that if a country is well off, it is necessarily capable of making good films. A person, who is able to make good films, knows how to find his or her way into the viewer's heart; such as John Ford Federico Fellini,[ Theodoros Angelopoulos ], Sidney Lumet... I've met every one of them and have spoken to them. Just as they have exceptional works, they were also very distinguished in character. It was very easy to establish a cordial relationship with them, which is quite important. The people that are depicted on screen in their films are not predetermined characters. They express human problems in a natural way. That's why their films are fascinating. Sidney Lumet is a close friend of mine, and whenever we sit down to talk we never discuss cinema. We generally discuss trivial matters, social problems or our hobbies, and we quite enjoy it. Reporters always ask me what the content of my film is and I tell them that there is no such a thing. I say ordinary things. A film is not supposed to be a lecture.
A film must be made with the heart, not the mind. I think today's young filmmakers have forgotten this and instead they make films through their calculations. That is why Japanese films no longer have an audience. In all honesty, films must be made to target the hearts. During the time of Ozu, my mentor, and also in my time, no filmmaker made films based on theory and calculation, and that was why Japan's cinema was capable of shaping its golden years. Young filmmakers use techniques to humiliate the audience. This is wrong. We must serve cinema and make a film that would stimulate the audience. Ultimately, the aim should be to make an artistic film. That's simple, isn't it?
Regarding American cinema, I could say that much better films were made in the past. Today's American cinema provides the wrong service to the audience. Violence and car crashes are often seen. What pleasure is there in watching such scenes? Old American films expressed human problems quite well, but these days the American cinema has problems. There is no doubt that a film like Jurassic Park (1993) is interesting, but there used to be more impressive films in the past. In contrast, films, like those of Kiarostami, touch the heart and are very beautiful. These new sci-fi, action films, are good but they are not cinema.
In Japan, the society progressed through a rapid growth, which was an unnatural process. Daily life lost its natural course. To live, it became necessary to work beyond one's abilities. That's why instability among people has increased.
The first film entitled Ikimono no kiroku (1955) and another film Hachi-gatsu no rapusodî (1991) were made about the atomic bomb. An episode of the film Dreams (1990) is devoted to this topic also. Concern about the atomic bomb is very important. For example, due to the shortage of energy, nuclear energy is used, but they don't know exactly how to dispose of the nuclear waste. So I see the hazards we face. If there is really a lack of energy, then we can try to conserve energy. In Tokyo, they use electricity like there is no tomorrow. This is not necessary. If only we could take the expertise of power plant employees and direct it towards creating energy using wind or natural sources. I believe that nuclear waste disposal is an extremely important issue.
In a mad world, only the mad are sane.I want to follow up on what I wrote Friday about those who are deciding that because of a) web site problems and b) the largely manufactured controversy over people who have one private insurance plan but now face the unfathomable horror of moving to a different private insurance plan, the Affordable Care Act is an unrecoverable disaster that has destroyed Barack Obama's second term. I'm sensing that this is about to move into a new phase of inane speculation that we should think about before it starts.
I'll just use one article as an example. This morning, under the headline "Why Obamacare Is On Life Support," Josh Kraushaar of the National Journal all but declares that the law is about to be repealed. "Unless the HealthCare.gov website miraculously gets fixed by next month," he writes, "there's a growing likelihood that over time, enough Democrats may join Republicans to decide to start over and scrap the whole complex health care enterprise." That's so blindingly stupid I'm almost not sure where to start, but let's give it is a shot. First, would it really be "miraculous" if Healthcare.gov got fixed by next month? It's a website. Yes, a complicated one, and yes, one that had many problems. But it isn't as though those problems are somehow beyond the ken of human ingenuity to solve, requiring heavenly intervention. The administration isn't trying to achieve faster-than-light transport or make us all immortal. It's a website. It may not be perfect, but it'll work.
Kraushaar then goes through some counting of vulnerable Democratic seats in both houses to argue that it's a real possibility that a repeal of the entire ACA could not only pass, but pass with a wide enough margin to override a veto from the President. His main evidence is the 39 House Democrats who voted last week for a symbolic Republican proposal to undo some of the individual-market reforms; he thinks the the number for full repeal of the ACA will be even greater. But that's completely backwards. It would take some kind of as-yet-unforeseen utter catastrophe to transform even those votes into a vote for full repeal. As Jonathan Bernstein says, "There's an enormous difference between playing along on a symbolic vote and abandoning a policy Democrats are stuck with, like it or not." Not even House Democrats from swing districts are dumb enough to think that voting to repeal the law would serve their political interests, despite Kraushaar's bizarre and demonstrably false assertion that already, "Even [the ACA's] most ardent supporters are running for the hills."
If you're going to start speculating about repeal, you have to confront what's going to happen six weeks from now, on January 1. Let's have a little reminder:
Millions of people will begin getting coverage through Medicaid. Repeal would mean kicking these people off their insurance.
Millions of people will begin getting subsidies to pay for private insurance. Repeal would mean taking away their subsidies, making it unaffordable for them to get insurance.
Denials for pre-existing conditions will be officially over. Repeal would mean that once again, insurers could deny people coverage if they've ever been sick.
Annual limits on coverage will be outlawed. Repeal would mean that people will once again start being forced to pay huge medical bills, in many cases forcing them into bankruptcy, if they have a serious illness or accident.
And that's not to mention the parts of the bill that have already gone into effect, like "rescission" becoming illegal, children not being allowed to be denied coverage for pre-existing conditions, or young people being allowed to stay on their parents' insurance until they're 26. You think some news stories about people in the individual market having to pay more for a new insurance plan tug at lawmakers' heartstrings? Wait until you see the stories about the 5-year-old girl with leukemia who'll get kicked off her coverage if Republicans in Congress have their way. Right now we're talking about a few people who are supposedly the "losers" in the ACA, but the most they've lost is some money they'll have to pay for a more comprehensive plan. If you repeal the law, the country would be overflowing with people whose losses are genuinely catastrophic.
January 1 is the end of any talk of repeal, and Republicans know it—as many of them have been saying all along, once you start giving people benefits, it's all but impossible to take them away. That doesn't mean there isn't still work to do, and it doesn't mean there aren't things that could go wrong. Nor does it mean there might not be piecemeal fixes to one or another provision debated in the future; there almost certainly will be. But unless you think that in the next six weeks Republicans are going to manage to put together a two-thirds majority in both houses of Congress to repeal the ACA—something you'd have to be nuts to believe—it's never going to happen.
I realize that there's an impulse as a reporter or a pundit to cast everything in the most dramatic terms possible. "Things are neither perfect nor disastrous" is a much less interesting assertion to make than "Everything has changed! Earth-shattering developments are afoot!" But that happens to be the truth.President Donald Trump signed three directives Friday aimed at unwinding regulations put into place after the financial crisis.
The moves target two key areas — "living wills" that banks must formulate to show how they would be broken up if they are in danger of failure, and the designation of what institutions will come get more intense federal scrutiny under the financial reforms.
Trump called the regulations, under the Dodd-Frank legislation, "damaging... that failed to hold Wall Street firms accountable."
During a ceremony at the Treasury building, he also signed a measure that authorized a look into "reducing the tax burden" of Americans.
"This is such a privilege for me to sign" he said. "This is really the beginning of a whole new way of life that this country hasn't seen in really many, many years."
The banking orders "signal that the Administration will continue a push to remove key regulations that were implemented as part of the Dodd-Frank Act," analysts at FBR said in a note to clients.How to Teach Kids About Charity Share
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Teaching kids about giving can be rewarding for both parents and the children. Learning about giving and helping others gives children a feeling of empowerment in an uncertain world where unexpected and frightening events happen every day.
A great way to reinforce charitable values is to make giving a family activity. Encourage everyone in your household to participate in volunteer activities, and praise your children when they show generosity and empathy to others.
It is especially important to teach youth that they are part of a larger community and that we are all responsible for those around us. By giving the value of charity a central role in the family dynamic, you encourage your child to grow up with a healthy sense of compassion and a strong charitable spirit.
01 What Age Should We Introduce Our Children to the Idea of Charity? Steve Debenport / Getty Images Parents should introduce their children to charitable giving when they are around three or four years old. Very young children often don't realize that other people have feelings, ideas, and emotions of their own. By the time they turn three, children begin to understand and respect the fact that each and every one of us has an inner life. Knowing that other people have feelings, children can begin to develop and hone a sense of empathy; this capacity for empathy is the very basis for charity.
02 How Can We Set A Good Example As Parents? CC0 Public Domain https://pxhere.com/en/photo/285406 It's important for parents to create a family environment where giving is natural and encouraged. It is good for children to see their parents donating charitably and, just as important, they should see what a privilege it is for their parents to be able to give. Include your children in your own volunteer or charity activities. Let them see you dropping money into charity boxes. Encourage them to help you pick out canned foods during a food drive, or let them tag along when you participate in a walk for breast cancer. Each time your child sees you giving to charity, it reinforces good behavior and gives you an opportunity to explain why it is important to give and how rewarding charity can be.
03 What Are Different Ways To Give? CC0 Public Domain https://pxhere.com/en/photo/759756 There are many ways a child can learn the value of giving and plenty of volunteer ideas for kids. Setting up a charity box in the home can show how even a little bit of money can make a difference when given with a good heart. Encourage them to donate old toys, school supplies, and clothing to other needy children. It is also a good idea to teach your little ones that donating time is often just as powerful as donating money and things. Take the whole family for an outing serving dinner at a local soup kitchen or make a habit of keeping a basket of fruit or snacks in the car to give to hungry people in need.“Young people are just smarter,” Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, famously said on a conference stage in 2007 when he was 22. In 2013, Facebook settled a lawsuit with California’s Fair Employment and Housing Department for posting an employment ad that stated “Class of 2007 or 2008 preferred.”
Apple, Yahoo, Dropbox, and video game maker Electronic Arts all have listed openings with “new grad” as a preference.
Lately, though, that language has fallen out of favor, and a curious, new phrase has taken root. Employers, especially in the media, advertising and tech industries, have begun advertising for “digital natives.”
Fortune did a simple search in Indeed.com and found dozens of listings, including from both established media giants and startups of all sizes, in which being a “digital native” is listed as a requirement.
Virginia Beach, VA-based software solutions firm, StratusLIVE, is currently seeking a lead generation specialist to join its team and according to its ad, the “ideal candidate must be a digital native” who adapts quickly to new technologies.
Zipcar, the car-sharing service, posted an ad for a director of creative and brand marketing and says this person “will be a proven creative leader and digital native.” Being a digital native also is on its list of “minimum” job requirements.
The Gannett-owned CBS TV affiliate in Washington D.C. notes in its ad that it is looking to hire digital natives.
In a posting for a project manager, advertising agency Wunderman, which is part of marketing giant Young & Rubicam Brands, listed as the top requirement being “a digital native” experienced in “existing and emerging digital platforms.”
The question is, what does the term mean? Three employment attorneys contacted by Fortune said the trend was troubling and argued it was a veiled form of age discrimination.
“The term ‘digital natives’ makes me cringe,” said Ingrid Fredeen, an attorney and vice president of NAVEX Global, which provides ethics and compliance programs to large organizations. “This is a very risky area because we’re using the term that has connotations associated with it that are very age-based. It’s kind of a loaded term.” Posting a job ad calling for “digital natives,” she added, is “really challenging and problematic” because it implies that “only young applicants need to apply.”
Author Marc Prensky has been credited with having coined the term “digital native” in a 2001 essay; he defined a digital native as someone born during or after the start of the digital world, meaning they grew up immersed in technologies and are “native speakers” of the digital language of computers and the Internet. In contrast, Prensky noted, the older “digital immigrants learn — like all immigrants, some better than others — to adapt to their environment” but they always retain their “‘accent,’ that is their foot in the past.”
Since the 1990s dotcom boom, many employers have openly sought to hire young, tech savvy talent, believing that was necessary to succeed in the new digital economy. At the same time, age discrimination complaints have spiraled upward, according to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), with 15,785 claims filed in 1997 compared to 20,588 filed in 2014. Out of the 121 charges filed last year by the EEOC for alleged discriminatory advertising, 111 of them claimed the job postings discriminated against older applicants.
The EEOC has said that using phrases like “college student,” “recent college graduate,” or “young blood” violate the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1966 (ADEA). That federal law protects individuals who are 40 years of age or older from employment discrimination based on age.
Is using a generational term like “digital native” just another way of excluding over-40 job candidates?
According to Joseph Olivares, a spokesperson for the EEOC, the agency has not taken a position on whether using the term “digital native” in an ad is discriminatory. But that’s only because job seekers need to file a complaint first before the EEOC can investigate. So far, none have been filed.
All You and InStyle, which, like Fortune, are owned by Time Inc., each ran ads that used the term “digital native;” the ads were posted about six months ago. “If you found an ad, it was probably posted by a hiring manager who didn’t see it as a problem and didn’t bother getting it clear,” Greg Giangrande, Time Inc.’s Executive Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer, said in a statement. “It’s not a phrase that we use in our advertising.” (He also said that in media circles, the term is generally used as “short-hand” for people who have up-to-date digital skills and experience.)
Fortune reached out to all of the employers mentioned in this article. Only one responded to requests for comment. StratusLIVE apparently took down the ad shortly after Fortune requested comment; the ad no longer exists on the web. [Update May 4, 9 am: Zipcar also apparently has taken its ad down.]
Inbound Marketing Agents’ co-founder Pat Owings told Fortune that Inbound has been using the term “digital native” on its job ads since last year. Owings, whose job responsibilities include human resources, according to the company’s website, said that when he first saw the term in one of their ads, he expressed concerns to his co-founder and CEO Bill Faeth, but the ad was published anyway. “This sort of recklessness from the CEO,” he said, is exactly the reason why he is currently separating from the company.
Owings added: “[Bill] has tried to create an organization that’s very Google-esque with the free beer and the free snacks and cool looking office space … that tends to attract a younger crowd. But obviously if he was called into court and put on the stand, he would say he was using [digital native] in a much more broad term, that he just wanted [applicants] to be technologically-savvy. That being said, he’s very focused on hiring a millennial workforce.”
According to Owings, there’s only one other employee — aside from himself and Faeth — over the age of 30. There are currently seven employees and five contractors working at Inbound.
Bill Faeth has a different story, describing Owings as “disgruntled because he is no longer part of the company.” He said he never received any warnings from Owings about using the term “digital native” on job ads. In fact, Faeth said he wasn’t aware that the term could be associated with age or a generation.
“I think it’s a pretty common term that’s being utilized in our industry,” he said, adding he didn’t think the term had a correlation with age so much as digital experience.
“I’m 42 years old and I had my first Apple when I was eight years old, so I would classify myself as a digital native just because I’ve used digital specifically for the majority of my adult life,” he said. He also said he “probably, possibly” won’t use the term in more ads “if there is potential for any kind of age discrimination.”
The employment attorneys contacted by Fortune all argued that using the term leaves employers open to charges of age discrimination. Christy Holstege, a civil rights attorney and feminist activist in Palm Springs, California, said, “I don’t believe using ‘digital native,’ a generational term, as a job requirement would stand up in court. I think older individuals could definitely argue ‘digital native’ requirements are just a pretext for age discrimination. And since this employment practice uses age as a limiting criterion, the defense that the practice is justified by a reasonable factor other than age is unavailable.”
Still, Holstege acknowledged proving age discrimination in a courtroom would be difficult. Holstege said that while she doesn’t think it’s “smart to put [digital native] in a job posting,” she can see employers arguing in court that the term “carries unique meaning as to certain skills or qualifications” and is “necessary to the normal operation of the particular business.”
If the job posting is the only piece of evidence the plaintiff has, they’re “probably going to be out of luck,” said Anne Golden, a partner at prominent employment law firm Outten & Golden. But if, for example, the plaintiff is, say, 55, and the hiring manager is 39 years old and has only hired people in their 20s and 30s and only fired people who are older, then you’re starting to build a case that would be admissible in court, explained Golden.
Age discrimination cases are “harder to prove than other kinds of discrimination,” she said, especially since a 2009 Supreme Court ruling. In Gross v. FBL Financial Services, Jack Gross, a 54-year-old former executive at the time he filed, sued his employer, Iowa-based insurance firm FBL Financial, for age discrimination when he was demoted. Despite winning in the lower courts, Gross lost his case in the Supreme Court, which ruled that plaintiffs have to prove that age discrimination was the “motivating” factor. Before Gross’ case, plaintiffs had a valid claim if they were fired or demoted on suspicions of age discrimination.
The current lack of seriousness placed on using the term “digital native” in job ads, though, could very well be because people are ignorant of its definition, explained Fredeen. Employers may be using the term loosely to mean someone who is “really comfortable with technology and social media platforms.”
In fact, Panasonic’s ad for a marketing group manager calls for a “digital native,” even while requiring that candidates have a minimum of 10 years professional “hands-on experience,” five years management experience, five years digital experience and preferably a MBA. How many candidates under the age of 35 would have all that experience? Panasonic didn’t respond to a request for comment.
“Maybe there is a cautionary tale to tell,” Fredeen said, predicting this “kind of language” in job ads will come under “great scrutiny in the very near future.”
In the meantime, the man who coined the phrase has backed off using the term altogether and instead evangelizes for what he calls “digital wisdom.”
On his web site, Prensky explains:
“Immigrants have to watch out for thinking the way they learned to do things is still the best way. Natives need to realize that they still have to learn many things about technology — and life. That is why it is important that we all learn to work together, with mutual respect, to find Digital Wisdom.”
Vivian Giang is a freelance writer covering gender conversations, leadership, entrepreneurship, workplace psychology, and whatever else she finds interesting related to work and play. You can find her on Twitter at @vivian_giang.Mushroom Knives - Huge Selection from Maserin, Mercury, Opinel... Details
Mushroom knives - a huge selection from Mercury, Maserin, Linder, Viper and more!
Part of the mushroom collector's "code of honor" is to take the mushroom without disturbing the delicate mycelium - the underground infrastructure of the mushroom. In order to do this correctly the mushroom collector needs a knife with the right shaped blade. It is also helpful to have a brush to clean the dirt off the mushroom.
Some mushroom knives will have a folding ruler or marks on the handle to indicate the size of the mushroom cap. Others may have tweezers, a compass or belt clip.
Please take a look at our selection of mushroom knives. Click the thumbnail photo below for item details, price and on-line order information.
Mercury of Italy offers a wide range of mushroom collecting knives. Mercury's Mico P is a simple, but effective solution for mycologists. It is made of bright red impact plastic, (hard to lose) a tough blade, a lanyard ring and synthetic brush. It measures 10cm closed and is compact and light weight.
The Mico 3 mushroom knife is a step up from the Mico P. It features a rosewood handle, tweezers, ruler, tough stainless steel blade serrated on the back side, a natural bristle brush and a handy lanyard ring. This knife would make any mushroom collector happy.
The Mico 2 is Mercury's top of the line mushroom collecting knife. It also has a rosewood handle, tweezers, ruler, and natural bristle brush. But it also includes a special pruning blade, and a compass with map scales! This is a great knife.
Maserin of Italy also provides some very fine Mushroom knives. Their olive wood knife with a textured "gunstock" handle is one of our favorites. Also, check out their 800-C which comes in a variety of vibrant colors.
Please take a look at our growing selection of mushroom knives.When Edward Snowden communicated with Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras, the journalists to whom he eventually leaked the NSA PRISM documents, he used an email provider called Lavabit. Snowden was already aware of the extent of the government’s digital surveillance, so the former contractor couldn’t choose just any email provider. Lavabit promised its users total encryption, with private messaging safe from any snooping interlopers. And even though he chose edsnowden@lavabit.com for a username, the service hid his identity long enough for the information to get out.
On August 8, however, Lavabit shut down, closing the accounts of its 410,000 users. Founder Ladar Levison posted a message on the website. “I have been forced to make a difficult decision: to become complicit in crimes against the American people or walk away from nearly ten years of hard work by shutting down Lavabit,” he wrote. “I wish that I could legally share with you the events that led to my decision |
Korean leadership “crazy.”
“Kim Jong-un is an ally of Assad. From North Korea, through Iran, to Syria and Hezbollah,” Liberman told Walla news site, noting that North Korea’s only aim was “undermining global stability,” and adding that the country’s leadership was “a crazy and radical group.”
He added that the country’s recent nuclear tests were “crossing a red line” and its nuclear weapons program posed an even bigger global threat than Iran.
“We’re just ahead of a new era of accurate missiles and unconventional weapons in the hands of irrational people,” Liberman said.
Pyongyang said Liberman’s “rash and malicious” comments were a “cynical ploy” to divert attention from the occupation “of the Arab territories” and “crimes against humanity.”
“Our consistent message is to mercilessly punish those who offend the dignity of our leadership,” the statement said, before continuing with a veiled threat, “We warn Israel to think twice about the implications of its defamation campaign against us.”
Some Israeli ministers slammed Liberman for his comments, saying the defense minister was dragging Israel into another conflict.
According to Israel Radio, top cabinet members who asked to remain anonymous said Liberman would do well to focus his energy on national security and not open his mouth so much.
“We have nothing to do with North Korea, so why jump up?” one minister reportedly said according to a translation from the Times of Israel. “Don’t we have enough enemies?”
MK Shelly Yachimovich of the Zionist Union remarked on Twitter: “We have enough enemies. Let’s focus on them.”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
Ten hostages were released yesterday after being held in a Colombian jungle hideaway for up to 14 years.
The group of men, including six police officers and four soldiers, had been kept captive longer than any other group in the world.
They punched the air as they were met by relatives in Villavicencio, 45 miles south of Bogota.
Some even had pets they kept while being held by rebels, including a peccary pig, a monkey and two birds.
(Image: Getty)
Among the freed men was one of the longest serving hostages, Sgt Luis Alfonso Beltram, who was embraced by his mum after waiting 5,145 days for freedom.
Olivia Solarte, who was reunited with her 41-year-old son Trujillo who had been held since July 1999, said: “I shouted! I jumped up and down!”
President Juan Manuel Santos told the group: “Welcome to liberty, soldiers and policeman of Colombia. Freedom has been very delayed but now it is yours.”
The hostages were flown out to freedom by Brazilian army helicopter after negotiations by the Red Cross with Colombia’s outlawed FARC revolutionary army group.
Red Cross spokesman Jordi Raich added: “We express our happiness at an operation that has allowed the reunion with 10 families that we were waiting for so long.”
FARC is still holding a number of civilians and President Santos ruled out any peace talks until they were freed.
He said: “The country will know it when the government believes there are enough guarantees to begin the process.”
The head of Colombia’s anti-kidnapping police believes there were at least six hostages, including four Chinese oil workers, seized last June.
The citizens' watchdog group Fundacion Pais Libre maintains a list of at least 400 people the FARC kidnapped or has otherwise held against their will since 1996 who were never freed.
It does not expunge a name from its records until the person is released or a body is found.
Two serious government-FARC peace negotiations failed over the past three decades, and recent weeks have seen an upsurge in violence in the conflict.
The FARC killed at least 11 soldiers in a mid-March attack in Arauca near the Venezuelan border and the military responded with two precision bombings on rebel camps that killed more than 60 insurgents.
The rebels have in recent years suffered their worst battlefield setbacks ever, beginning when Mr Santos was defence minister from 2006-2009 and thanks to billions in US military assistance and training.
Their main source of funding is the cocaine trade and military pressure has made holding kidnap victims increasingly difficult for the FARC.
The mission was brokered by leftist former Senator Piedad Cordoba, a friend of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez who has served as a go-between in the release of 20 FARC hostages since January 2008.
Ms Cordoba told reporters her work would be done with this week's releases as she has no desire to become involved in cases in which money rather than politics are involved.
She said, however, that the activist group she leads, Colombians for Peace, plans to send letters to the FARC asking it exactly how many civilians it holds.
(Image: Getty)
The FARC has only publicly acknowledged holding captives it considered "exchangeable": police, soldiers or politicians it held for political leverage, hoping to swap them for imprisoned rebels.
It held scores of such prisoners in the late 1990s when it controlled about half the countryside but gradually released them all, never obtaining the hoped-for exchange.
Some captives were rescued. Franco-Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt and three US military contractors in 2008 were freed in a bold ruse involving Colombian soldiers posing as members of a fake international humanitarian group.
But others, at least 25, died in captivity, many killed by FARC insurgents when rescuers real or imagined neared.
(Image: Getty)
Among those in attendance for the release was Rigoberta Menchu, the Guatemalan rights activist who won the 1992 Nobel Peace prize.
She said it is now time for Colombia's government to respond to the FARC's gesture with its own display of political willingness to attain peace.
But analysts caution that peace talks, even back-channel negotiations, could be a long time coming.
Many do not believe they could happen before 2014 presidential elections.Broncos QB Peyton Manning was not on the practice field Wednesday. (Photo11: John Leyba, AP) Story Highlights It's only the second time Denver QB has missed an in-season practice with team
Defense is nearing full strength with CB Champ Bailey and S Duke Ihenacho practicing again
ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — Denver Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning is not practicing Wednesday in order to rest his sprained right ankle.
Manning is still expected to start Sunday night against the Kansas City Chiefs, who sit in first place in the AFC West ahead of Denver. Interim head coach Jack Del Rio said earlier this week that Manning's practice time could be limited as team medical officials monitor his recovery. An MRI on Monday revealed no further damage to a high ankle sprain initially suffered last month.
This is only the second game-week practice Manning has missed since signing with the Broncos in 2012. He has not missed a game for Denver.
"I know Peyton Manning. He'll be ready," Kansas City coach Andy Reid said on a conference call with reporters Wednesday morning.
With Manning absent from practice, second-year backup Brock Osweiler will lead the first-team offense.
The Denver defense is practicing Wednesday at near full-strength, with starting cornerback Champ Bailey and safety Duke Ihenacho available. Neither played in Sunday's win against the San Diego Chargers.
Bailey has played only six quarters this season — a full game against the Jacksonville Jaguars and a half against the Indianapolis Colts — because of a sprained foot.
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Follow Lindsay H. Jones on Twitter @bylindsayhjones
VIDEO: Top story lines for Week 11Donald Trump exits the stage after his wife, Melania Trump, spoke on Monday at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland. Joe Raedle/Getty Images
CLEVELAND—The first day of the Republican National Convention opened in chaos and ended in disaster. We’ve covered the chaos, but the disaster requires a little explanation. That night, the headline speech belonged to Melania Trump, Donald Trump’s wife. Even with Trump’s rock-god entrance, the address itself was standard fare—a political wife softening her husband’s image and introducing him to the world at large. She hailed his decency, asserted his kindness, and praised him as an ideal husband and father. She didn’t stun, but she didn’t fail either, giving the best address of the night. Until it unraveled.
A Twitter user discovered that at least two paragraphs of Melania’s speech had been plagiarized from Michelle Obama’s speech to the Democratic National Convention in 2008. Side-by-side video confirmed the stunning similarities. What was poised to be a triumphant night for the Trump campaign abruptly turned into a fiasco. At the time of this writing, Trump and the Republican National Committee were still defending Melania’s plagiarism, doubling down in a remarkable display of stubborn intransigence.
There’s no way to spin this as good for the Trump campaign. It’s a disaster, full stop. But there is surely at least some upside in the idea that the media is talking about a plagiarism scandal instead of the parade of ethno-nationalist bigotry that defined all of the rest of Monday night. If you watched the RNC on television, you saw the highlights—Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump, Melania Trump, and Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst. But if you were there, in the audience, you saw the full array of speakers. And the overriding theme was fear—fear of a brown horde.
Let’s start from the top. After forgettable speeches from D-list celebrities such as Scott Baio (most famous, at present, for tweeting a sexist photo of Hillary Clinton) and Antonio Sabato Jr. (a one-time underwear model who insists that Barack Obama is a Muslim) came a string of speeches devoted to the many ways Obama and Clinton have empowered or even supported groups portrayed as deadly threats to American security. So, the mother of one of the men killed in Benghazi—Patricia Smith, mother of Sean Smith—condemned Clinton in the harshest possible terms. “I blame Hillary Clinton personally for the death of my son,” she said, before winning a roar from the crowd with: “Hillary for prison. She deserves to be in stripes.”
On that score, Mark Geist and John Tiegen, former members of the Benghazi Annex Security Team, offered a graphic retelling of the assault in Benghazi, Libya, along with a condemnation of then–Secretary of State Clinton for “failing to protect her people on the ground.”
Having covered the threat from “radical Islam,” the speakers moved on to the perceived threat from the border. Attendees watched a video from Kent Terry and Kelly Terry-Willis, siblings whose brother was killed on duty as a border patrol agent. They heard from Mary Ann Mendoza, whose son was killed in a car accident involving an unauthorized immigrant, followed by Sabine Durden, whose son also died in a similar car accident, and concluding with Jamiel Shaw, whose son was killed in a gang shootout involving an unauthorized immigrant. Each speaker endorsed Trump’s call for a wall on the Mexican border, which gave clarity to the overall message: that Mexico sends crime to the United States and that “illegal aliens” (to use Mendoza’s term) are an imminent threat to the safety of you and your family. That unauthorized immigrants have a lower violent crime rate than native-born citizens didn’t enter the conversation.
(If you’re skeptical that this message is racist, replace “illegals” with “blacks” or “Jews” and consider how it sounds.)
With Muslims and immigrants out of the way, the convention moved to black activists. David A. Clarke Jr., the black sheriff of Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, gave a pointed critique of the Black Lives Matter movement, calling it “anarchy,” praising the recent acquittal of the officer charged in the 2015 death of Freddie Gray (which brought cheers from the audience), and accusing police reform activists of pushing a “hateful ideology.” Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who came later in the night, took a similar tack, blasting activists and accusing President Obama of bending to the will of “Islamic extremist terrorism.”
Terrorism. Immigration. Crime. Three fears that dominated the rhetoric on Monday night. And that rhetoric came with targets: “radical Muslims,” “illegal aliens,” and Black Lives Matter. As one Republican wonk wrote after witnessing this parade of speakers, “The Trumpified GOP had only two policy proposals last night: Deport more Mexicans, and kill more Muslims.”
There is no “pivot,” no “general election Trump.” The Donald Trump who shot to the top of the GOP primary with a message of fear and nativism—who accused Mexico of sending “criminals” and “rapists” and proposed a ban on Muslims—is the Donald Trump who will claim the nomination on Thursday. That’s the story of Monday night. That’s the story of this Republican convention.
Read more Slate coverage of the 2016 campaign.Valve has a lot of trust to regain when it comes to hardware. The Steam Machine concept — a fusion of consoles and gaming PCs, running Valve's own OS — was huge news in 2013 and early 2014, then dropped almost completely off the map, as it became clear that the strange, slightly yonic controller needed a redesign and manufacturers could just release their products as traditional gaming PCs. A year later, though, we've got a new game plan, a final controller design, and a virtual reality headset made in partnership with HTC. And Valve is doing something that no other major headset company is: trying to genuinely, practically reinvent the way we use our hands in virtual space.
The HTC Vive (rhymes with "hive") headset was announced earlier this week at Mobile World Congress, where we tried it for the first time. It builds on years' worth of virtual reality research, focusing specifically on creating an experience that's ambulatory and interactive. Unlike the Oculus Rift, the Vive is very explicitly meant for moving around in. It's paired with laser base stations that can track both your location in a room and the rough dimensions in it, warning you if you get too close to a wall. Though this wasn't in evidence at GDC, the base stations can supposedly support multiple headsets, so you'll be able to share a space with friends, though at this point you'd probably get tangled in the many wires of the prototype version. Beyond the freedom of motion, the real standouts are the controllers, VR and otherwise. Over the past year, Valve has refined its fusion of mouse and gamepad for its final Steam Controller, which will ship in November. Like the first iterations, instead of a right analog stick, there's a ridged circular trackpad that you can use as a mouse or swipe your finger across to look around in a 3D game. The early controllers had another trackpad on the left, which was used for motion in most games. This worked far less well, and there's now just an actual analog stick below the second trackpad, which now doubles as a set of directional arrows.
For any game that supports a gamepad, there's not much reason to use the Steam Controller instead of just plugging in an Xbox or PlayStation peripheral. The trackpad can give you more fine-grained control, but it's not an inherently better system, and the giant trackpads mean that your face buttons are stuck awkwardly at the bottom of the controller. I tried a few minutes of Shadow of Mordor, The Talos Principle, and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, and I'd rather have had a traditional controller for all of them. Instead, its strength is in its versatility. Valve had precisely one non-controller game on display, and it was late-'90s shooter System Shock 2, which has a particularly weird mouse-and-keyboard interface; it's the kind of game where you equip a weapon by hitting one of a half-dozen hotkeys or physically dragging it onto your character. And, surprisingly, it was pretty decent. The right trackpad worked precisely as a mouse, and Valve has designed an impressively customizable control-mapping system; not only can you change the binding of any pad or button, you can control things like trackpad sensitivity, vibration intensity, and the inertia of a finger swipe. Valve will let you share custom binding systems, which solves a lot of the setup problems for any game with a substantive fan base.Do you agree with their selections?
In a new interview for fans, The Killers have revealed their favourite songs and albums by the likes of David Bowie, Depeche Mode and Morrissey.
The band were taking part in a fan Q&A on Twitter, when frontman Brandon Flowers and drummer Ronnie Vannucci Jr were quizzed about their choice cuts from the key artists that helped shape their sound. They named their top bands that they loved as kids and teenagers as The Cars, The Smiths, Oingo Boingo, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, The Cure, The Police, Pet Shop Boys, Depeche Mode, XTC and The Dead Kennedys.
Asked about his favourite Bowie number, Flowers replied: “From the ‘Young Americans’ sessions, there’s a song called ‘It’s Gonna Be Me’. It’s just a holy song. It’s not one of the most well-know Bowie songs, and I’m not just saying it to be cool, but I think you should check it out.
It’s Gonna Be Me (Without Strings) – 2016 Remastered Version It’s Gonna Be Me (Without Strings) – 2016 Remastered Version, a song by David Bowie on Spotify
Running through other selections, Flowers also revealed that his favourite Morrissey solo album was ‘Vauxhall And I’, and that his favourite Depeche Mode song was ‘In Your Room’. One fan also asked which track he’d recommend by The Cars, to which he replied: “I don’t even have to think about it – ‘Heartbeat City’.”
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In Your Room – Remastered In Your Room – 2006 Remastered Version, a song by Depeche Mode, Alan Wilder, Steve Lyon on Spotify
Speaking of fandom, Flowers also recently revealed an incident in which he “made an ass of himself” in front of Morrissey. Flowers remembered how he served the former Smiths frontman when he worked as a “bus boy” (waiter) at Las Vegas restaurant Spago aged 18.
“[I] served him a mushroom pizza and Earl Grey tea, and I totally made an ass of myself,” Flowers remembered, explaining that he had felt embarrassed by remarking to Morrissey that “mushrooms are really cool.” Donald Trump, family life and group counselling – The Killers tell NME the story behind ‘Wonderful Wonderful’ Flowers went on to describe how the pair hung out again years later at the Sunset Marquis hotel in Los Angeles. “I hung out with Morrissey at this hotel,” Flowers said, “I came in one night at around 11 and everything was kind of shut down, but there was this one little light in the restaurant.” “I grew up just idolising him,” the singer went on to say. “I instantly got excited, obviously, and I ended up getting the courage to introduce myself and stay for a few hours out there with the Moz. It was an incredible experience.”
The Killers release their new album ‘Wonderful Wonderful’ tomorrow (Friday September 22), before embarking on a full UK tour in November.In an interview with Meet the Press moderator Chuck Todd, former Secretary of State reveals she learned about the Bill Clinton-Loretta Lynch "secret meeting" through the news:
"Well, I learned about it in the news," Clinton told Todd in an interview broadcasted on Sunday's Meet the Press. "And it was a short, chance meeting at an airport tarmac. Both of their planes, as I understand it, were landing on the same tarmac at about the same time, and the attorney general's husband was there, they said hello, they talked about grandkids, which is very much on our minds these days, golf, their mutual friend, former Attorney General Janet Reno, it was purely social."
"They did not veer off of speaking about those kinds of very common exchanges," Clinton assured.Storytelling icon J.R.R. Tolkien (January 3, 1892–September 2, 1973) was also among those rare creators with semi-secret talents in a discipline other than their primary realm of fame — but while his original sketches for the first edition of The Hobbit have seen the light of day in recent years, few realize that Tolkien, who self-illustrated many of his famous works, was as much an artist of pictures as he was of words. Unlike other famous authors who also drew but only as a hobby or diversion, including Sylvia Plath, William Faulkner, and Flannery O’Connor, Tolkien approached the visual medium with as much thoughtfulness and imaginative rigor as he did his stories. J.R.R. Tolkien: Artist and Illustrator (public library) collects more than 200 color reproductions, many previously unpublished, of Tolkien’s surviving art in watercolor, pencil, and ink, spanning sixty years of his life — from his childhood drawings to his illustrations for his books to his final sketches, as well as the drawings he created for his own children, his obsessive calligraphy, and his imaginative maps of Middle Earth.
Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull, who edited the volume and who ventured to England to find the exact locations where each of Tolkien’s drawings was created, write in the introduction:
We have long felt that Tolkien’s art deserves to be as well known as his writings. The two were closely linked, and in his paintings and drawings he displayed remarkable powers of invention that equalled his skill with words. His books have been read by countless thousands; most of his art, however, has been seen by only a very few.
Fortunately, a wealth of Tolkien’s art survives, for the beloved author seems to have had “an archivist’s soul,” as Hammond and Scull aptly put it: He kept nearly everything he drew, down to the scraps of paper filled with spontaneous doodles, and carefully tucked his most prized creations into special envelopes which he opened periodically to add captions and inscriptions years after the drawings were made.
One of the most fascinating sections of the book, titled “Visions, Myths and Legends,” explores Tolkien’s drawings for abstract and psychological concepts like wickedness, weirdness, thinking, and time — something on which he had strong opinions.
(Curiously, Tolkien made the above drawing shortly after turning twenty-one, that special “grownupishness” rite of passage.)
J.R.R. Tolkien: Artist and Illustrator is a treasure trove in its entirety. Complement it with Tolkien on fairy tales, the psychology of fantasy, and why there’s no such thing as writing “for children.”At least six people working on a contract won by a public relations firm to educate Pennsylvania voters on the state’s new voter ID law have previously worked for Republican officials.
According to the biographies included with the Bravo Group’s proposal (obtained by TPM through a public information request), Chris Bravacos “helped rebuild the Republican Party in the early 1990s,” Topper Ray served as a press aide to President George H.W. Bush, Jennifer Riley “worked for the Bush/Cheney 2005 [sic] campaign,” Matt Crocco worked on former Gov. Tom Ridge’s campaign, Sean Connolly worked as a spokesman for two Republican attorneys general and Otto Banks served as a Bush White House appointee and consultant to the Republican state committee.
Ten percent of Bravo Group’s $249,660 contract will be subcontracted out to Skylar Group LLC, which has been designated as a “Minority Business Enterprise” by the state of Pennsylvania. The Skylar Group is owned by Banks, who served as deputy assistant secretary for economic development in the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development during the Bush administration. The company will provide outreach to African American and Latino communities as well as translation services, according to the proposal.The Bravo Group said in its proposal that its public relations campaign would specially focus on “populations that may not have an ID – young people, senior citizens and minorities.” The Bravo Group competed with three other public relations companies — Partnership of Packer, Osterling & Smith Inc.; Tierney & Partners, Inc. and Pavone — for the contract.
Bravo Group planned on partnering with various “local and regional minority organizations” to spread information about the new law and said “[w]ord of mouth information from trusted minority community leaders is the most effective way to reach the entire minority voting age population.”
Also in their plans: Holding editorial board meetings with minority media outlets to “discuss voter education campaign and encourage positive/neutral earned media on the voter ID requirement.” They would also partner with “Black/Hispanic radio DJs & TV personalities” and hold major community events in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Harrisburg, Scranton, Allenton and Erie.
The group recommended offering free rides to local PennDOT Driver’s Licensing Centers once a month and partnering with United Ways, senior centers, colleges and universities, members of the general assembly, physicians, newspaper association, churches, social security officies, public transit systems, YMCAs, dental associations and community health centers.
Pennsylvania recently admitted that over 750,000 voters (or over 9 percent of registered voters) lack state-issued identification, a statistic that has Democratic officials pretty worried. One Republican leader in the state has already bragged that the law will help presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney win the Keystone State.
Update: the full proposal is embedded below.
Bravo Group’s Voter ID Education ProposalThe objective of the week for liberals appears to be to make clear Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders is some kind of pariah. Despite how his candidacy has transformed into a phenomenon over the past months, establishment liberals maintain the U.S. senator from Vermont should not be considered a “serious” candidate. They believe it would be a huge mistake if a Democrat with unapologetic socialist leanings won the nomination, especially over Hillary Clinton.
But these cases against Sanders are really arguments against citizens voting their conscience. The uncertainty and dismissiveness toward Sanders serves to silence any critics of the corporate-driven politics entrenched in the Democratic Party. It suggests a fear that Democrats might actually stand against corporate power for a change.
The New York Times reports “alarmed Hillary Clinton supporters” are warning Sanders “would be an electoral disaster who would frighten swing voters and send Democrats in tight congressional and governor’s races to defeat.” Supporters cast Sanders as “unelectable” and attempt to present him as the Republicans’ favored nominee because super political action committees run by operatives like Karl Rove would supposedly prefer to see the Republican nominee run against Sanders.
Liberal columnist Jonathan Chait published what is being touted as the definitive case against Sanders. Another liberal columnist, Michael Cohen, penned a shrill op-ed for The Boston Globe, entitled “Bernie Sanders doesn’t know how politics work.” Vox’s Matt Yglesias urged Democratic voters to take Sanders “seriously,” by which he means it is time to recognize all Sanders has to offer America is “half-baked” plans and populist slogans.
This rhetoric fits a playbook the American liberal class has followed for the past decades. As writer Chris Hedges argued, “The liberal class’ disposal of its most independent and courageous members has long been part of its pathology.” After World War I, and especially after World War II, corporations gradually sought more and more control of the state. Corporations now hold government completely captive and the liberal class, which “purged itself of the only members who had the fortitude and vision to save it from irrelevance,” bears some responsibility.
Those in power expect liberals to police others on the left who would threaten their supremacy. So, when a political elite such as Clinton is faced with a formidable opponent, liberal pundits wittingly or unwittingly devise arguments for why Americans should vote against their interests and support someone who would likely manage government in a manner suitable for the corporate state.
Chait has had off-the-record meetings with President Barack Obama, where he gets to flatter himself with the fact that a president trusts him to represent his views in columns written for Americans. So, let’s focus on deconstructing some of Chait’s arguments against Sanders.
The White House’s favored pundit confesses he does not support Sanders’ policy vision, but even if he did, it would be an “unusually poor time” to make this policy vision the “centerpiece of a presidential campaign.” Democrats, who support Sanders, “risk losing the presidency by embracing a politically radical doctrine that stands zero chance of enactment even if they win.”
Back in October, Chait called Clinton the “all-but-certain Democratic nominee,” and he is panicking because his certainty was wrong. How Chait can claim to know what stands “zero chance of enactment” when he so misjudged the potential of Sanders’ campaign is flabbergasting. But the argument, which most deserves to be challenged, is the notion that Sanders imperils Democrats’ chances in the 2016 election at each level of government because politicians will have to defend his socialist leanings.
Citizens are not managers of democracy. They do not need to concern themselves with political strategy and cynical concepts like “electability.” To the extent that voting actually matters, a citizen’s job should be to vote their conscience. After voting, citizens should participate or return to direct actions and grassroots organizing, which can grow movements that provide the momentum to make enacting policies Sanders supports possible.
Chait refuses to contemplate the role grassroots organizations might play during a Sanders presidency. He does, however, acknowledge Sanders has mobilized a “mass grassroots volunteer army.” Yet, Chait maintains Obama organized volunteers on a larger scale than Sanders, “tried to keep his volunteers engaged throughout his presidency, and that “failed,” which is not true.
Once Obama was elected in 2008, as Rolling Stone’s Tim Dickinson reported, “Obama’s grass-roots network effectively went dark for two months after Election Day, failing to engage activists eager for their new marching orders.” David Plouffe, Obama’s former campaign manager, took the network and made it a part of the Democratic National Committee.
“The move meant that the machinery of an insurgent candidate, one who had vowed to upend the Washington establishment, would now become part of that establishment, subject to the entrenched, partisan interests of the Democratic Party. It made about as much sense as moving Greenpeace into the headquarters of ExxonMobil,” according to Dickinson.
What about the idea that Sanders poses an “enormous obstacle” because Americans respond to “socialism” with “overwhelming negativity”?
Such an argument rests upon a legacy of red-baiting and hysteria toward all things labeled socialist or left-wing. The negativity would not necessarily be impervious to the proposals of Sanders if he was the nominee and the news media had no choice but to constantly cover and discuss his socialist-leaning plans.
Most Americans think the wealthy pay “too little in federal taxes” and back a tax hike. A majority supports a single-payer healthcare option. Citizens want programs like Social Security expanded, not cut. Half of Americans support government funding of federal campaigns to address the problem of corporate and special interest influence in elections.
What Chait’s argument really amounts to is an argument that Democratic Party politicians and the operatives who run their campaigns would be uncomfortable with talking openly about socialism because that would alienate the corporate interests they have cozied up to in order to win elections.
To demonstrate this is the case, read this glorious excerpt from the Times about how petrified the Democratic National Committee is by Sanders:
House Democrats got a taste of those challenges last fall. As many of their candidates met in Washington with consultants, donors and reporters, word leaked that Mr. Sanders was to give a speech explaining what it means to be a democratic socialist. “We had candidates and consultants calling us, emailing us, saying: ‘What do we say about this? How do we explain this?’” recalled a House Democratic official, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to intervene in the presidential race. The official drafted a mock question-and-answer memo. “Senator Sanders has caught fire in the Democratic primary. He is a democratic socialist. Are you a democratic socialist?” went one of the questions. “No,” was the recommended response. Another question asked the difference between a Democrat and a socialist. Candidates were urged to express pride in being a Democrat but also belief in capitalism and small businesses, “the engine of our economy.”
Democrats, along with President Obama’s administration, have spent the last eight years protecting capitalism from populist calls for reform, which would diminish the power and influence of corporations. The Affordable Health Care Act was a prime example, where Medicare for All was immediately taken off the table, and the political party manipulated citizens into believing requiring private insurance companies to offer insurance to all consumers was the best that could be accomplished.
It is one thing to vote for Hillary Clinton and other Democrats, who are more than happy to serve the moneyed elite, if you actually believe in what she stands for as a presidential candidate. But it is quite another thing to delude people into voting for her simply because it is your view that Bernie Sanders’ vision is difficult to make a reality. That position accepts the status quo and embraces a politics of low expectations, where the best elected officials can do is triage the effect of wealth and power becoming more and more concentrated in the hands of the few.The 18-year-old defendant, Jeffrey Jones, flipped a coin provided, at the judge's request, by John Jordan, an assistant district attorney, according to court officials. They said Michael Muscato, a Legal Aid Society lawyer who represented Mr. Jones, had told the judge that he had no change.
Before that Judge Friess had told Mr. Jones that ''I'm prepared to allow you to decide your own fate and, if you're a gambling man, I'll permit you to flip a coin for that purpose.''
Mr. Morgenthau said Mr. Jordan had sought a one-year term for the defendant and had only provided the coin, reported to have been a quarter, because he was asked to do so by the judge.
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However, Mr. Morgenthau added, when the judge asked the assistant district attorney if he wanted to observe the coin flip, Mr. Jordan demurred and said he ''did not want to have anything to do with it.''
Mr. Jordan, who joined the Manhattan District Attorney's office last August, filed a report with his superiors. Mr. Jones was arrested last October at 14th Street and Union Square in connection with a pickpocket incident. He was to have appeared in court Dec. 17, and when he did not, a fugitive warrant was issued. Last Tuesday he was apprehended and taken before Judge Friess. Guilty Plea to 'Jostling'
He pleaded guilty to ''jostling'' - a misdemeanor that could bring a penalty of up to a year in prison, and this, Mr. Morgenthau said, was what Mr. Jordan had sought. According to court officials, the judge initially felt that probation for three years was warranted in the case.
However, the court officials said, Mr. Muscato informed the judge that Mr. Jones already was on one-year probation for a similar misdemeanor offense and would prefer to ''do a short sentence.'' It was at this point that the judge introduced the coin-toss idea, the officials said.
The court papers gave Mr. Jones's address as ''1805 Beach Avenue, New York, N.Y.'' and also indicated that he lived in Manhattan. The address is not listed in city street directories.
When Judge Friess was censured last year for housing an accused murderer because, he said, she had virtually no money and no place else to stay, the Judicial Conduct Commission held that while he was ''motivated by compassion,'' he had shown ''extraordinarily poor judgment and a serious misunderstanding of the role of a judge in our legal system.''
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Judge Friess was appointed by Mayor Koch and sworn in as a Criminal Court judge in June 1979 and served in Brooklyn before being transferred recently to Criminal Court in Manhattan.Usually when a sound bite regarding Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) makes its rounds on the Internet, promotion president Dana White is behind the piece of information being distributed to those within the mixed martial arts (MMA) media.
Not this time.
Just last week, part-owner of UFC, Lorenzo Fertitta, took the stage at "The Leaders Sport Summit" in London, England, to discuss a smorgasbord of business topics regarding the premier MMA company in the world.
UFC and World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) have drawn comparisons ever since the Fertitta brothers purchased the struggling UFC in 2001. Lately, the two have been mentioned in the same breath due to both creating its own versions of an over-the-top network and seemingly never ending rumors regarding the potential cross-promotion of Brock Lesnar and/or CM Punk.
In this portion of the interview, Fertitta explained what UFC did, in fact, learn from Vince McMahon and Co. while trying to get its feet on stable ground.
"It wasn't about their product, it was about their business model, they had become very astute at selling their product and getting people to buy pay-per-views (PPV) by using free television. When we started, we had no traditional free press. Nobody was covering us, no one took us seriously as a sport. Therefore we had to turn to the WWE model which was, they have Monday Night Raw, Thursday Night Smackdown, which were television shows that told a story, and the story was trying to convince you to transact on Sunday night on PPV. So we said look, it's going to take awhile for the free press to cover us, we don't have that long to wait, therefore we must buy our way on TV, get on that free-to-air format, tell our story, let the fans know who these fighters are and convince the fans to buy the PPV on Saturday night. So looking at their business plan was the key."
Relations now between WWE and UFC are cordial, if not sometimes complimentary, but this wasn't always the case according to the Chairman of the Nevada Resort Association.
"The other key for us early on is we needed to position ourselves against WWE, because at the time back in 2001, they were big in the United States, big around the world, we were very small, so our tagline was 'as real as it gets,' because WWE is fake, so we wanted to position ourselves away from them and I think that worked to our advantage. Of course, real combat, real fighting is obviously more attractive to the adult."
Adults aren't the only age group drawn to UFC. Fertitta attributes the growth of his company to the way it presents itself to those initially intrigued by what they see.
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ios Solomos inspired by the Ottoman siege of the city of Mesolonghi in the 1820s), barricaded themselves in and, using laboratory equipment. constructed a radio station that repeatedly broadcast across Athens this message:
This is the Polytechnic! This is the Polytechnic! This is the radio station of the free struggling Greeks. Down with the junta, down with Papadopoulos (the junta leader), kick the Americans out, down with fascism, the junta will be brought down by the people… People, come out to the streets, come to support us and you will find your freedom…
The female voice of that message which was repeated over and over again belonged to Maria Damanaki. She was then a member of the Communist Youth (KNE). After the fall of the colonels’ regime, Damanaki became an MP with the Communist Party (KKE) and then with the more progressive Leftist party, Synaspimos (Coalition of the Left) of which she also became leader between 1991 and 1993. In 2003 she resigned from Synaspismos and when George Papandreou succeeded Costas Simitis to the leadership of PASOK (January 2004), she decided to join with him. That decision came despite the fact that after her departure from Synaspismos she had ruled out the prospect of her joining PASOK. After several years as a PASOK MP, Damanaki was nominated as the representative of Greece in the European Commission and on 27 November 2009 was appointed as the Commissioner for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries. Since the 1973 student uprising, this iconic figure of the Polytechnic generation has managed to travel across the political spectrum, from the communist left hardliners to the practically liberal PASOK. And, just recently, in May 2011, I was totally disappointed to see her participating in the blackmailing game of the government in order to pass another round of austerity measures. “Either we agree with our creditors on a programme of tough sacrifices and results, undertaking our responsibilities to our past, or we return to the drachma” she said, being the first senior Greek official to raise that possibility.
The Athens Polytechnic campus courtyard in the aftermath of the student uprising
Her statement shocked Greeks, a lot resigned from their objections, Athens saw the biggest demonstrations in decades, but the measures were passed as Memorandum No2. It didn’t sound as sweet as that young girl’s voice which was so thirsty for freedom. Here’s how sweet it was:
Another originality of this year’s celebrations is that, for the first time, the Minister of Education, Anna Diamantopoulou, will not visit the Polytechnic in order to lay a wreath in the memory of the students who died. The crowd would probably attack her physically not only because she is a member of this government but especially because she introduced the new Education law that caused so many reactions. And guess what! If she’d go, she wouldn’t be in a university asylum anymore. Anna Diamantoulou said in a statement: ”Respecting the Polytechnic means, above all, respecting the truth. And the truth is that, under the circumstances which have been created by the non-democratic actions of some dynamic minorities in the past years, there is absolutely no point to lay wreaths accompanied by either the police or the party supporters.”
As my friend Ioanna commented, “What’s her problem? Everywhere she is going, she is accompanied by cops or party dogs anyway.”
Students hold up letters reading “FREEDOM” from the Polytechnic rooftop
Kostas Kallergis is a freelance journalist in Athens. Read his blog When The Crisis Hits The Fan to learn more about what’s really going on in the birthplace of Western democracy.
Would you like to know more? Read Mark Ames’ “Austerity & Fascism in Greece: The Real 1% Doctrine.”Flavio Briatore thinks Ferrari has made a mistake by not signing Max Verstappen for the future. Dutchman Verstappen, 20, is regarded as a definite champion of the future, but he has been signed up by Red Bull through 2020. Before that happened, Ferrari re-signed the Finnish veteran Kimi Raikkonen for 2018.
"I don't know what (Sergio) Marchionne will do, he is unpredictable," said Briatore. "But with Raikkonen you will never win the constructors' title," the Italian and former Renault team boss told Rai radio. "To win you need two good drivers, and Ferrari does not have that," he insisted. "I would sign Verstappen with my eyes closed. He is the only real driver that people want to see -- a gladiator that they do everything to penalise in every race," he added. Briatore also hailed Lewis Hamilton's 2017 title triumph, saying: "This year he was more motivated on the track than in the disco."
Meanwhile, F1 legend Niki Lauda thinks Ferrari president Marchionne was right to say that driver mistakes cost Ferrari the chance to beat Hamilton. "I know Sergio well and like me he says what he thinks, although sometimes I'm a little more diplomatic," the Mercedes team chairman told La Gazzetta dello Sport. "But I understand. They lost the championship -- it's right to be critical." (GMM)While Sony's extremely limited theatrical release of The Interview could end up costing the studio millions of dollars in lost ticket sales, all the publicity seems to have done wonders for the DVD sales of another movie that prominently features a North Korean dictator.
DVD copies of Team America: World Police, the 2004 comedy by South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, are now sold out on Amazon, Best Buy and Walmart.
The Interview drew immediate comparisons to Team America for being one of only a handful of films that skewered a living dictator at the time. In Team America, Parker and Stone use a cast of marionettes to lampoon former North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, a host of Hollywood celebrities and American jingoism.
After Sony scrapped the release of The Interview, several smaller chains and independent movie theaters opted to screen Team America on Christmas day instead. But Paramount quickly nixed those plans, presumably out of fear of retaliation from Guardians of Peace, the shadowy hacker group that brought down Sony and has ties to North Korea, according to the U.S. government.
All of the notoriety surrounding The Interview has turned the decision to view what many critics characterize as a screwball stoner comedy into something of a political statement. Over 39,000 IMDB users have collectively given the movie an average rating of 9.9 out of 10 despite the fact that it has only been screened for critics. Many of the critics who have actually seen the movie have a rather different opinion; the film's Rotten Tomatoes rating currently sits at 52%.Having been engaged in fierce battles against each other for over a year in Afghanistan, Islamic State and Taliban militants have agreed a truce to counter US-backed forces in the region, military officials told American media.
Afghan government forces have been using the rivalry between Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) and the Taliban to push the latter’s forces back from the territories under their control. But several months ago the conflict died out as the two terrorist groups seemed to have reached a shaky truce, Afghan officials say.
“They [IS] fought deadly battles with the Taliban before. But over the past two months, there has been no fighting among them,” the Wall Street Journal cites Mohammad Zaman Waziri, who commands Afghan troops in the east of the country, as saying.
The truce enabled Islamic State to regroup and concentrate on engaging Afghan forces in Nangarhar and Kunar provinces, which used to be an Al-Qaeda stronghold, media report.
NATO-trained Afghan forces only control about two-thirds of country’s territory, overrun by Taliban https://t.co/bEzKWLvfzF — RT (@RT_com) July 29, 2016
Infiltration of Islamic State emissaries into Afghanistan began last year. Apart from spreading the group’s influence into new territories, IS has pursued a policy of gaining control of heroin production in Afghanistan and trafficking it via territories controlled by the terrorists.
After the Russian task force in Syria launched a vast air campaign against IS targets and struck a heavy blow to its oil infrastructure, officials say that the issue of controlling heroin routes became even more important for the terrorist group. According to the Russian Federal Drug Control Service (FSKN), terrorists have been making $1 billion a year from Afghan heroin.
The Taliban has been around in Afghanistan for the last two decades while IS emerged as a terrorist group in 2014. Though the Al-Qaeda offshoot treats other extremist groups in the region with skepticism, it has opted for a “non-aggression pact” with IS.
#Kabul LATEST:
- Death toll climbs to 80
- 230+ injured
- ISIS claims responsibility https://t.co/EF3DIzeeo5 — RT (@RT_com) July 23, 2016
IS claimed responsibility for the recent terrorist attack in Kabul that took the lives of over 80 people.
Militants from the group are also trying to establish contact with Afghan locals by joining prayers in mosques and promoting their beliefs. In the poorest areas they offer salaries to those ready to join their ranks and fight government troops.
“They want to brainwash the youth. They are spreading propaganda against the foreign troops and the government,” the WSJ quoted Malak Khan Bacha, a tribal elder in Sarkani district.
The US command is expanding its operations in Afghanistan by pulling in more troops. American top brass believe it would prove hard for terrorists to maintain a solid peace deal.
“There's still a conflict even though they may have a local ceasefire in place,” said Army Gen. John Nicholson, the top US military commander in the country.
IS claims it has acquired a variety of US weapons and sensitive radio equipment in Afghanistan following recent battlefield victories, posting pictures of documents, photographs and US ID cards online. The weaponry allegedly belonged to American soldiers, but none was captured in the area at the time, according to the Military Times.
Middle Eastern affairs expert Ali Rizk said that “a larger percentage of Taliban would be supportive of some kind of informal alliance or a ceasefire with Islamic State.”
Rizk told RT: “Of course, the Taliban leader, Akhtar Mansuri, is considered to be quite right-wing, maybe closer to Daesh (IS) than some other elements (within the group).”
The biggest loser in this situation is the Obama administration, which “has invested a lot in Afghanistan,” the expert said.
“For Obama, to leave office with there being some kind of alliance between a part of the Taliban and IS that’s’ a very big setback because Obama always said that it was his war as opposed to Iraq, which he objected to,” Rizk said.McCain Adviser: Strategy Was Simply Stay In Game
Sen. John McCain swept the so-called Potomac Primary Tuesday night, winning Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C.
It's a striking contrast to last summer, when McCain's presidential campaign was on life support. He had no money, and staffers were leaving in droves.
Among the few advisers who stayed — and helped orchestrate the senator's resurgence — is the same man who helped George W. Bush crush McCain's first presidential campaign in 2000: senior adviser Mark McKinnon.
But even after scoring big gains Tuesday, McCain may not have the nomination sewn up. Many Christian conservatives say they need to hear more before rallying around the party front-runner.
Michele Norris talks with McKinnon about the challenges still facing McCain — and about why McKinnon once said he will not work for the campaign if Sen. Barack Obama is the Democratic nominee.
McKinnon says the strategy that propelled the campaign from last summer's doldrums to Tuesday's big sweep was, simply, to "stay in the game."Based on a recommendation from its emergency committee today, the World Health Organization (WHO) said Zika virus infections and related microcephaly cases no longer constitute a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC), and efforts to battle and research the disease will now be folded into the WHO's regular work, where it will receive high-level attention and more sustained funding.
Today's meeting was the committee's fifth since recommending a PHEIC in February, not for the disease itself, which is typically mild in the roughly 30% of infected people who show symptoms, but for the unusual clusters of microcephaly cases in Brazil that emerged as the outbreak unfolded, which had never been seen before.
Focus on long-term response
At a media briefing today, Peter Salama, MBBS, executive director of the WHO's new Health Emergencies Program, emphasized that experts aren't downgrading the importance of Zika virus or its complications. He said the move is rather an acknowledgement that the virus will be an endemic threat in many countries.
"Zika is here to stay," he said, adding that WHO Director-General Margaret Chan, MD, MPH, has accepted the group's recommendation.
David Heymann, MD, who led the Zika emergency committee, said a key factor in today's PHEIC step-down was that researchers have now demonstrated an association between the virus and microcephaly with its constellation of neurologic defects. He said the initial declaration helped galvanize an intensive response, especially research into the disease and related birth defects. Heymann is an infectious disease epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
He said the emergency committee worried that calling off the PHEIC might signal an urgency downgrade to the public, but he said today's action escalates the importance of Zika response within the WHO's programs.
Heymann said the emergency committee's recommendations, addressing several long-range issues such as reproductive health and public health surveillance, are still in place and will be internalized into the WHO's main programs.
Microcephaly link established, but questions remain
Salama said now that the link between Zika and microcephaly syndrome is well established, health officials know that they can expect to see the disease in more countries, with more microcephaly cases. He added that there are still many unknowns that require more research.
"There's lots of work still to be done on Zika. That's the message we want to leave you with today," Salama said.
Heymann said the committee heard detailed reports today from outbreak countries, including Brazil, where a probe into unusually high microcephaly levels in the northeastern part of the country has still not revealed any related cofactors, such as infection with other flaviviruses or environmental factors. However, he said those investigations take a long time and will continue.
In a related development, Brazil today released a statement maintaining its Zika health emergency, a move Heymann said is appropriate. He added that the WHO's ending of the PHEIC doesn't preempt other countries from keeping or declaring national emergencies, a step that typically triggers more resources and efforts to battle a disease.
Florida cases, vaccine funding, Cambodia case
The Florida Department of Health today added four locally acquired Zika cases to its total and one to its "undetermined" category, meaning the exposure location is unknown. Three of the local cases are in Miami-Dade County resident, and one involves a traveler from outside the state. All were exposed in Miami-Dade County. The undetermined case involves a Florida resident. The state now has 234 locally acquired cases and 15 undetermined cases.
The United Kingdom's Department of Health announced today that six Zika vaccine projects are among 26 vaccine efforts that will receive $150,700,000 in funding. Other diseases targeted by the funding group include Ebola, Q fever, Crimean Congo hemorrhagic fever, Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV), plague, and chikungunya.
Cambodia today announced its first Zika case in 6 years, involving a 44-year-old man from Kampong Cham province, Xinhua, China's state news agency, reported. Findings were confirmed by the Pasteur Institute office in Cambodia, and the health ministry urged people, especially pregnant women, to avoid mosquito bites. Other Asian countries have also reported recent Zika spread, such as Thailand, Vietnam, Myanmar, and Singapore.
See also:
Nov 18 WHO statementDon’t believe Theresa May when she says she won’t call an election this year. I’ve shadowed this new Prime Minister for many years and I know how she works.
Those who think she is too risk averse are misjudging her – she does take risks, she just takes care to calculate them first. Nor is she too committed to an election in 2020 – I’ve watched her do many strategic u-turns over the years.
Labour is kidding ourselves if we think we have four years to sort ourselves out – we need to be ready fast.
Here’s what I think Theresa May will do.
All summer she will work relentlessly on the European negotiation plan. She will continue to say she doesn’t want an election before 2020 – she won’t want expectations rising so that, unlike Gordon Brown, she isn’t boxed in.
But she will also prepare. Because remember that she only has a majority of 12. That means if things get tough – especially on Europe – she will have to compromise and do deals to get things through. Theresa May is far too stubborn and self-reliant to want to be dependent on deals with hostile backbenchers (Especially Michael Gove or George Osborne).
Think how tempting it will be for her to set out her negotiating strategy and then ask the country give her a strong mandate to go and negotiate with Merkel, Hollande, Junker and the rest – a patriotic appeal to the British people to back her in a tough negotiation.
As for timing? She will want several months to look Prime Ministerial and draw up her plans. She will want to enjoy the adulation of Tory party conference (especially following Labour’s conference the week before). Then she will be very attracted by getting her own mandate in an election in the first week in November (same timing as the Police and Crime Commissioner elections that she brought in four years ago).
Of course if events have blown her off course by then, if the EU negotiating strategy looks too difficult, or most important of all, if the economy is in recession by the Autumn, then she will stay put.
But if the economy is in gradual decline instead, then she may want to get an election over before it gets worse.She will reflect on the lesson not just from Gordon Brown’s failure to hold a swift election in 2007 before the financial crisis fully kicked in, but also Jim Callaghan’s failure to call an election in the autumn of 1978 before the winter of discontent lost him the election the following spring.
So yes, Labour should be very worried about a General Election this Autumn. And we have to get our act together now.
We need to be strong enough and credible enough to oppose this new Prime Minister and to beat the Tories in a General Election too. I don’t believe Jeremy Corbyn can do that. I don’t believe even his biggest fans can imagine him in 10 Downing Street, and he has been unable to hold a team together. To be honest, I don’t believe Jeremy even wants to be Prime Minister. That’s why we need a swift leadership election now.
With times as serious as these, and stakes as high as they are, we need a single unity candidate who can draw a strong team together to take on the Tories – something Jeremy has not been able to do. Angela Eagle and Owen Smith have both launched their campaigns – both are very talented and could do the job.
But I don’t want us to spend the next few months with the two of them arguing with each other, especially when on so many issues they agree. This should be sorted by the end of Monday. Artificial rows between their two campaign teams will distract from the really big choice facing the Labour Party; do we pull together with a new leader and strong team determined to take the Tories on and fight to win a General Election, or do we carry on with the chaos and division under Jeremy which is letting Labour voters desperate for a Labour Government down.
Theresa May has shown there is already a massive gap between her One Nation rhetoric in Downing Street and the reality of her very right wing cabinet. With our NHS in crisis and junior doctors already demoralised, Jeremy Hunt remains in post. With our international reputation at risk and diplomatic efforts needed more than ever, we have Boris Johnson as Foreign Secretary. Theresa May and this team are beatable. Her promises on the steps of Downing Street are already unravelling, so we can do it. But only if we can all pull together around a new leader fast.
Yvette Cooper is MP for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford“I CAN’T breathe!” chanted hundreds of people throughout New York and around the country yesterday. The peaceful protests were in response to a grand jury decision not to indict Daniel Pantaleo, a Staten Island police officer, for killing Eric Garner after placing him in a chokehold in July. The chant is a reference to Garner’s final words before he died. The chokehold—recorded on the mobile phones of bystanders—is a manoeuvre that is banned by New York police. For many protesters, Garner’s death and Mr Pantaleo’s freedom simply reinforce the view that America’s criminal justice system is racially biased.
The timing of the verdict, less than two weeks after a grand jury decided not to indict a white police officer for killing an unarmed black man in Ferguson, Missouri, only burnishes this belief. Eric Holder, the attorney-general, has promised that the Department of Justice will investigate the Garner case. Earlier this week, he announced that the DoJ will soon offer new guidelines to law enforcement "to help end racial profiling, once and for all." He delivered his speech from Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, where Martin Luther King Junior famously preached.
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As the administration casts about for ways to build trust between police departments and the public, they would do well to look at what is happening in Camden, New Jersey, a poor city that once had the reputation for being America’s most dangerous. Camden disbanded its police department about 18 months ago, installing a new county unit in its place. Crime has since fallen considerably. Murders dropped by 49% to 31 between 2012 and 2014 (January 1st through November 30th). Shootings have been halved, robberies and rape are down by a third, and other violent crimes are down by a fifth. In a population of around 77,000, 35 fewer mothers are now burying their sons each year.
What is Camden’s police force doing right? At the most basic level, the city has returned to old-style policing. Instead of using squad cars, officers now patrol their beats on their feet in pairs (or on bicycles). They knock on doors and introduce themselves, and learn the names of people in a neighbourhood. “Nothing builds trust like human contact,” says Scott Thomson, Camden’s police chief. Locals can be a great source of information about where the problems are, he adds, “but that’s not going to happen without trust.”’
The culture within the police department has also changed. “Two years ago, if you had 12 officers show up for work on a Friday night, you’d be lucky,” recalls Louis Cappelli, head of the county’s governing board. “That’s no exaggeration.” It used to take around an hour for police to respond to a call for help; now it takes less than five minutes. Officers are also trained to understand they are guardians, not warriors. “They are far more like a social worker than they are a crime fighter,” says Mr Thomson. The department is also now working closely with other departments in the region, as few crimes are purely local. When drug dealers used to prowl Camden’s streets, nearly 80% of the buyers came from the surrounding suburbs.
Around Camden, the effects of this approach can be felt right away. During a visit a few years ago, a community organiser warned me that I probably wouldn’t be safe even if I drove around town. At the time the city had 175 open drug markets. But now, with bullets no longer whizzing by, children can be seen walking to school and playing in parks once dominated by drug sellers and addicts. Adults walk to the shops without fear. “Residents were desperate for police protection,” said Mr Cappelli. Would-be criminals think twice about carrying weapons as they are more likely to run into an officer. The McDonald’s across the street from police headquarters is now once again a place to buy burgers, not crack. Camden’s waterfront is safer than Harvard Square, boasts Mr Thomson.
Arrests have gone up, mostly for quality-of-life infractions. But officials insist their main tack for preventing crime is through building community relationships. Officers are not only more visible on the streets, but also more engaged with their neighbourhoods. They play sports with residents and organise crowd-pleasing events like a Thanksgiving turkey give-away. The police department had already invested in some new technologies, such as gunshot detectors and surveillance cameras in particularly high-crime areas. Some officers are also experimenting with wearing body cameras while on duty. But the city has found that these tools only work if there are boots on the streets too.
Crime is down in Camden, but there is still much to do. Poverty remains pervasive: the city has the poorest ten square miles in the country. Barely half of all students finish high school. Still, there is much to cheer. Camden’s safer streets are already luring new investments. Philadelphia’s 76ers, a professional basketball team, is moving its training facilities and front-office operations across the river to Camden. Plans for new shops and restaurants are in the works for the surrounding area. Things are certainly looking up for Camden. Ferguson should be so lucky.The Netherlands is a a country in Western Europe on the North Sea. The land is flat and low-lying, much of it below sea-level. The climate is temperate with cool summers and mild winters. Rainfall is spread evenly thorughout the year. Horticulture and diary farming are important. It is the leading producer of natural gas from the North Sea. Economy is mainly based on international trade and manufacturing. Finan-cial services and tourism are important.
The 16.100.000 inhabitants live in an area of about 42.000 square kilometers. The language spoken is Dutch; most of the population has a working knowledge of English. In the larger cities also Turkish, Maroccan, Chinese and Papiamento can be heard.
The Netherlands is so much more than just Amsterdam and Holland. Amsterdam is beautiful and justifiably popular with foreign travelers but you have to leave the city to see other Dutch stereotypes such as windmills at Kinderdijk and Zaanse Schans, tulips in Keukenhof, and Rembrandt’s Leiden.
We love to explore Amsterdam on foot while eating pancakes along the way. We get sporty with the Eleven Cities Skating Tour. We visit the Anne Frank House and save time by making online reservations. We save on sightseeing and show you how to enjoy Amsterdam even when on a tight budget.History, moving more slowly than today’s electronically empowered gossip, keeps revealing the disconnect between morals and manners. But oddly, it is the manners violations that often cause downfalls. Provided that the moral transgression is not too creepy—usually meaning that it involves children, prostitutes, public bathrooms, pornography, or some pithy combination—astonishing comebacks have been made by means of a penitent but dignified demeanor.
Manners transgressions have always been harder to live down. A single instance of screaming doomed the 2004 presidential campaign of Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean. Gaffes that smacked of jeering, bullying, or defaming brought down many a political career. There is only so much credibility left in the Context Excuse—claiming that you didn’t say what you are recorded to have said, which is being replayed all over the internet.
So why did so many citizens elect a president of the United States who unabashedly—even proudly—violated those expectations?
Some claim that they voted for reasons in spite of such personal behavior. But in listening to the partisans’ spirited enthusiasm, it is impossible to escape the realization that for many, it was because of such behavior.
This is a startling change. We now know about crude behavior on the part of past presidents, including Lyndon Johnson, John F. Kennedy, and others, going back in time, as history keeps being unearthed. But these transgressions were not widely known by the public in their respective times.
Nevertheless, in spite of the glamorization of outlaws and gangsters, people do not naturally think that their leaders should violate the standards to which they subscribe. We still pay obeisance to virtue. What has happened is that the virtues have been redefined.
We now have Alternate Virtues:
1. Authenticity (formerly Vulgarity)
This is a newly popular concept, born of disillusionment. So many public figures have been caught doing or saying something hypocritical that paragons no longer seem plausible. So if you know enough dreadful things about someone, perhaps you have hit bottom and will be spared the shock of further revelations.
2. Frankness (formerly Discretion)
Speaking one’s mind has come to be considered praiseworthy, regardless of the quality of what is expressed. Wholesale insults of segments of the society had generally been considered unfit for public consumption, however sincerely felt, but now the sincerity is the important part.
3. Honesty (formerly Respect)
This is the person-to-person version of saying it all. Nobody is in favor of dishonesty, but the pre-social media era, when people were told that their personal problems were all due to a lack of communication, spread the idea that there was something admirable about insulting people to their faces.How do we change as people? Why do we change as people? This work is intended to be an earnest discussion of the realities of personal change. As examples I have included some of my personal experiences of change.
I start off with a look at cognitive dissonance, and then move on to personal change through: trust, choice, experience, statistics, and motivation. Along the way I touch on a number of factors that can hamper change, including the important discrepancy between personal experience and statistics.
Dissonance
I think my use of the term dissonance is slightly different from its common use. I define dissonance as the emotional/intellectual state that comes about because of a difference between different cognitive entities. These entities include personal experience, belief systems, and choices. Two kinds of dissonance are discussed here: action dissonance and experience dissonance.
Action Dissonance
One type of dissonance occurs when your actions are not in alignment with your beliefs. This sort of dissonance often makes a person wish to avoid doing or thinking about the action or inaction around which the dissonance is centered. For change to occur, the person must have the courage to face the disconnect and remedy it. Either by modifying behavior to bring it into alignment with beliefs, or bringing beliefs into alignment with behavior.
I have personally experienced this dissonance at many points in my life. My main example will be when I struggled with the life choice of education vs job. I have struggled with this choice at several points in my life. I believed that I needed to be practical, so I should get a job. This would allow me to help myself as well as my family and friends. On the other hand, I really wanted to learn more and invest in myself as a person.
The most serious dissonance I experienced on this subject was in 2007 shortly after I graduated with my computer science and mathematics degrees. I looked for a job for most of a summer before deciding that I would definitely go back to school to pursue the knowledge that I really wanted. During my job search I constantly struggled to reshape myself so that I would literally “want to work”. These efforts didn’t work, and thanks to a lot of introspection, I eventually turned my back on the workforce and threw myself into school. I am very happy that I did so, and have continued to pursue school and knowledge over money. Thanks to student loans and help from others, I have avoided being destitute so far in my scholarly career.
Experience Dissonance
Another concept that I tend to refer to as ‘dissonance’ is the state of disconnect between a person’s beliefs about the way the world is, and what their experiences tell them about the way the world is. I claim that there is a state that people can end up in where they are clinging to a belief in the face of substantial experiential evidence that refutes that belief. I believe that this state makes it more difficult to live with happiness and without stress. I believe an elastic band is a good metaphor for this, because I believe that a person can be stretched painfully by their attempt to hold beliefs that are very different from what their experience has taught them.
Later on, I get into more specific ways that people maintain a belief system that is out of sync with the real world. If you want a head start on the topic, you can skim the wiki on confirmation bias. The gist is that people may be relatively unaware of the fact that their beliefs are not congruent with reality. Humans are very good at seeing the patterns that we want to, and rationalizing away the experiences/data that don’t agree with our preconceptions.
I personally have experienced this type of dissonance in my life several times. I have found that the best starting point is being honest with myself. I have found that honesty and courage have led me to understanding the disconnects between my beliefs and experience, and in so doing learn how to bring them into alignment. Alignment can be achieved either by a modification of beliefs, a re-interpretation of experience, or a more general perspective that includes the former beliefs as a subset of a larger, more complete and inclusive picture of how the world works.
One of my professors in university taught a concept called the supra-ordinate frame of reference. This is a frame of reference that includes all of the knowledge that you have available to you. For instance, if I were studying psychology, I would not just study what Freud, Jung, and Rogers say in their scientific works. I would read about their lives and the contexts in which they lived. All of this information would be included in the over-arching perspective you are trying to build. This is a perspective that is constantly being refined. When you learn something that goes against your current theory of how things work, you change your theory to include the new facts. The supra-ordinate frame of reference does not exclude knowledge, it considers all knowledge in context. This means understanding how the knowledge was created as well as how it matches up with the rest of the knowledge accumulated. I have found this to be a very useful cognitive tool when used hand-in-hand with a healthy dose of skepticism. Skepticism is still necessary so that I attempt distinguish the high-quality information from all the rest.
Trust
I feel that trust deserves a special mention of its own with regards to personal change. Humans seem to be naturally trusting. Parents can indoctrinate children with almost any beliefs if they are persistent and begin early in the child’s life. Later in life, the experiences of a trusted person can be passed on to us through language and empathy. In such circumstances it is possible for these second-hand experiences to be as powerful to us as our own. I can personally attest to the fact that life experiences passed on to me from friends and relatives of mine have changed my life enormously.
On the intellectual side of things, I have found that my respect and trust of another person causes me to consider their perspectives and beliefs much more carefully than I normally consider those of another person. In the case of a disagreement between my beliefs and theirs, I often run both of our beliefs through a gauntlet of reality-checking as well as my own ethical evaluation. When I say ‘ethical evaluation’ I mean analyzing whether I think the belief is good/true/correct based on what my foundational principles are. In the past this has caused me to realize an unwanted outcome of a belief I held, leading me to reorganize my belief system according to more universal, yet often more flexible, ideals.
The developments of my belief system has consistently led me towards beliefs that I am more happy with, and more confident in. Interestingly, despite my contentment with my beliefs, the practice of scrutinizing them has helped me develop the ability to continuously refine my conception of the world as my experiences (and the experiences of others) teach me more every day.
Choice
When presented with a choice, sometimes the normal heuristics that a person uses for their decisions are not exact enough to lead to a quick answer. I have found that when people face such difficult choices, there are different tendencies depending on the habits they have built up in their lives. Some people prefer to change things as little as possible, having learned that not ‘rocking the boat’ has kept them happy, or at least free from disaster, in the past. Some people will base decisions like these on principles such as social desirability. In a society based on prosociality, making their choice in accordance with what they perceive to be societal norms will usually lead people in a direction they see as safe and rewarding.
A third possibility is embraced by a person who realizes that they need to dig down and discover the answer within themselves. I have found that people begin this process often with questions such as “What do I want?”, which quickly leads to the oft-repeated “What do I want to do with my life?” or “What is the life that I want to live?”. I argue that this last method is the best way to approach such choices because it has the greatest opportunity for personal growth as well as increased feelings of self-worth based on internal conditions of worth. An internal condition of worth refers to a source of self-respect based on beliefs and memories held within oneself. This can be contrasted with external conditions of worth, where your opinion of yourself is determined by external factors, such as the opinion of others.
Statistics vs. Anecdotes
There is a fundamental disconnect between science and experience when it comes to exceptional experiences. The primary language of scientific inquiry and discoveries is that of statistics. The average person is not well versed in the language of statistics. They must generally rely on the interpretation given to them by experts.
Humans have a fundamental inclination to put much more stock in our own personal experience than in statistics or the opinion of an expert. This is rooted in the immediacy and relevance of personal experience. When on the topic of one’s life, the number one authority in terms of knowledge and insight is oneself. No one else experiences my life as directly as I do and has the perspective that I have. Other people can provide extremely valuable perspective, knowledge and commentary based on their own experiences, but their knowledge of who I am and what I have experienced is necessarily incomplete.
A person is more likely to form an opinion based on personal experience rather than on scientific findings. This means that in the world of the individual, the out-of-the-ordinary experiences reign supreme. In science, the knowledge of events such as these |
wski isn’t in the squad and Daniel Amartey hasn't played the position for Leicester. That just leaves Captain Morgan. A miracle recovery would be great right now.
5) We can absolutely do this
With a 1-0 in the home tie, you’d have to consider Madrid favourites. But then, weren’t they that as soon as the teams were drawn? And I’m not saying we should necessarily expect them to turn it around, either.
But it would also be some way off the least likely feats this team has achieved. Two years ago everyone thought we’d be relegated, one year ago there was no way we’d hold on to win the league, a month ago everyone thought we’d be relegated (again) and at half time against Sevilla we were as good as out in the last 16.
It’s not likely we’ll win, but it never has been before and that never stopped us (unless you count our first 131 years of existence, but frankly we were just warming up then).Last night, I went to CBS to record an interview with Katie Couric about the Rutgers tragedy, privacy, and technology.
Couric asked me the same question a half-dozen ways — old reporter’s trick; I’ve used it; I teach it — trying to get me to give her the answer she wanted: that the internet makes this different, that this is a teaching moment, and that we should give our children instruction about the dangers of the internet. I wouldn’t agree that technology makes the essence of this story and its sin different. The lesson is the same as it has always been: the Golden Rule. The sin could have been committed with a Kodak camera or a telephone or a letter, for that matter.
I do agree that the internet adds speed and reach and permanence to a mistake — that, as someone has said, it is a tattoo. But what this story really brings out is a timeless ethic of privacy (which is how I am framing the topic in Public Parts): Privacy is the responsibility of the person who receives information about someone. Once you know something about me, the weight lies with you as you decide how to use that information, whether to spread it, in what light. That came as close as I would to what Couric was aiming for and so this is the clip that made it onto the show.
I also said society bears responsibility in this story. That today anyone would still feel shame about being revealed as gay — full stop — and then would make such a tragic decision is our failing. I told Couric that the gays and lesbians who have summoned the courage to leave their closet and privacy behind to stand before the homophobes — saying, “Yes, I’m gay, you have a problem with that?” — are the heroes who used their publicness as a weapon against bigotry. I made clear to her that I am not suggesting people should be forced out of their closets. But I do believe that the people who have chosen to leave have operated under an ethic of publicness. If the weight of the ethic of privacy lies with the recipient of information — you know information about me — then the weight of the ethic of publicness lies with the originator of information — I know something and must decide whether it would be of benefit to others to share it.
As I left, I tried to tell Couric that media too often look at technology and change and see only danger. This is how the invention of the Kodak camera was treated in the 1890s. More than 500 million people choose to share on Facebook because they see benefit in it and more do so on Twitter and in blogs and YouTube…. Media constantly looks at the edge, the dark edge, jumping on a story such as this to seek out the perils technology brings. Couric protested that they do lots of stories about good things in technology. Every time Steve Jobs does anything, we cover it, she said. But that’s not understanding its value, I argued. I urged her to do a story in which young people who use and understand Facebook explain it to their elders.
We can’t pretend to give young people lessons in the internet if we don’t understand how they see it. For example, I’ve learned lately that young people use Facebook’s Wall to hold conversations in public while people my age use it — with media reflex — as a place to publish or broadcast. Same platform, different uses, different worldviews, different impact. When I was in Berlin talking about publicness and privacy, Renate Künast, head of the Greens in Parliament, said she talked to a young person who took a cooking course instead of an a computer course because in the latter “what the teachers wanted to teach me was something I learned five years ago.” We have things to learn from children about the future, for the future is theirs and they’re building it right in front of us.
But in enduring morals and ethics — the Golden Rules — we parents remain the teachers and I don’t think we give ourselves enough credit for teaching and our children enough credit for learning well. Those rules pertain no matter the medium or the technology in which human interaction occurs. The Rutgers story is not a tale of technology creating tragedy. It is a story of human tragedy.“Do you have any resources for a 15-year-old gay yeshiva high school student?”
It was 2011, and I could hardly believe my ears. I apologized to this desperate mother and offered the small consolation that her son can attend the JQY adult meetings when he graduates high school. (JQY is the largest national non-profit supporting LGBTQ youth and their families in the Orthodox community.) As I hung up the phone, I didn’t feel very good, so I could only imagine how she and her son felt. This was just months after a string of high-profile LGBTQ teen suicides, and the It Gets Better Project had been launched to give LGBTQ youth a message of hope for the future. JQY even created its own "It Gets Better" video for Orthodox gay youth. While the project was well-intentioned, the It Gets Better message tells a drowning child that a raft is coming. Some teens simply cannot stay afloat. It was time to build more rafts.
To put this issue into perspective, according to a 2012 New York Times analysis of the UJA Jewish Community Study, 74 percent of New York City’s Jewish youth are Orthodox. Since there is no reason to think there are different rates of homosexuality or gender variation in the Orthodox community, it follows that 74 percent of New York City's LGBTQ Jewish youth are living in Orthodox homes. This is a staggering statistic considering the amount of homophobia and rejection of LGBTQ people in Orthodox communities. According to The Family Acceptance Project, LGBTQ youth from rejecting families are more than eight times as likely to attempt suicide. Thus, thousands of LGBTQ Orthodox teenagers in New York City are at particularly high-risk and yet have the fewest resources targeting their needs. At JQY we realized that we must step up to provide support to this extremely vulnerable population.
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Establishing a support group for LGBTQ Orthodox teens would prove to be very tricky. Even after navigating the political and financial obstacles, JQY was left with the seemingly impossible task of advertising a program to an unidentifiable and hidden population. When the JQY teen support group was launched in 2012, a few high schoolers nervously shuffled into our meeting space, each one more uncomfortable than the next.
Little by little, the group grew. I am proud to report that last Sunday's meeting had 14 teens in attendance, and many more are part of our virtual social support networks. But it wasn’t the quantitative growth so much as the qualitative. Whereas back in 2012 the first teens were afraid of their own shadow, those present this month were radiating with pride, comfort and love. When I found myself slipping into my teacher voice to quiet down the garrulous youths, I knew we were on the right track.
At the conclusion of the meeting, one young man said, “It was amazing seeing everyone who comes every month, but even more amazing getting to meet our new members of the JQY family.” Family. I had to hold back tears.
The vast majority of JQY teens view the group as their sole outlet to express their true selves, and they refuse to contain this liberating feeling of being “whole persons” to two hours per month. The members have created a texting group so that they can support each other at any time. When a group member in an Orthodox yeshiva was bombarded with anti-gay language in class, he turned to his virtual support community / “new family members” to pick him up and remind him of how amazing and special he is. On the texting group we have a rule that every homophobic slur heard in school will be met with a text that says something nice about the person; the word “homo” never before elicited so much positive self-esteem and love.
JQY teens are creating innovative new ways to support each other, such as these texting groups, virtual safe spaces, and internal referral systems. This month a nineteen-year-old graduate of a prominent gap-year Israel yeshiva helped launch the newest JQY teen resource for Orthodox high school students looking for safe and welcoming post-high school yeshivas in Israel. It is called The JQY Yeshiva Inclusion Project (YIP). Through researching and collecting the experiences of recent gay yeshiva students and the policies of different Israel yeshivas, YIP will be an invaluable tool for gay high school seniors and their parents seeking the best possible choice of yeshiva program in Israel.
Last year I wrote in the Jewish Week that I felt frustrated and discouraged by the lack of supports available to LGBTQ teens in the Orthodox world:
"LGBTQ youth who leave Orthodoxy are not going off the derech. There never was a derech for them in the first place.”
Upon reflection, this statement is lacking. Yes, most of my teens struggle with issues of acceptance in their families, schools, and communities. And yes, many of them don't see a clear-cut "derech" for themselves in Judaism. But that's not stopping them. They're not waiting for Orthodox institutions to create a derech for them. As I marveled at the JQY family these teens have created, I realized something incredible – they are creating their own derech. We just need to follow their lead.
We must urge Jewish communal institutions and federations to empower Jewish queer youth, especially those from the Orthodox community. We need to focus our efforts on being a value-add to the local support initiatives, crisis lifelines, and Orthodox school & mental health trainings that are already taking place throughout the year. We are making unprecedented progress. Yet it is our goal to expand and cultivate JQY teen programming in every Jewish community where rejection is unfortunately an everyday reality.
One of our newest group members summed up her experience: “I’m leaving this meeting with so much hope and happiness in my heart, and this is the first time I ever had an experience like this.” At JQY, we will always continue to provide support and social services so that LGBTQ Orthodox youth experience these amazing feelings every day of the year. That's a task from which we cannot stray.
To learn more about JQY or to make a tax-deductible donation to our teen program visit our website.
Justin Spiro, LCSW received his Masters in Social Work from New York University, with a strong focus on clinical work with adolescents and older teenagers. Justin has worked with teenagers in New York City public schools for the past six years. He is the teen program director for JQY, a non-profit organization that supports LGBTQ Jews in the Orthodox community. Justin has spoken on multiple panels as part of the JQY Speakers Bureau and regularly engages with Orthodox Rabbis and other community leaders. He facilitates the JQY Long Island Teen Group, a safe space for Orthodox LGBTQ teens, and coordinates outreach to Orthodox LGBTQ teens across the country. For more information, visit JQYouth.org, email Justin at Justin.Spiro@gmail.com, or contact our JQY Hope-Line at (551) JQY-HOPE.Intro
Recently, I wanted to add test coverage to Halloween Bash and keep using it in the browser. This doesn’t seem to be an unreasonable request, but it turns out that it involves many things. You have many choices of test runners & testing frameworks, and I didn’t want to setup a SpecRunner.html to unit test my JS.
The setup that I ended up using is:
Gulp (task runner) on top of Node
gulp-jasmine (DOM-less simple JavaScript testing framework)
browserify (require modules in the browser)
What you’ll need:
Your HTML/JS project (You can use my demo project)
NodeJS (I recommend the Installer from the Node homepage – click “Install”)
Try out the demo app that squares your input.
With my demo, my file structure looks like:
index.html assets/js assets/css
There are countless ways to organize your non-html assets, and my demo asset structure is intended to be easy to follow.
My demo contains jquery and two unit testable lib functions (multiply & square):
// define multiply() window.unitTestJsDemo.multiply = function(x, y) { return x*y; }; // define square() window.unitTestJsDemo.square = function(x) { return unitTestJsDemo.multiply(x, x); };
Setup NodeJS & GulpJS
Once NodeJS is installed on your machine, setup your node environment:
npm init
The npm init command will walk you through your project, ask you a series of questions, and setup your configuration in package.json.
Next, setup Gulp via npm on your command line:
// Install gulp globally npm install -g gulp // Install gulp in your project devDependencies npm install --save-dev gulp // Create a gulpfile.js at the root of your project touch gulpfile.js // gulpfile.js file contents var gulp = require('gulp'); gulp.task('default', function() { // place code for your default task here }); // Run gulp default task gulp
You now have Node & Gulp setup to run your Gulp tasks. The default Gulp task doesn’t do anything, but you can try it out by running gulp.
Setup gulp-jasmine
Save gulp-jasmine into your gulpfile.js:
npm install --save-dev gulp-jasmine
Create your tests:
mkdir -p assets/js/spec/lib touch assets/js/spec/lib/multiply-spec.js touch assets/js/spec/lib/square-spec.js
assets/js/spec/lib/multiply-spec.js will contain:
/* jslint node: true */ /* global describe, it, expect */ "use strict"; var multiply_lib = require('../../lib/multiply'); describe("#multiply", function () { it("returns the correct multiplied value", function () { var product = multiply_lib.multiply(2, 3); expect(product).toBe(6); }); });
assets/js/spec/lib/square-spec.js will contain:
/* jslint node: true */ /* global describe, it, expect */ "use strict"; var square_lib = require('../../lib/square'); describe("#square", function () { it("returns the correct squared value", function () { var squared = square_lib.square(3); expect(squared).toBe(9); }); });
Next, we’re going to move the unit testable functions (multiply & square) into node.js-style modules.
mkdir assets/js/lib touch assets/js/lib/square.js touch assets/js/lib/multiply.js
assets/js/lib/multiply.js will contain:
exports.multiply = function(x, y) { "use strict"; return x*y; };
assets/js/lib/square.js will contain:
var multiply_lib = require('./multiply'); exports.square = function(x) { "use strict"; return multiply_lib.multiply(x, x); };
Update your gulpfile.js to run the tests:
"use strict"; // Include gulp var gulp = require('gulp'); // Include plugins var jasmine = require('gulp-jasmine'); // Test JS gulp.task('specs', function () { return gulp.src('assets/js/spec/lib/*.js').pipe(jasmine()); }); // Default Task gulp.task('default', function() { // place code for your default task here }); gulp.task('default', ['specs']);
You’ve created your libs (multiply & square), the lib specs (multiply-spec.js & square-spec.js), and setup Gulp to run your tests with Jasmine.
square.js is setup to use the multiply.js lib through the Node require module syntax. Woot!
You can run the default task, which is setup to run your specs task. It should look like:
$ gulp [16:29:18] Using gulpfile your/path/unit-test-js-demo/gulpfile.js [16:29:18] Starting'specs'... [16:29:18] Finished'specs' after 44 ms [16:29:18] Starting 'default'... [16:29:18] Finished 'default' after 20 μs.. Finished in 0.008 seconds 2 tests, 2 assertions, 0 failures
Great! Your modules are unit tested (feel free to add more tests), and you want to use them in the browser.
Browserify your JS
Up to this point, we’ve been using jQuery through our local file at /assets/js/jquery-1.10.2.min.js. We’ll want to get rid of managing jQuery ourselves and let Node manage our jQuery dependency.
Let’s create a new file for our page’s JS to organize itself around:
touch assets/js/app.js
Add jQuery to your dependencies and remove your local copy of jQuery:
npm install --save-dev jquery rm assets/js/jquery-1.10.2.min.js
assets/js/app.js will contain:
var $ = require('jquery'); var square_lib = require('./lib/square'); $(function() { "use strict"; $("#squareValue").change(function() { var $this = $(this), squareValue = $this.val(), squareResult; // if squareValue is not numeric if (isNaN(squareValue)) { $("#squareResult").html('N/A'); return false; // else squareValue is numeric } else { squareResult = square_lib.square(squareValue); $("#squareResult").html(squareResult); return true; } }); });
Now we need to use Browserify to build our JS file with gulp.
Add Browserify related dependencies into your gulpfile and setup your new task:
npm install --save-dev gulp-uglify npm install --save-dev vinyl-source-stream npm install --save-dev gulp-streamify npm install --save-dev browserify
Update your gulpfile.js to include the new browserify task:
"use strict"; // Include gulp var gulp = require('gulp'); // Include plugins var jasmine = require('gulp-jasmine'); var uglify = require('gulp-uglify'); var source = require('vinyl-source-stream'); // makes browserify bundle compatible with gulp var streamify = require('gulp-streamify'); var browserify = require('browserify'); // Test JS gulp.task('specs', function () { return gulp.src('assets/js/spec/lib/*.js').pipe(jasmine()); }); // Concatenate, Browserify & Minify JS gulp.task('scripts', function() { return browserify('./assets/js/app.js').bundle().pipe(source('all.min.js')).pipe(streamify(uglify())).pipe(gulp.dest('./public/')); }); // Default Task gulp.task('default', function() { // place code for your default task here }); gulp.task('default', ['specs','scripts']);
You’ll notice that we did a few things: declare new modules at the top through require, add a new gulp task called scripts, and update the default task to run our JS specs & scripts tasks.
At public/all.min.js, your new JS is ready to use in your browser.
Let’s remove the old file and update our index.html to use our new minified JS:
rm assets/js/main.js
Remove the following lines from index.html :
< script src="assets/js/jquery-1.10.2.min.js"> < script src="assets/js/main.js">
Add the following line into index.html :
< script src="public/all.min.js">
Voila! Open up index.html in your browser and your square() function is working again.
Conclusion
GulpJS is an amazing tool to run tasks, and the Gulp streaming build system is very easy to read and understand.
There are countless tasks that you can setup on Gulp to lint your JS, compile your sass, etc. Livereload is useful for front end development.
Hopefully, the Unit Test JS demo helped you understand a simple example of using Gulp to run Jasmine unit tests and use the tested JS in your website.Mitt Romney deigned to answer questions about his tax returns today, assuring reporters at a news conference that he had never paid less than 13 percent of his income in taxes in the last decade. That’s considerably lower than the rate many middle-class families pay, but what’s really remarkable is that Mr. Romney now expects the public to accept his word and move on.
He thinks today’s statement is an effective counterweight to Senator Harry Reid’s equally unsubstantiated charge that Mr. Romney paid no taxes in several previous years.
At some level, Mr. Romney doesn’t seem to understand that voters don’t automatically trust the assurances and promises of politicians. He and his wife seem genuinely shocked that they are being pressed to provide paperwork about the details of their financial lives.
“They have to understand that Mitt is honest,” Ann Romney told NBC News this week. “His integrity is just golden.” Why, she seemed to be saying, can’t people see my husband the way I see him? “There’s nothing we’re hiding,” she said.
A long tradition of American political scandal has made voters wary of any candidate’s assertion of honesty. It’s especially important for Mr. Romney to practice transparency given his history of using obscure and extensive tax shelters–unavailable to the wage-earning public.
But more broadly, this haughty trust-me attitude—why can’t we escape these pestering questions and run on our own obvious goodness and decency?—extends to the rest of Mr. Romney’s campaign. He’s not just keeping his old tax returns secret. His tax plan is so vague that analysts can’t score it without making broad assumptions. He won’t admit that his government-contraction program will require cuts to popular programs. He hasn’t told the truth about the difference between Mr. Ryan’s proposed Medicare cuts and President Obama’s, and voters are starting to realize it.
Last week, he released an ad accusing the president of ending the work requirement for welfare that was blatantly false.
If Mr. Romney wants voters to trust him on how much he paid in taxes, he needs to give them better reasons to trust his campaign for president.6:19pm: A source tells Salisbury that a trade sending Giles to Houston is “close” but not done yet (Twitter link).
5:15pm: Major League lefty Brett Oberholtzer, whom the Astros have reportedly been shopping, is also being discussed in talks, tweets Salisbury.
4:16pm: Stark reports that talks currently center around well-regarded right-hander Vincent Velasquez and two other prospects (Twitter link).
2:57pm: Salisbury tweets that the Phillies have pushed back their media session for the day, which could be in relation to talks centering around Giles. ESPN’s Jayson Stark tweets that Lance McCullers won’t be included in a deal for Giles, as the Astros are set on keeping him.
2:28pm: Trade talks between the Astros and Phillies centering around brilliant young closer Ken Giles are “heating up,” reports CSNPhilly.com’s Jim Salisbury (Twitter link). Houston has long been linked to top-flight relief arms, and Giles would not only give the club a dominant arm to slot into the ninth inning but also a controllable option for that role, as he’s not eligible for free agency until after the 2020 season.
Giles, who turned 25 in late September, took over as closer in Philadelphia following the trade of Jonathan Papelbon and continued to display the dominance he’s exhibited since breaking into the Majors upon being moved to a more prominent role. In 115 2/3 career innings, the former seventh-round pick has a masterful 1.56 ERA with 11.8 K/9, 2.8 BB/9 and a 44.6 percent ground-ball rate. Giles’ fastball has averaged just a shade under 97 mph in the Majors (96.8), so he’d satisfy Houston GM previously stated interest in adding a hard-throwing arm that the back end of the Astros’ bullpen presently lacks.
The asking price on Giles, one would imagine, is exceptionally high. The Red Sox paid the substantial price of Manuel Margot, Javier Guerra, Carlos Asuaje and Logan Allen for three years of Craig Kimbrel. While Giles doesn’t have Kimbrel’s lengthy track record of dominance in the Majors, he’s delivered comparable results and comes with two more years of control than did Kimbrel, two of which figure to be near the league-minimum in terms of salary. Giles should narrowly fall shy of Super Two status (he currently has one year, 113 days of Major League service time) and won’t be eligible for arbitration until after the 2017 season.Lately I’ve been getting sick of working with datetimes and timezones in Python. The standard library offers many different conversion routines, but does not prescribe a best practice way to deal with them. Luckily, Armin Ronacher did in his article Dealing with Timezones in Python.
The summary is to never ever work with local datetimes. When a local datetime is input, immediately convert it to universal time and only ever store or calculate with those. Only when presenting datetimes to the end user, convert them to local time again.
This seems simple enough, alright. But to actually do it in Python, you still have to think about how to implement it correctly. Every. Single. Time. pytz does help a bit here, but it still isn’t trivial. It should be.
Meet Times, a very small Python library to deal with conversions from universal to local timezones and vice versa. It’s focused on simplicity and opinionated about what is good practice.
Example use ¶
Imagine you’re building a web app that allows your users to set an alarm. Say that someone in the Netherlands sets an alarm to 9:30 am. You can use times to simplify this:
>>> import times >>> import datetime >>> >>> local_time = datetime. datetime ( 2012, 2, 3, 9, 30, 0 ) >>> universal_time = times. to_universal ( local_time, 'Europe/Amsterdam' ) >>> universal_time datetime.datetime(2012, 2, 3, 8, 30)
Now, this universal_time variable is safe to store or calculate with.
Once you want to show this date to the user again, simply format it for the given timezone:
>>> times. format ( universal_time, 'Europe/Amsterdam' ) '2012-02-03 09:30:00+0100'
If your app allows users to share alerts, it is just as easy to present the alert date to an end user in New Zealand as well:
>>> times. format ( universal_time, 'Pacific/Auckland' ) '2012-02-03 21:30:00+1300'
Current time ¶
If you ever need to record the current time, you can use
>>> times. now () datetime.datetime(2012, 2, 2, 16, 4, 40, 283090)
Which is actually just an alias to datetime.datetime.utcnow().
Converting from other sources ¶
I’ve added the ability to create universal times from two other sources: UNIX timestamps and date strings. To use any of these, simply pass them to the to_universal function, like so:
>>> time. time () 1328729274.982 >>> times. to_universal ( 1328729274.982 ) datetime.datetime(2012, 2, 8, 19, 27, 54, 982000)
Note that UNIX timestamps must be in UTC (which the output of time.time() is). Local UNIX timestamps are not accepted.
To create universal times from string representations, Times uses the advanced parser from the python-dateutil library. Time zones are automatically recognized if such info is encoded in the string representation. In any other case, you are required to provide it explicitly. Two examples to illustrate both variants:
>>> # Timezone-aware date formats don't require a source timezone >>> date_str = '2012-02-08 19:27:54+0100' >>> times. to_universal ( date_str ) datetime.datetime(2012, 2, 8, 18, 27, 54) >>> # Timezone-less date formats require an explicit source timezone >>> date_str = '2012-02-08 19:27:54' >>> times. to_universal ( date_str, 'Asia/Singapore' ) datetime.datetime(2012, 2, 8, 11, 27, 54)
Times is on PyPI (link), so just pip install times to use it.
Of course, you can fork me on GitHub.
As usual, Times is licensed under the liberal terms of the BSD license.
Other posts on this blogNew York’s Department of Financial Services has presented draft regulations for bitcoin trade that are an absolute heap of bullshit, and that’s even before going into what the proposal actually says. The propsed regulations require a so-called “BitLicense” in order to trade in bitcoin with residents of New York and with everybody else in the world. The problem is, that’s an absolute joke from a legal standpoint, completely ignoring the very concept of a jurisdiction.
At last, the proposed regulations for bitcoin trade were published for comments. The bitcoin community has been absolutely furious, but nobody’s going into the fundamentals of the proposal: that it asserts authority over the entire world on the basis of being located in New York.
That’s no more possible – or enforcable – than if the President of Iran asserted authority over the entire world on the basis of being located in Teheran.
Here’s the (proposed) deal: the proposed regulations say that any company, no matter where in the world, doing bitcoin business with a resident of New York must have a so-called BitLicense. The first problem with this is that this BitLicense doesn’t limit itself to regulating the trade between the company and the resident of New York; it asserts authority over any person, no matter where in the world, doing business with that company, which is also located no matter where in the world.
So regulators of New York are asserting authority over trades taking place between a business in Slovenia and a client in Malaysia, based on the idea that the business in Slovenia may also have clients in New York. In technical terms, this is absolute, total bullshit.
To pull a parallel: imagine if Iran determined that any web site offered to Iranians must implement Shari’a laws, not just when offered to Iranians, but when offered to anybody on the flimsy basis that it is also offered to Iranians. This is how batshit insane the asserted authority of the BitLicense proposal is.
I see it as a way to try to deliberately fragment the bitcoin trade into unworkability. If every single patch of land publishes their own requirements for bitcoin trade, and asserts that their requirements apply everywhere, we’ll have an impossible patchwork of 246 legal frameworks that all bitcoin companies must follow, full of multiple contradictions everywhere. It’s nothing short of a deliberate sabotage.
(246 is the number of countries in the world, with the US counted as its 50 states plus DC.)
So while it’s not exactly illegal to assert authority outside of your own jurisdiction like this, it’s completely unenforceable, for the simple reason that when a person in Malaysia trades with Bitstamp in Slovenia, the NYPD has no right to interfere neither in Singapore nor Slovenia. It’s out of their jurisdiction, which literally means that New York doesn’t get to set any rules whatsoever.
But it goes beyond that. The New York regulators don’t have authority to regulate the Slovenian business Bitstamp, or any other non-US business, even for its clients in New York, either. When I choose to do business with a Californian company from my home base in Stockholm, Sweden, I understand and accept the ridiculously fundamental fact that a business in California operates under Californian law, and that Swedish police and justice has absolutely no say whatsoever in how it chooses to operate. Nor does the Swedish judiciary have any say in how I choose to do business with foreign entities, as long as I don’t bring home contraband.
This means that New York regulators are limited to regulating businesses physically operating in New York, and only businesses physically operating in New York. That’s what “jurisdiction” means. That’s what “enforcement” means. New York Police simply doesn’t get to say how a Slovenian business operates, regardless of whether citizens of New York choose to do business with it, on the simple basis that the NYPD doesn’t get to bloody invade Ljubljana.
The entire proposal is bullshit from its assertion of authority onwards.
If you want to go into the insanity of the proposal itself, looking beyond its (complete lack of) authority to regulate, Erik Voorhees has done a nice write-up. Among other things, he observes that “this is not consumer protection. This is explicit surveillance of private citizens who are not accused – nor even under suspicion – of committing a crime.”
This regulation proposal is a deliberate sabotage attempt against the bitcoin ecosystem, and I pledge to treat companies that take part in this attempted sabotage accordingly:
I pledge to never do business with any bitcoin company that submits themselves to this governmental abuse of their own customers, getting this ridiculous New York “BitLicense” and submitting themselves and their customers to a foreign hostile jurisdiction.
Only companies which are physically based in New York – physically based in New York – need care about what New York regulators say. The rest of the world, can, should, and must just plain ignore their silly attempts at bullying.Silkiest Yorkie Mix
10 months old
Neutered and Vaccinated
This playful puppy isn’t all about a game of chase or romping with other dogs. While he finds these things fun, he mostly wants to be wholly loved, cuddled, caressed and gently wrestled with.Gunner has a serious case of the gotta wannas. “I gotta wanna have you!” is what he’s thinking every time he meets somebody new.
Not surprisingly, this comes after 10 months of being cruelly caged in an Ohio Puppy mill. Transported to New York in early August, Gunner quickly learned that people are inherently good and that he most certainly wants one of his very own.
As puppies will do, Gunner plays until he’s pooped, and then he does something rather unique. He strikes his favorite pose – all legs splayed toward the four corners of the globe. All. The. Time. If you’ve ever seen flat pets (life-sized, foam board animal photographs), Gunner does the best impression.
ADOPTED!
Gunner found a super fun household with lots of energetic playtime. And he’s very, very smart so his new pet parent will have to catch him before he roots out a bag of unattended treats.
Ready to play, pay, play, and cuddle, cuddle, cuddle, Gunner loves sitting next to his new person. Congratulations to all involved in making Gunner’s day, week, month, year and long, beautiful life!
gunner The Gotta Wanna Dog http://www.doghouseadoptions.org/wp-content/tn3/2/448.jpg Gunner
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Gunner was part of the Companion Animal Placement Program Inc. (CAPP) with support from Dog House Adoptions.By Matt Becker
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Choosing the right investments within your 401(k) can be confusing.
On the one hand, the limited set of options means you have fewer decisions to make, theoretically making your job a little easier.
On the other hand, those options aren’t always good, which can force you to settle for lower-quality investments than you’d like. And companies don’t always make it easy for you to even figure out what your 401(k) investment options are, making you do the hard work of asking for the information you need and sorting through it on your own.
All of which can be more than a little overwhelming and leave you wondering whether you’re making the best decisions.
But you deserve to make the most of your 401(k), so in this post you’ll learn how to choose the best 401(k) investments available to you.
Quick note: This is a slightly edited excerpt from Investing Made Simple, which guides you through the entire process of creating your personal investment plan from start to finish.
1. Gather the right information
You have to know what your options are before you can make any decisions, so the first step is to contact your Human Resources representative and ask for “a list of my 401(k) investment options and the fees associated with each”.
Sometimes this will be a one-page resource with a simple list of funds and expenses. Sometimes this will be a long document with detailed information about each mutual fund within your 401(k).
No matter what, you need to know what your investments options are and how much each one costs. In particular, you’ll want to know each mutual fund’s expense ratio, as that’s likely to be the most significant cost.
Getting this document will make sure you have that information, and you can always use a website like Morningstar to get even more detail about each fund as well (more on this below).
2. Focus on asset allocation
When your investment options are limited, you may not be able to implement the exact strategy you’d like. For example, it’s often hard to find low-cost international stock market funds within a 401(k), which might be frustrating if that’s something you’d like to include in your plan.
So now is a good time to remind yourself that by far the most important part of your investment strategy (beyond your savings rate) is your overall split between stocks and bonds. That overall balance will do more than anything else to determine your expected risk and return. The specific investments you choose within those categories are not actually all that critical.
All of which means that your main goal should simply be to get your asset allocation right. Here’s a guide that shows you how to figure out what your target asset allocation should be: Asset Allocation: What It Is, Why It Matters, and How to Get It Right.
If your 401(k) allows you to implement the detailed investment strategy you want, then great! But if not, that’s okay. All you really need to worry about is finding one decent stock fund and one decent bond that allow you to match that asset allocation.
3. Check for target date options
Most 401(k)s now offer a lineup of target date retirement funds, which are really just all-in-one funds that give you access to a wide range of investments within a single mutual fund.
These funds aren’t perfect |
many middle-aged faces, his prose would benefit from a little tightening here and there. But these are quibbles, and they should have been addressed by a halfway competent copy editor. Besides, they’re a bit like walking away from a sumptuous banquet and bitching that the shrimp weren’t big enough. No writer is perfect, mercifully, but a few, like Miéville, start with a bang and just keep getting bigger and stronger and weirder and better. That’s as much as any reader has a right to ask of any writer.
Word is getting out of the genre ghetto. Even the Decade-Late Desk at the New York Times gave Miéville the full treatment after the publication of Kraken – an interview in his London home that duly noted his middle-class upbringing, his shaved skull and multiple ear piercings, his degree from the London School of Economics, and his numerous literary prizes. “And,” the article concluded with tepid Gray Lady praise, “his fan base has come to include reviewers outside the sci-fi establishment.”
True, as far as it goes. But the Times article barely touched on what might be the most startling aspect of Miéville’s career to date. Rather than trying to distance himself from the fantasy genre, he has embraced it. Another writer who has done this is Neal Stephenson. “I have so much respect for Neal on that basis,” Miéville once told an interviewer. “I could kiss him. So many writers perform the Stephenson maneuver in reverse. They perform the (Margaret) Atwood – they write things that are clearly weird or in the fantastic tradition, and then they bend over backwards to try to distance themselves from genre.”
Not China Miéville. Which is why I’ve written this mash note – to thank him for helping me see that genre books, that any books, can be great, and for teaching me to quit worrying and just kick back, relax, and realize it’s totally cool to love the monsters.Lost is a timeless story of good vs evil, personal choice vs. slavery, and freedom vs. fate.
As we were told in the beginning by John Locke, ‘two sides, one light, one dark’. The Light Side, as you can probably guess, is the side of Good, Freedom, & personal choice.
On the Light Side we have Jacob. Jacob is the personification of good. His character is based on an archetype that has popped up in every culture and religion since the beginning of time(see Divine Comedy, Paradise Lost, New Testament, Star Wars, and so on). He is compassionate. He is omniscient. He is optimistic. He invites you to his Island. He lives on the beach, having nothing to hide. He believes in and practices personal freedom. He believes in evolution, growth, change, and free will. But Jacob wants YOU to WANT to change. He will give you ‘little pushes’ along the way, like the Apollo Candy Bar stuck in the snack machine, and help you get to the point where YOU are ready to change. He does not lie to you or trick you into making the right choice for the wrong reason. He does not give orders, he ASKS. He asks Sawyer if he wants a pen. He asks Sayid for directions. He asks Jack if the extra candy bar is his. He asks Kate if she’ll steal again. He tells Hurley he has a choice. He ‘offers’ Sun & Jin his blessing. Even when faced with certain death, Jacob tells Ben that he has a choice, that he is not a slave, no matter what Fake Locke has told him. This is a man who does not compromise his principles. They are bedrock. We can analyze what has happened and know if he’s involved based on the method and the motive(more of that later). Most importantly though, Jacob wants wholesale change. He wants mankind to change. He is looking for a macro-event. This evolutionary completion is the ‘only ends once’ scenario that Jacob speaks of on the beach. Everything else is just progress, mankind inching closer to mass enlightenment. But there is opposition.
Thus we have the Dark Side. Nemesis is the personification of evil. His character is based on the timeless archetype of the mischievous trickster. He is not omniscient, rather, he relies on the tools and techniques of man. He believes mankind will not change. He is pessimistic. He is fatalistic. He believes the same cycle will repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat....no change whatsoever. He thinks men will continue to crumble in the face of great challenges, due to ambition, greed, guilt, vengeance, and weakness. But he is not passive like Jacob. Nemesis gets involved. Nemesis tests you. Nemesis tempts you. He learns your weakness and exploits it. Should he present you with a test you’ve failed in the past, and you demonstrate a capacity for change, you are a threat to him. He does not want change to happen. This is his argument with Jacob. Nemesis’ only code is that he has no code. He will lie, cheat, steal, kill, and mass-murder. He will haunt you with your dead relatives. He will exploit you emotionally and psychologically. He finds your weakness and applies pressure. If you’re strong, you must be eliminated...Nemesis can’t have agents of change running around, helping man progress. Nemesis applies this same technique to groups of people. If Nemesis should encounter your group, he will find the weakness. He will test everyone in it, kill the strong, and promote the weak. Infiltrate, divide, conquer, exterminate, assimilate the remaining weak people into a group and hand them orders to follow. Nemesis has one goal in mind: change must not happen.
Thus, we now know the methods of the opposing sides. The Light Side hopes that you’ll make the right decision on your own and gives you the space to do so. The Dark Side will not see around and hope you screw up, The Dark Side makes SURE you have every opportunity to fail. He stacks the deck. He baits you. He tricks you. He CHEATS. He will do whatever he can to avoid the ‘only ends once’ mass-evolution of man scenario that Jacob assures him is unavoidable.
The duality of this conflict is represented in every layer of the show and has been embedded from the start. As the following will demonstrate, the writers have not been winging it...we can all exhale. Change vs Fate has been there from day one. Charlie the drug addict writes ‘fate’ on his knuckles
The Dharma Initiative’s stated goal is to change one number in The Valenzetti Equation, an equation that supposedly predicts the end of the world. They attempt a multi-pronged attack in various scientific fields, each of which seeks change in said field. In Room 23, where Karl was being held, they try to change your mind. They recondition Polar Bears to live in the tropic. They experiment with time-travel. They experiment with The Hawthorne effect, hoping that observation will change the outcome. It’s also important to note, that while there was a lot of building about this scary interrogator in the jungle, they do not torture. They just set you free a little bit and you do the talking. They also vote and confer with each other about major decisions. They do not have a dictatorship, they are peaceful...it’s practically a hippie resort. They are science, they are progress, they are change, and they are aligned with The Light Side. They are agents of change. Thus, for Nemesis, they are a threat.
The Others hate change and choice and personal freedom. They believe in fate and following orders without asking questions. Just ask Ms. Hawking, former leader of The Others, and she’ll tell you that everyone is doomed, that the cycle is perpetual. She believes in this so much that she doesn’t attempt to avoid shooting her own son(Faraday in 1977) even though she’s well aware that her actions will directly lead to it eventually happening. She wants Desmond to press the button...again, and again, and again, and again. The Others do not like change and similarly, they do not like visitors. One of their primary objectives is to ‘protect the Island’ by keeping people away and keeping people from leaving. They want to slow progress down to a halt. They want to stop change dead in it’s tracks. The Others are the weaklings of every group who has come to the Island, hand-selected for their inability to question orders and their lack of fortitude. There is no room for personal choice with The Others, you follow the rules, you obey your superior officer, because as Bonnie states in Through The Looking Glass ‘the minute I start questioning orders, this whole thing, everything that we're doing here, falls apart.’ The Others put Nemesis’ methods into practice. They wear beards and trick you. They lie cheat and steal. They have Ethan infiltrate you. They kidnap your child and use him as leverage. They figure out your weakness, like Jack’s feelings for Kate, and they apply pressure. They manipulate you. The methods of Benjamin Linus are the methods of Nemesis. The Others are, and always have been, aligned with The Dark Side.
Ahh but I can hear your thoughts already...if they follow Jacob, how are they on The Dark Side? Simple. They’re not following Jacob and they never were following him. Jacob has nothing to do with The Others. Jacob does not give orders, Jacob let’s you choose. You can even choose the wrong path if you want, but it’s your choice. So why is it so many of The Others think they’re following Jacob? To answer that, I first have to tell you a story about a literal and figurative ‘loophole’
In 1954, John Locke walks up to Richard Alpert and informs him that he’s from the future, that Jacob sent him, and that he is Richard’s leader. Richard’s eyes light up at the mention of Jacob. This is the birth of the loophole. For the first time in the history of the conflict, Nemesis is now able to level the playing field(for the moment, humor me and pretend that Nemesis knows everything that Richard Alpert knows). He has been fighting a losing battle, going to war with a combatant who knows the future and thus can’t be blind-sided or plotted against. How do you win when your opponent knows everything that will happen? Thanks to time-travel, Nemesis now has the same abilities, albeit they are limited. He now can look into the future. He knows when John Locke will be born. This is his first, but not last, fruit from the tree of knowledge. Daniel Faraday time-jumps to 1977 and hands his mother, Eloise Hawking, a journal detailing all of the events of the next 30 years(This is a rather cheap plot device, how does the journal not reset and become empty? It’s just like the compass and we have no choice but to accept it as rational). It details every single aspect of The Dharma Initiative, a foe that The Others dismantle at the seams. Nemesis, like Jacob in his battle with Nemesis, is now one step ahead of The Dharma Initiative. In turn, Nemesis can now prove to his people, his army of weaklings, that he has communication with a divine source. He tells them that in 2004 a man named John Locke will crash onto the Island. He has the flight manifest from Faraday’s journal. He knows everyone on board. He expands his operations. He follows all of the survivors of Oceanic 815 from birth to 2004. He knows their weaknesses. He knows how to tempt them. He knows how to test them. He knows how to manipulate them. Nemesis has found a way to be omniscient, and he uses this phony power to control The Others. They never meet Jacob, they never see Jacob, but they trust that Jacob is real and they’ve learned that Jacob knows everything. Jacob is not to be questioned. As Mikhail says ‘the man who brought us here is a great, wise man’. But it isn’t Jacob. This is why Ben does not heal. This is why Jaocb says ‘what about you?’ to Ben. Ben was never working for Jacob. Jacob doesn’t give orders, Nemesis does.
So how does Nemesis get his orders out to his weak-minded followers? Well we’ve learned that Ben Linus has never met ‘Jacob’, but rather, receives lists(now you know where the lists come from...phony-omniscience and intel gathering) and orders supposedly passed down from Jacob to Richard Alpert. Thus we know that Nemesis has infiltrated the very top of The Others’ power structure. This leaves us with two options. Either Richard Alpert, like the rest of The Others, has been deceived, or he is a willing participant. I have bad news everyone, we’ve been duped, it’s the second option. Richard Alpert is not only working for Nemesis....Richard Alpert IS Nemesis. One of your first thoughts(other than ‘what the @#&$’) is that we’ve seen Nemesis, imitating John Locke, having a conversation with Richard Alpert. How can one Nemesis be two people simultaneously? In order for me to prove Richard Alpert is Nemesis, I must first prove that Nemesis is more than one person. I call them Team Nemesis.
Dante’s ‘Nemesis’ in ‘The Divine Comedy’ is a 3-headed monster, representing the ‘inverted Christian Trinity’, who cannot create life and thus imitates life. It is a trickster. It lies and cheats. Notice this quote from Mikhail to John Locke in Enter 77. Mikhail: Ha! Don't waste your time. For ten years I have tried to defeat that game. But it was programmed by three grand masters. And it cheats’. Three grand masters who cheat. That, my friends, is Team Nemesis, aka The Dark Side, aka the bad guys. Rousseau’s team arrives and is baited into entering the Smoke Monster’s hole. Rousseau does not enter. Later, supposedly due to a sickness which makes them ‘not themselves’, Rousseau is forced to kill all three of them. One of them is the father of the baby growing in her womb. He tries to kill her. He tells her the Smoke Monster is not a threat and is merely ‘a highly sophisticated security system’ for the Island. Three people simultaneously ‘not themselves’ after meeting the Smoke Monster. The sickness? There is none. They are not the same 3 people. They are being imitated, simultaneously. Rousseau knew it wasn’t the father of her child, she could detect a difference...much like John Locke seemed very ‘un-Locke-like’ to all of us during this past season. Nemesis is not one man, Nemesis is Team Nemesis. This is why Radzinsky named the Smoke Monster as Cerberus. Here’s a picture of Cerberus: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:RomanCerberus.JPG
So now we know that Nemesis can be more than one person, thus Richard Alpert is a candidate for review. There is significant evidence that Alpert is in fact, part of Team Nemesis. For starters, Richard Alpert is ‘as old as the island itself’. Well we know for a fact that only two other characters in Lost can make that claim, them being Jacob & Nemesis. We know they were around when The Black Rock arrived and it’s safe to assume they were around for many years before that. Also, like Jaocb, Richard Alpert does not age. Alpert explains ‘I'm this way because of Jacob.’ We assume of course that Jacob somehow blessed Alpert the gift of eternal life. Yet Alpert does not communicate with Jacob. Alpert get’s blindsided by a Fake Locke. Alpert gives orders and runs an organization that stand in stark contrast to Jacob’s principles. How is it that Alpert got the gift of eternal life and spends every day of it undermining the very man who supposedly gave him this gift???? He doesn’t. The reason Richard Alpert doesn’t age is because he is a Nemesis. He is imitating a person long since dead. Notice in LaFleur that Richard Alpert storms into the Dharma barracks and leaves with a dead body(Paul, Amy’s husband). We’re told that this is to convince his people that there were losses on both sides. This is not the case. Richard Alpert needed Paul’s body. Nemesis needed Pauls’ identity. Nemesis needed to apply pressure to a weak link in the Dharma chain. Sure, there remains the slight possibility that Alpert was just following orders, but combined with the fact he doesn’t age, I think it’s more than likely he is in fact one third of the 3 headed beast, Dante’s ‘Inverted Christian Trinity’...this phrase will prove to be very important, remember it.
Team Nemesis will stop at nothing to make you crack. If they can access your dead father’s body, they will imitate him and lure you into the jungle and over a cliff. If they can access your dead brother, they will lure you into the jungle for you to be slammed against a tree. They use living relatives as well. Juliet’s sister’s health is used to leverage her. Walt is used to control Michael. Aaron. They never stop attacking and they know where to strike. For Dharma, the two weak links are Amy and Young Ben Linus. Team Nemesis knows this, for who has ventured out into the dark territory? Ben literally tells Richard Alpert that he wants out, that he hates everyone...he is a scared defenseless angry little boy and Team Nemesis pounces on him ruthlessly. The appropriate pressure is applied. And how is this done? Using Ben’s dead mother, Emily. I have no idea how Team Nemesis got access to her body in order to imitate it, but this is what happened. This is why Ben says his mother, who died during childbirth, taught him how to read. He was not kidding. His mother has been whispering in his ear and shaping his mind. But it wasn’t her, it was Team Nemesis. Team Nemesis is calling the shots. Team Nemesis ordered the Purge. Team Nemesis and Ben’s dead mother convinced him to kill his father. It was practice. Years later, Ben would be asked to kill his father yet again, when Fake Locke and Team Nemesis order him to execute Jacob. The cycle repeats. Twice, a dead relative gets Ben Linus to kill his father. Twice, a purge is ordered afterward to clean up the mess. Repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat. This is a sign of Team Nemesis. They perpetuate the cycle. They use the same technique again and again. They have perfected their craft.
So where did the body for Richard Alpert come from? Here’s another pattern. Yemi is a dead body from an Island-bound vessel. Christian is a dead body from an Island-bound vessel. Locke is a dead body from an Island-Bound vessel. This is the protocol that Hawking knows to follow(Protocol, as in something to be repeated without change...it’s amazing how these themes are embedded into the show). There have been hints that Richard is somehow connected to The Black Rock. I believe that the original Richard Alpert was a dead body on an island-bound vessel, The Black Rock, and his body was used to torment and manipulate it’s inhabitants.
Anyways, back to Team Nemesis. Perhaps you disagree but at this point I’m rather convinced that Nemesis is a 3-headed foe and that Richard Alpert is one of the three prongs. But what is this Nemesis? Well for starters, it’s The Smoke Monster. We can connect the Smoke Monster directly to Nemesis in many ways. For starters, on the wall in The Smoke Monster’s chamber, we have an image of the god Anubis battling The Smoke Monster:
http://www.forareasonblog.com/2009/04/11/anubis-and-the-smoke-monster-hieroglyphics/
Here we have our 2 sides yet again, Light & Dark. Notice the outstretched hand of Anubis, a peaceful offering. Notice the horns of the smoke monster, the devil, the inverted trinity, on the left, the side of the evil. This is a picture of Jacob and The Smoke Monster. They literally drew us a picture of the two sides. However, let’s be thorough. There are more ways to connect Nemesis to The Smoke Monster.
For starters, Nemesis, imitating Locke, knows where The Smoke Monster is when Ben can’t find it. He leads Ben into it’s inner chamber. The Smoke Monster appears. A dead relative chokes Ben into following orders. Clearly The Smoke Monster is on Team Nemesis. An imitated Yemi(‘you speak to me as if I am your brother) leads Mr. Eko to the Smoke Monster, who then gets smashed into pieces. An imitated Christian leads Jack into the jungle(guess who lives there, sneaking around amongst the trees) away from the beach(guess who lives there, out in the open with nothing to hide). An imitated Emily Linus leads Ben out from the safety of the Dharma barracks, into the dark territory, beyond the sonar fence, where he meets the now very suspect Richard Alpert. A backwards speaking Walt, while under the control of The Others(Dark Side), leads Shannon into the jungle, where she meets her demise. Repeat repeat repeat, over and over. The more the cycle continues, the slower Jacob’s ‘progress’ advances.
Progress, however, has it’s down side. Just when you’ve turned that corner, there’s a catch. When you change, you die. Notice the theme:
-Eko comes to peace with his past, builds a church, lives nobly. He dies.
-Boone has a vision and gets over Shannon. He dies.
-Shannon opens up her heart to Sayid and watches Vincent, becoming unselfish. She dies.
-Roger Linus promises to celebrate Ben’s birthday next year, wants quality time. He dies.
-Charlie kicks his drug habit. He dies.
-Ana Lucia puts the gun down, unwilling to kill again. She dies.
-Michael takes responsibility for his actions. He dies.
-Faraday reconsiders his stance on fate and changing the past. He dies.
-Libby gets over the death of her husband and finds love again. She dies.
-Charlotte is finally home to stay, no more searching and digging. She dies.
-Nikki & Paulo(who gives a shit!)overcome greed, he hid the diamonds to keep her. They die.
-John Locke.....hold that thought for later.
Thus we have a clear golden rule of Lost, and it’s a very big deal. When you confront your ‘issue’ and actually CHANGE, you die. Why is this important? Because Jacob is telling us that mankind will change.
What happens if mankind changes? You guessed it. Mankind goes bye-bye.
‘It only ends once’.
This is why Hawking and The Others are always saying that they are ‘saving the world’, as it stated in the ad that both Mikhail & Kelvin responded to(In case you’re wondering, Radsinsky is a part of the Dark Side. He gives orders. He kills people. He presses the button). That is why some of the people are willing to follow orders. The progress we are progressing towards is extinction.
So our conflict has taken an interesting turn. The Others, those mass-murdering lying-cheating-stealing manipulative bastards, and Team Nemesis, that 3-headed monster from hell who will mimic your dead mother until you’re bleeding from every orifice, are actually fighting against the end of the world.
This is a timeless story that has been told many times throughout the history of man. Plato, Dante, the Qur’an. Evil loses and the world ends.
That is why we’ve been following the journey of our beloved Losties. As they make wholesale changes, they will be the agents of change that bring about the ‘only ends once’ scenario that Jacob accurately predicted. This means they will all face their own issues, overcome them, change, and die. It’s going to be a very painful final season for all of us.
And it’s going to end with a white flash as the world with evil in it comes to an end and the side of the Light wins.
Damon Lindelof: ‘I promise you the series will not end with a black screen’.
No Damon, it won’t, but thanks for doing what you’ve always done, and rubbed our faces in it. It’s going to end with a WHITE screen.
So now we can predict within reason what will be happening to our beloved Losties. They will face their issues and die. But what are their issues?
Jacob has told us. Jacob is guiding them towards this outcome. He gives ‘little pushes’, passively helping them out, strengthening them for their big test, years in advance. Remember it has to be their choice to change and overcome their issues. We can learn what our Losties issues are by evaluating what aspect of them Jacob was trying to help them change. It’s pretty obvious when you watch the scenes.
Sun & Jin have too often put their marriage on the back burner. Jin works a nightmarish job and never sees Sun. Sun stays on the helicopter without Jin on it. Jin tells Locke to convince Sun that he’s dead. What ‘blessing’ does Jacob ‘offer’? Never take your marriage for granted. He is strengthening their commitment muscles for a later decathlon of the soul. He is helping them change. By the way, Sun & Jin, symbolically, will demonstrate their commitment to each other in the ultimate way. They will choose to change together and then they will die together. Sun & Jin are Adam & Eve(Adam & Eve were discovered during House Of The Rising Sun, the first Jin & Sun-centric episode. Watch it and you’ll agree that they are Adam & Eve).
Hurley has always considered himself cursed. He has willed himself into a state of paranoia. Jacob visits him to tell him that he has a personal choice(of course) to come back to the Island or not. But he also suggests that Hurley isn’t cursed, that perhaps he’s blessed. There is no greater way for Hurley to change, to demonstrate that he considers himself blessed, to prove that he is ok with his life...than for Hurley to broadcast the numbers. He will choose to change and he will broadcast the numbers and he will die.
Sawyer’s entire life has been dedicated to finding the man who killed his parents and enacting revenge.
Yes, he did pull the trigger in Australia. Yes, he did kill Cooper on the Island. This is the cycle, the repetition, that needs to be broken. Jacob comforts Sawyer. He tells him he’s sorry about his parents dying. He offers him a pen. He’s trying to help Sawyer let it out and get over it. This scene is the perfect example of the opposing philosophies of Lost. Notice what Sawyer’s Uncle Doug says to Sawyer after Jacob leaves: ‘You gotta move on, boy. They're gone, and there ain't nothing you can do to change that. What's done is done.’ What’s done is done. Fate. You can’t change. This is the opposing force to change perfectly captured. The writers have been doing this from the first episode, re-watch the series, it’s EVERYWHERE. Minus production errors, drunk actors & network issues, they’ve done an incredible job. They knew what they were doing from the start and they have stuck to the rules. You can exhale now :)
Kate has always taken things. She takes lunchboxes, she takes lives, she takes babies. What does Jacob ask her(and as always, he asks)? He asks her to stop stealing. He uses honey instead of vinegar. Instead of punishment he offers salvation. He has planted a seed, and it will sprout roots next season. Kate will choose to change, Kate will return something to it’s rightful owner(Aaron to Claire), and Kate will die. In fact, Claire will kill her. More on that later.
And now, Jack. Our supposed hero. Poor Jack, beaten down by his father Christian over the years. Jacob tells Jack that the Apollo Bar stuck in the vending machine just ‘needed a little push’. Jacob was trying to teach Jack that Christian was just giving him little pushes. Jack’s issue is forgiving his father. Jack will choose to change and will forgive Christian. And he will die.
Here’s the problem: Claire and Christian are both dead. Who will Kate be giving Aaron to? Who will Jack be hugging?
First, let’s prove Claire is dead. By now we know how Smokie operates. One of his favorite tricks is using your dead relatives. And what is Claire’s issue? What defines Claire? I went to Lostpedia just to read about her. It says she is frequently tested with motherhood. That sounds about right doesn’t it? Twice, she almost loses Aaron, once to adoption, and once to Ethan. She protects him, keeps him by her side. She was warned not to let him be ‘raised by an Other’. So who is on the very short list of people she would give Aaron to, who also happens to be on the Island? Christian Shephard, Aaron’s Grandfather, now being imitated as part of Team Nemesis. This is why Aaron was left on the floor of the jungle. Claire changed, she gave up Aaron, and she died. This is why she is just palling around with Christian in the cabin, not worried about Aaron at all, having a tea party and laughing at John Locke for thinking he was being ‘chosen’ by Jacob. She didn’t die in the barracks explosion, she was killed in the jungle. She chose to change and her story came full circle. Claire Littleton is dead.
And now Jack. Typing this right now, fully understanding his character and his journey, it breaks my heart. The writers have really screwed us on this one. I can’t say it’s not brilliant though.
Before I tell you who kills Jack, first I must explain why Jack must die.
Earlier I referenced Dante’s 3-headed monster. The 3 headed monster represents the ‘inverted Christian Trinity’. I read this in a neat little book called Good & Evil In Myth & Legend. Check it out, it covers most of Lost in the first 20 pages. Anyways, think about that phrase.
Inverted Christian Trinity.
Inverted Christian. Three of them. Three inversions.
Right now we’ve established two of Christian’s family are being imitated by Team Nemesis. Two Inverted Christians. Claire & Christian.
Jack is the third. He will be killed. He will be imitated. The Smoke Monster, aka Cerberus, aka The Three Headed Monster, aka Team Nemesis, aka The Dark Side...during Season 6...will be Jack, Claire & Christian(were the cigarettes in his hotel room a clue that he’s Smokie or what? Let alone him setting off the smoke detector).
Jack. His tattoos read ‘he who walks among us but is not one of us’. Those damn writers, they knew it all along. He is going to be imitated. He will be the face of evil in Season 6. Jack will embrace Christian, forgiving him, choosing to change. But it’s the inverted Christian. It’s part of Team Nemesis. He will probably hug his father only to get a knife in the gut. Buy your tissues NOW.
This is the creative device that the writers will be using in Season 6. We will not know who to trust. Kate will be handing Aaron(how does he get back? No clue) back to an inverted Claire aka Team Nemesis. She will choose to change and she will die. Kate has no idea that there’s a clone-monster running around imitating people. Bet your ass it happens.
But here’s how Team Nemesis dies.
Early in the season we are going to be shown a scene from later in the story. In it, John Locke will be killing Jack Shephard. We will all assume that John Locke is the evil inverted imitated Nemesis version of John Locke, and that Jack Shephard is the good ol’ doctor. But since we now know that Jack has to die, to complete the Inverted Christian Trinity, it isn’t Jack.
And Locke is back to being Locke. He will be resurrected for the third time(fell from building, literally rose up after 815 crashed). This has been his destiny.
Resurrected Locke will kill Nemesis Jack. Locke will have changed and become something. Don’t tell him what he can’t do, he just killed the FUCKING DEVIL!
And so we have our two sides, Light vs Dark, Jacob vs Nemesis/Smokie/Cerberus, Dharma vs The Others, Freedom vs Slavery, Change vs Fate, Asking vs Ordering, White Pillars of Smoke in every Locke dream vs. Black Pillars of Smoke, The Beach vs The Dark Territory, Visions/Dreams vs Dead Relatives, Candy Bars vs. Mass-Murder, Omniscience vs. Time-Loopholes, Locke vs Jack, Faith vs Science.
I think it’s an utter work of genius. Just think about it. Christian said ‘TheRed Sox would never win the World Series’. He’s a fatalist. He’s an Other. The Red Sox break the curse, progress, change. Every episode is embedded with the conflict. They’ve extended the argument to every aspect of humanity. Can you time-travel and change the past? Can you overcome your drug addiction? Can you open up your heart? Can you stop torturing people? Yes, you can. You can change. Everyone can change. We can change together and start a new world.
Unfortunately, in order for that to happen, the old one has to die.
And then it all starts over again.I used to run into this question all the time as a youth minister. Put simply, bribing teenagers with pizza only works until they’re old enough to drive and buy their own pizza. Then parents have to “make them go to church.”
This is one of those topics that opens itself up to dozens of tangents, many of which are worth pursuing but I’ll try to chasten my writing and concentrate on a single question: Why, liberal readers, does the very idea of “making” your kids go to church cause so many of you/us to cringe?
By way of diagnosis let’s note a few dissonant realities. First, none of us cringe at making our children eat healthy foods and avoid gulping sugary sodas before bed. We make our kids brush their teeth, we make them go to school, and we make them visit their grandparents. In short, we make them do all kinds of things that are good for them and rarely do we hesitate. So, why do so many Liberal parents pause when it comes time to make their teenagers go to church? One possible answer is that they do not see church as that important, so it isn’t worth the same effort as making their kids do math exercises or eat vegetables. But for the sake of this post, I won’t address this possibility. Another possibility is that as North American culture has become increasingly secularized, more and more events for kids (soccer, hockey, birthday parties) are scheduled on Sunday mornings, meaning that kids and teenagers have better and better reasons for pressuring mom and dad to skip church. This is not a non-issue, but I also won’t address it here. (Ever wonder why so few Jews play football? Just consider the title…“Friday Night Lights.”)
I think it is more likely that most Liberal parents hesitate to “make” their older kids go to church because there is a fundamental tension at work between three concepts that I’ll symbolize with three words: Liberal, Religion, and “Make.”
It is not the case—at least I’m not addressing these types of cases—that LiberalEvangelical parents do not value religious education and church. Rather, Liberals, by definition, believe in personal choice and are deeply hesitant to force anyone to do or be anything without good reason. (The book that launched this website, Lost in the Middle?, does and excellent job of digging into the history of the term “Liberal” and its earliest roots in Evangelical movements.) But yet, as we’ve already noted, Liberal parents force their kids to do all kinds of things that their kids don’t want to do. So why, for so many Liberals, does religious education not rise to the level of linguistic or scientific or mathematical or physical education? Why will we force our kids to brush their teeth before bed, but never consider having them read their Bibles before turning out the lights? (Believe me, I’m not on my high horse here. I’m describing my own actions as a parent.)For almost a year, Kris Kobach, the secretary of state of Kansas, has struggled to hide the truth about his efforts to lobby the Trump administration to make it much harder for Americans to vote. Part of that struggle ended today when a federal court ordered excerpts of Kris Kobach’s testimony disclosed along with other documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union in our challenge to his restrictive voter registration regime.
The unsealed materials confirm what many have suspected: Kobach has a ready-made plan to gut core voting rights protections enshrined in federal law. And he has been covertly lobbying Trump’s team and other officials from day one to sell them the falsehood that noncitizens are swinging elections.
As the de facto head of President Trump’s election commission, Kobach has positioned himself to lead an all-out assault on the right to vote.
Here are three big plays from Kobach’s voter suppression playbook.
Play 1: Disenfranchise new voters with severe registration restrictions
Before Kris Kobach took office as secretary of state, Kansans could register to vote the same way that people do in virtually every other state in the country: by submitting a sworn oath of citizenship under penalty of perjury. In 2013, Kobach implemented a law he had pushed through the Kansas Legislature two years earlier, requiring people to track down a citizenship document — such as a passport or birth certificate — or be barred from the ballot box. The new system proved disastrous for ordinary voters.
Large numbers of citizens — disproportionately minorities — don’t have a passport or birth certificate on hand and don’t have the money to obtain replacement documents. By December 2015, more than 35,000 Kansans had been disenfranchised — approximately 14 percent of all registration applications since the requirement went into effect. The National Voter Registration Act — popularly known as the Motor-Voter law — prohibits unduly harsh registration rules and requires that states make voter registration easy and straightforward.
Kobach’s severe documentation requirements violated the NVRA so we sued. In October 2016, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit blocked the requirement for people registering at DMVs. The opinion by a George W. Bush-appointed judge found that Kobach’s law had caused a “mass denial of a fundamental |
of the old stuff out to make it easier to navigate ;DNice to see you here buddyThanks for the kind words and hope you enjoy the upcoming updates and the thread broGood point Moofers - your feedback alone inspired me to trim plenty of old stuff out. Should you have any other feedback, feel free to let me know. Enjoy ^^You are most welcome bud! Nice to see you here, enjoyAlways nice to see you here Kresnik, here's hoping for a very solid year!I expect that as well, I had them removed.Thanks for the kind words Kresnik, and right you are! I trimmed off around 150 games from the "recently" released games and around 30-50 or so from the Japanese list. Removed Betty Boop and the Telltale games as well.I removed around 150 of them, I hope the list better nowI removed plenty, if you guys feel I need to cut it down more just let me know ;DIt is indeed, but the thread is for upcoming games, 2017 edition rather than upcoming games in 2017.Heyyyy 2+2=5I hope with a 150 of those taken off it'll be a lot more convenient to skim through. Should you have any other feedback please let me know ^^Reading over your post Stump, and I'm having serious doubts this will get released. I'll have it removed for now, thanks ^^Good point, I'll shift up SRWV to the English side alongside DOAX3.Always nice to see you in these threads, Shadowman16Hey there Ephidel - thanks a lot for being that person, your feedback has been most helpful! And I mean VERY helpful. Cleaned up much of the upcoming games list thanks to you! I did keep Project Phoenix cause this is the 2017 edition of an upcoming games for Vita thread rather than upcoming games for the vita in 2017 only. Thanks a LOT for your lovely feedback.Thank you very, very much for the kind words jjasso21! I cleaned up the list a lot and will regularly update the thread with news of upcoming games as i'm sure many of the awesome Vita fans in this thread will tooI agree with you about the telltale stuff, though the nightcry devs told me to stay tuned for the Vita version of the game, here's hoping...Thanks dangerblade - i'll take your word for it ;D It has been removed.You are most welcome boingballHappy new to you too! Enjpy the thread and stay tuned for more updatesYou are most welcome StainlessThanks for the kind words and the feedback, enjoy the thread ^_^Thanks Ruud, enjoyEnjoy BomberMouseThank you so very much incpdo, always nice to see you around the Vita threads friendI cleaned up the list so hopefully the new list is far more accurate ;DYou are most welcome nampad, humbled by the kind wordsThanks for the kind words yaffi; trimmed the list a lot more, let me know if you guys have any other feedback ;D<3 <3 <3Marking the expansion of its international portfolio, LG Chem has announced it will supply Steag with six 15 MW Li-ion battery systems, while Nidec ASI will provide the necessary PCS and EMS solutions. "With 140 megawatt hours of power, the storage systems will deliver enough energy to supply 10,000 households per day with electricity," said LG Chem.
Germany-based Steag announced at the start of November it would invest 100 million in six large-scale energy storage systems, to be installed between mid-2016 and early 2017 at its power plant sites in Herne, Lünen and Duisburg-Walsum, in North Rhine-Westphalia; and in Bexbach, Fenne and Weiher, in the Saarland. "Using the existing plant sites provides synergies in the infrastructure and therefore keeps the investment costs low," commented Steag in a statement released at the time.
The six energy storage systems will be operated independently of Steags power stations, and will be used to provide primary control power. "Primary control serves to stabilize the network frequency when there are short-term fluctuations in the grid (caused, for example, by uneven feed-in of energy from renewable sources which deviates from the forecasts, by power plant outage or by fluctuations in consumption)," explained Steag.
Steag completed a 1 MW energy storage project at its power plant in Völklingen-Fenne in 2014. The LESSY (Lithium Electricity Storage SYstem) Project was supported by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy. It was said to be one of the first Li-ion storage batteries in Germany to be approved for network stabilization duty.To the latter point, there is a glaring omission: no mention of Islamic terrorism. Instead, the report singles out as terror threats “anti-government militia groups and white supremacy extremists, along with ‘sovereign citizen’ nationalists, and anarchists…violent animal rights and environmentalist extremists, black separatists, anti- and pro-abortion activists, and Puerto Rican nationalists.”
The Washington Free Beacon obtained a copy of the 2013 FBI National Threat Assessment for Domestic Extremism. The 60-page report is interesting for what it says. And for what it doesn’t say.
It’s amazing (and not in a good way) that the report lists all these different groups yet manages to avoid singling out the greatest threat to our national security: Islamic terror.
We are living in some crazy times, people.
We are allowing increasing numbers of Muslims into this country. We are allowing imams to preach hate in mosques in cities and towns across America. We are allowing Americans who fight for ISIS to return to the United States with no consequence. We are behaving like dhimmis on multiple fronts, from being apologists for Islam to elected officials who embrace sharia law to Muslim abuse of the justice system (lawfare) and on and on.
Dhimmitude, Exhibit A, is this FBI document. While it avoids any mention of Islam or Muslims, it does single out black separatist groups, as the Washington Free Beacon continues:
On black separatists, the report warned that “high-profile racially charged crimes or events” could lead to an expansion of black separatist groups. The report identified three such groups as the New Black Panther Party, the Israelite Church of God in Jesus Christ, and the Black Hebrew Israelite group as extremists under FBI scrutiny. …the report warned that radical black activists could “reinitiate violence at the historically high levels seen for the movement during the 1970s, when bombings, assassinations, hijackings, and hostage-takings occurred.” “Such a scenario could occur as an extreme response to perceptions of devolving racial equality or perceptions of racially-motivated police brutality, or racially-biased injustice, oppression, or judicial rulings…Indicators include increased weapons procurement, reports of sophisticated plots, and development of an explosives capability.” Black extremist groups may also seek “stronger ties to foreign governments in exchange for financial resources,” the report said. The report was written before the racial unrest in Ferguson, Mo. However, it mentions that black separatist extremists stepped up threats against law enforcement officers, the U.S. government, and non-blacks following the Trayvon Martin shooting in 2012. “FBI investigations reveal black separatist extremists engaged in financial crimes, and drug and weapons trafficking, possibly to finance activities and maintain access to weapons.”….
This attention to radical black groups is interesting. I certainly don’t think such groups come near the threat of Islamic terror, but taken as a whole there are areas of overlap including institutionalized hate, notions of supremacy, violence, and rampant anti-Semitism.
The Washington Free Beacon continues:
FBI intelligence sources reported that “Of a sample of 50 credible violent threat intelligence reports analyzed for this assessment, nearly 60 percent expressed lethal violence as an ultimate goal”…. (snip) The Bureau anticipates an increase in activity by animal rights and environmental extremists…Additionally, a similar level of activity is expected this year for anarchist, anti-government militias, white supremacy, and sovereign citizen extremists. For abortion extremism, the report says violence prone groups fall into two categories, “anti-abortion” and “pro-choice,” but notes the primary threat of abortion extremism comes from lone individuals, not groups. Puerto Rican nationalist extremists were described as “followers of Marxist-Leninist ideology,” have targeted the U.S. government for destabilization, and are seeking to create an independent island nation. The FBI estimates domestic extremists caused more than $15 million in financial loses in 2012 and 2013, mainly through animal rights and environmental activities that targeted U.S. agriculture.
OK. Let’s pause a moment and review: The FBI has identified animal rights activists and Puerto Rican nationalists among those that pose a serious threat to America. Say what? While I find animal rights activists to be pretty obnoxious, it’s news to me that they should be high on our radar as a terror threat.
Meanwhile, I found references to black separatist groups ironic since we have a Justice Department turning a blind eye to threats made by the Black Panthers as recently as last month when they lead a chant calling for the death of Officer Wilson in addition to other relatively recent threats where there were no consequences when they were physically intimidating, publically threatening to commit murder, and inciting others to violence. See here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.
The Washington Free Beacon continues (bolding is mine):
The FBI’s most recent national threat assessment for domestic terrorism makes no reference to Islamist terror threats, despite last year’s Boston Marathon bombing and the 2009 Fort Hood shooting—both carried out by radical Muslim Americans. Instead, the internal FBI intelligence report concluded in its 2013 assessment published this month that the threat to U.S. internal security from extremists is limited to attacks and activities by eight types of domestic extremist movements—none motivated by radical Islam. (snip) “The FBI categorizes Islamic extremists and individuals inspired by Islamic extremist groups as International Terrorism,” he said. “Even though Ft. Hood and Boston were domestic incidents, the ideology and motivation of those behind them had international elements.” (snip) The Obama administration in 2009 adopted a new policy that substituted the vague term “violent extremism” as a replacement for terrorism. (snip) The report left out all references to the April 2013 bombing of the Boston Marathon, which killed three people and injured some 264 others….(snip) The FBI report also made no direct reference to the 2009 Fort Hood shooting, by radicalized Army Maj. Nidal Hasan. The mass shooting left 13 dead and more than 30 injured. Former FBI Agent John Guandolo said…“It should not surprise anyone who follows the jihadi threats in the United States that the FBI would not even include ‘Islamic terrorism’ in its assessment of serious threats to the republic in an official report,” Guandolo said. “Since 9/11, FBI leadership—as well as leaders from Department of Homeland Security, the State Department, CIA, Pentagon, and the National Security Council—relies on easily identifiable jihadis from the Muslim Brotherhood/Hamas, al Qaeda and elsewhere to advise it on how to deal with ‘domestic extremism.’” Patrick Poole, a domestic terrorism expert, also was critical of the report’s omission of U.S. Islamist extremism, blaming “politically correct” policies at the FBI for the problem. (snip) “These politically correct policies have already allowed Americans to be killed at Fort Hood and in Boston,” he added Guandolo said the failure to recognize the domestic Islamist threat had allowed domestic jihadist groups and their sympathizers to shape U.S. government create policies that do not acknowledge jihad as the root cause for the current global chaos. An example, he said, is that the FBI has appointed a domestic Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas support organization leader to an FBI advisory council at the Washington headquarters. Additionally, the FBI is failing to train agents and analysts on the Muslim Brotherhood network in the United States, Guandolo said. “The FBI, no matter how diligent its agents are in their pursuit of ‘terrorists’, will never defeat this threat because its leaders refuse to address or even identify it,” he said. “This level of negligence on the part of the FBI leaders and their failure to understand the jihadi threat 13 years after 9/11 is appalling.” Poole said the failure of the FBI to understand the domestic Islamist threat led to the U.S. government categorizing the 2009 Fort Hood shooting Army Maj. Nidal Hasan as “workplace violence.” “In the case of Fort Hood, the FBI was monitoring Maj. Hasan’s email communication with al Qaeda cleric Anwar al-Awlaki but the FBI headquarters dismissed it because they were talking about ‘religious’ subjects,” Poole said. “In the Boston bombing case the FBI cleared Tamerlan Tsarnayev with nothing more than a house visit after receiving a tip from Russian intelligence, and never making the connection that he was attending a mosque founded by an imprisoned al Qaeda financier and previously attended by two convicted terrorists,” Poole added. As a result “we have more than a dozen dead Americans killed here at home because of these politically correct FBI policies, and with threats emerging from all corners this doubling-down on political correctness when it comes to Islam is undoubtedly going to get more Americans killed,” he added. The domestic threat assessment is the latest example indicating the FBI has been forced by Obama administration policies from focusing on the domestic terror threat posed by radical Islamists. Rep. Louie Gohmert (R., Texas) said in a 2012 House floor speech that the FBI was ordered to purge references to Islam, jihad, and Muslims in its counterterrorism “lexicon” guidelines for its reports. As a result, the FBI is hamstrung from understanding the threat of terrorism from groups like al Qaeda that have declared jihad, or holy war, on the Untied States, Gomert said. …the vast majority of U.S. Islamic organizations were identified in recent U.S. terrorism trials as part of the Muslim Brotherhood, the parent group for the Palestinian terror group Hamas. Thus, these groups are aligned with the same objectives as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, al Qaeda, and others…. “Our FBI is not teaching their agents and analysts this information; they are not sharing it with local and state law enforcement officials; and they are not investigating and pursuing the very individuals and organizations which are supporting and training jihadis in America,” Guandolo said. Guandolo said former FBI director Robert Mueller testified to Congress that he was unaware that the Islamic Society of Boston was the organization behind the radicalization of the Tsarnaev brothers. “That tells you all we need to know about the FBI’s leadership about the threat here in America from the Islamic Movement—they are clueless,”….
This is what gets innocent people killed.
To read more about this report, Robert Spencer has an excellent piece, here.Yesterday, President Donald Trump did the incomprehensible: He recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
Never have the divisions been more clear-cut. The entire Arab world and the rest of the international community have opposed, condemned or expressed grave concern about Trump’s Jerusalem recognition announcement. So did the American Jewish and Israeli peace camps.
All argued that the announcement would work to the detriment of any American-sponsored peace process.
Palestinian anguish was particularly acute: sacred space was being violated.
The right and center of the Israeli political establishment, representing a large majority of Israelis, were delighted. Jerusalem has for thousands of years been the capital of the Jewish people. It has been modern-day Israel’s capital for nearly 70 years. Trump had finally stated the obvious and unmasked the world’s prolonged hypocrisy.
But one unanswered question that many have posed is why. Why now? What does Trump stand to gain from this declaration?
The question is especially acute when one realizes that when the smoke clears, all sides will see that nothing has changed on the ground. Trump pointedly delayed the opening of an American embassy in Jerusalem. If he so desired, he could open an embassy in Jerusalem in half an hour, merely by replacing the US consulate sign on the building on West Jerusalem’s Agron Street with one designating it an embassy. Instead, he deliberately set in progress a process that will take years.
True, unilateral US recognition seemingly alters the negotiating balance when it comes to discussing Jerusalem in final-status negotiations. Yet, ostensibly, so did the broad international recognition of a nonexistent “Palestinian state” in recent years. So what? After all, there are no negotiations. Even when there are (as in 2008 or 2013-14) the gaps between the two sides remain unbridgeable.
Now Trump is offering to “support the two-state solution if agreed to by both sides”? But that is precisely the dilemma: the two sides can’t agree. “The two-state solution is over”, declares the PLO’s Saeb Erekat in anguish in response to Trump. Erekat needed Trump’s Jerusalem declaration to realize this?
And that, I fear, is the real point of Trump’s December 6 speech. From everything we have been able to glean, the much ballyhooed Trump Middle East peace plan scheduled to be unveiled early in 2018 will be a total non-starter. It will be rejected by the Palestinians precisely because it does not deal with Jerusalem in the way they want (two capitals) and does not give them a state in anywhere near the entirety of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Instead it tries to buy Palestinian concessions with Saudi money. By now it should have dawned on Messrs. Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt, the vanguard of Trump’s vaunted peace team, that “economic peace” has never worked with Palestinians. This is definitely not an economic conflict.
Accordingly, Trump himself has nothing to lose and everything to gain by recognizing Israel’s capital. If the Palestinians respond by cutting peace process discussions, they are to blame, not Trump. They save him the dilemma of whitewashing failure sometime next year. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, too, would be happy to see Trump’s peace process initiative torpedoed by Palestinian anger over Jerusalem.
Besides, both Netanyahu and Trump face serious legal challenges at home: Netanyahu over corruption charges, Trump over the Russia connection. It was no accident that Trump’s Jerusalem speech was timed for eight in the evening, the prime TV news hour in Israel.
The Jerusalem declaration’s timing enables each leader to rally his base behind a largely empty distraction. Trump has a “strategy” for Jerusalem even if he doesn’t have one for North Korea. He keeps election promises that countless predecessors made then ignored. Netanyahu can take credit for U.S. recognition of Jerusalem even as he guides Israel down a slippery slope toward an ugly non-democratic one-state reality. He is already redrawing the borders of Jerusalem to keep it “Jewish” by reducing its Arab population and enlarging its Jewish municipal voter list.
Yet this is precisely where the two part company. Trump, following in Obama’s path, is broadly pulling the US out of the Middle East. Hence he can allow himself to change the Jerusalem status quo while simultaneously calling on Israelis and Palestinians to maintain it.
Netanyahu, in contrast, wants to continue, with Trump’s backing, to improve relations with the Sunni Arab states against the backdrop of the looming Iranian threat. But Palestinian violence and rejection of a peace process in reaction to Trump’s Jerusalem move jeopardizes the Israel-Sunni Arab rapprochement. A White House declaration generated more by the president’s ego than by constructive strategic thinking is likely to ignite violent Palestinian protest on the one hand and to inspire Israeli’s ruling ultra-nationalists to gobble up additional West Bank territory on the other.
The Saudis won’t like either development. If I were in Netanyahu’s shoes I would be particularly worried about the reaction in neighboring Jordan with its large ethnic Palestinian population and flourishing Islamic movement. Still, as Netanyahu well knows, the Arab Middle East — Palestinians included — has become hopelessly dysfunctional in recent years. Neither Netanyahu nor Trump can change that.
Trump doesn’t live in Jerusalem or the Middle East. Israelis do. In the best case scenario, Trump’s gesture will have little or no effect in Israel beyond empty gestures of recognition of Jerusalem by ultra-nationalist leaders in the Philippines and Czech Republic. They are sucking up to Trump, not Bibi.
Yossi Alpher is former director of Tel Aviv University’s Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies. His most recent book is No End of Conflict: Rethinking Israel-Palestine.
This story "Trump’s Jerusalem Move Is A Ploy To Protect Jared Kushner" was written by Yossi Alpher.Here’s one of the packs that came from Australia! Thanks go to Melanie I. of Jannali, NSW for sending these and also thanks to Mark K. for getting her to do it! These are from China but sold in Australia. Looks like something different – let’s check it out.
The distributor’s sticker.
The back of the package (click image to enlarge). I went with the second set of instructions.
The noodle block – in it’s own cellophane.
A large seasoning packet.
Interestingly light powder.
Finished (click image to enlarge). Added baked chicken, broccoli, sweet onion, green bell pepper, garlic salt and Urashima Sesame & Salt furikake. The noodles are very nice – great texture and feel. The broth definitely tastes of spinach, but it ends there. It’s not very salty at all, which can be good and bad. Good is that you can add your own, bad is if you don’t have any. I go with the base product of course on my reviews and this is some bland stuff. 3.0 out of 5.0 stars. UPC bar code 6931162280921.
A video about organic foods in Australia.
Something completely unrelated – Robocop shows up for dinner in Korea…
48.509024 -122.61815If you want to learn about philosophy, you might ask: “what’s the best way get started?” The answer is that there is no “best” way. The best way for any person will depend on what subjects they’re interested in, how much time and effort they’re willing to put in, and what they ultimately want to get out of studying philosophy. This website was created to help make it as easy as possible for anyone to start studying philosophy by collecting the best philosophy articles, videos, podcast and book recommendations from across the internet and organizing them into one place.
If you’re totally new to philosophy and don’t know which topics interest you the most, you might want to start by browsing this list of introductory philosophy books.
If you have an interest in one of the main branches of philosophy, you can find introductory books by following these links:
If you’re interested in a specific topic, simply choose it from the list below. For links to free philosophy articles, videos and podcasts, click the links marked ‘Resources’. If you want to learn about the topic in more depth then you’ll probably want to choose the links marked ‘Books’.
Topics African Philosophy Resources Books Analytic Philosophy Resources Books Animal Ethics Resources Books Beauty Resources Books Bioethics Resources Books Philosophy of Biology Resources Books Buddhism Resources Books Chinese Philosophy Resources Books Consciousness Resources Books Critical Theory Resources Books Critical Thinking Resources Books Daoism Resources Books Death Resources Books Democracy Resources Books Deontological Ethics Resources Books Philosophy of Economics Resources Books Effective Altruism Resources Books Environmental Ethics Resources Books Existentialism Resources Books Feminism Resources Books Free Will Resources Books Freedom Resources Books Global Justice Resources Books God Resources Books Happiness Resources Books Justice Resources Books Philosophy of Language Resources Books Logic Resources Books Philosophy of Mathematics Resources Books The Meaning of Life
Resources Books Medieval Philosophy Resources Books Postmodernism Resources Books Pragmatism Resources Books Presocratic Philosophy Resources Books Race Resources Books Philosophy of Science Resources Books Stoicism Resources Books Philosophy of Technology Resources Books Truth Resources Books Utilitarianism Resources Books Virtue Ethics Resources Books
Or if you’re interested in a specific philosopher, try one of the following links:Grant Milton was rushed to a Waco Area hospital on Saturday after collapsing during the Woodlands 52-31 win over Austin Browie in the Texas High School playoff game in Waco.
Milton, a senior linebacker underwent emergency surgery and remains hospitalized. A gofundme.com page was set up to help the Milton family as they stay in Waco. On Wednesday, Houston Texans defensive end J.J. Watt appears to have donated $10,000 to the page to help the family.
In the comment on the post for the donation Watt left a note to the family:
“If there’s anything that I can do to help, please let me know. Sending my best wishes to Grant and the entire Milton family.”
Watt, who has been very inactive on social media since his injury in week three that required end of season back surgery, also tweeted this story about Grant on Tuesday night.
A tragedy in The Woodlands – A letter from one brother to anotherhttps://t.co/PUlNOan3Ux pic.twitter.com/yG4B5HcAhF — Texas HS Football (@texashsfootball) November 30, 2016
Milton, reportedly had a seizure on the sideline which required brain surgery Saturday night.
The GoFundMe page says this:
Grant Milton is a senior at The Woodlands High School in The Woodlands, Texas. On Saturday, November 27th during a high school playoff game in Waco, TX, Grant sustained an injury that required emergency surgery. This fund is being established to help his family with medical costs as well as living expenses during this time. With Waco being over 2 hours from his home, his family will be incurring housing and other expenses to be by his side during this time. If you would like to keep up with Grant’s progress his Caring Bridge page is:
https://www.caringbridge.org/public/grantmilton Thank you in advance for your prayers and generous donation. Help spread the word!Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth, Atlus' Etrian-style dungeon crawler featuring Persona characters, will launch in North America for Nintendo 3DS Nov. 25, the developer announced today.
In Persona Q, players team up characters from Persona 3 and Persona 4 to explore Etrian Odyssey-like dungeons. Players will use their own maps and explore the game's world from a first-person perspective while battling monsters.
The game will be available as a regular retail edition, which includes a collection of Tarot cards from Persona 4, and a special "The Wild Cards" Premium Edition. This collector's edition includes the Tarot card set, an art booklet, hardcover case and the game's soundtrack.
Persona Q was announced for a North American release, alongside Persona 5 and several other spin-off titles, in February. It marks the first Persona game to launch for the Nintendo 3DS.
For more on the game, check out our hands-on impressions from E3 2014. You can watch the game's opening sequence above.The newest apps fueling Venezuela’s uprisings are made in North America and have piqued the Pentagon’s interest. By Patrick Tucker
Entrepreneur Bill Moore was in his Austin, Texas, office last Thursday, watching explosive growth for his company’s walkie-talkie app, Zello, inside Venezuela. Zello had become the favorite app of protest organizers there after recently hitting the mark as the most popular app in Ukraine. Over the past few days in Venezuela, the protests ballooned following rapidly rising food prices, controversy over President Nicolas Maduro’s economic policies, public dissatisfaction over crime and multiple other factors.
Moore was finding that in Venezuela that popularity had a price. Shortly after 9 p.m., his Twitter feed blew up with messages from users inside the country. The government-owned Internet service provider, CANTV, which hosts 90 percent of Venezuela’s Internet traffic, was blocking the app as well as access to Zello’s website. Downloads were dropping off considerably.
Zello sent out the following Tweet: “If you are in Venezuela and familiar with network diagnostics tools, please respond, we need your help to understand the block applied.”
If you are in Venezuela and familiar with network diagnostics tools, please respond, we need your help to understand the block applied. — Zello Inc (@Zello) February 21, 2014
As Moore describes it, the response, like the protests themselves, was immediate and enormous. People inside Venezuela and many more from around the world wrote in with advice. Moore, Alexey Gavrilov, Zello’s co-founder and chief technical officer, and the company’s programmers worked feverishly through the night on a new version of the app to get around the CANTV blockade. “This was the most important thing in the company,” Moore told Defense One. “We said, ‘How do we get this done?’”
Finally, at about 5 p.m. the following day, an updated version was ready to go. The company released this tweet: “Android users in Venezuela, who cannot access the app. Please try this version and report back results.”
Android users in Venezuela, who cannot access the app. Please try this version and report back results http://t.co/e5XZKYusOw — Zello Inc (@Zello) February 22, 2014
Despite the efforts of the Maduro government, protests in Venezuela are continuing and so are downloads of Zello, one fueling the other. It’s a cycle that’s reminiscent of the very early days of the Arab Spring in 2010 and 2011, in which students and other protestors used social networks like Twitter and Facebook to help organize, promote and communicate through protests, eventually forcing the ouster of nondemocratic governments in places like Tunisia and Egypt.
The lesson from the events in Tunisia in particular seemed to be that when you combine an educated student class with the power of social networks and press the return key, the outcome can be democracy. But when the machine malfunctions, the result can look like a protracted war with the potential to embroil U.S. forces. The protests in Libya, in contrast, resulted in a civil war costing more than $1 billion to the U.S. and NATO. When the machine breaks down completely, the result looks like Syria, or possibly Iran, where the regime has been extremely successful shutting the opposition out of the Internet.
To Moore, Venezuela looks like digital trench warfare with governments working feverishly to outmaneuver software makers and vice versa.
Founded in Austin in 2011, Zello allows individuals to communicate to one another walkie-talkie style via a simple broadband connection. The app interface looks a like button on your phone. You press it to speak to people on a particular channel. The channels can be as small as two people or as big as hundreds of thousands. The largest in Venezuela is about 450,000, but only 600 can be active on a channel at one time, Moore said. The feel of the app is similar to the now defunct Nextel push-to-talk service, which was shut down last summer. Zello is free for individuals but companies can purchase a plan to allow more users on a single channel for $10 a month.
Zello has been downloaded some 50 million times. In addition to playing a big role in the recent Ukraine protests, it was also extremely popular during last year’s unrest in Turkey.
Moore never imagined that what he was making could become a politically destabilizing force. He knew only that he wanted to make a social network around the idea of Internet-based radio. “The human voice carries so much more information than typing. We knew that was the basis of something great. If you listen to these channels you realize that it’s a way for people to make friends. The surprise was that that it exploded in Turkey almost a year ago to become the number one app in Turkey around the issues that they had, and then in Venezuela.”
In emails, multiple protestors said that they saw Zello as an essential tool for coordinating movement, collecting intelligence on the location of government forces, and organizing responses. In other words, Zello has clear military potential. The company reports that it has received interest from the U.S. National Guard and the United States Army Reserve Command
But Zello, which has been downloaded more than 600,000 times in Venezuela in just a few days, has seen multiple uses, some of these extend beyond calling for marches and launching maneuvers to evade the authorities. They include organizing guarimbas, blockades of burning trash, to thwart National Guard and police movements. The erection of the guarimbas represents a clear escalation in protestor tactics away from simple peaceful marches and some report that the blockades have contributed to the casualty count, which officially hit 11 over the weekend. The use of guarimbas is controversial among the protestors and has been met with extremely harsh responses from troops as demonstrated in this video.
The openness of the Zello platform explains why it’s become so useful across Venezuela, but this ease of use has also led to a digital fog of war with confusion about who is using the network for what purpose. According to protestors, the government and government-supporting militia groups, or colectivos, will listen in on protestor channels on Zello to get information about upcoming movements or marches, distribute disinformation, or learn the identities of people on the other side. This has led to calls from protestor groups on Twitter to abandon use of the walkie-talkie app.
Moore, who says his company has no direct stake in Venezuelan politics, said there’s a simple fix to these problems: the platform allows users to create one-way communication channels, multiple communication channels, or closed channels where users must be granted to access to join. It can work like a giant open microphone, a conference call, or a radio-station.
Abelardo Jesus Marquez, a Venezuelan technology consultant and blogger sympathetic to the protest movement, said in an email that part of the problem was that too many Zello users were simply unaware of the most secure and effective ways to use the service. “The logical question would be, why [don’t] they use closed channels protected by passwords? They ignore the security implications.”
The confusion among protestors using the app as well as the government shutdown of Zello and the company’s quick response, speak to the fact that digital revolution is more complicated in Venezuela today than it was in Tunisia in 2011.
“During the Arab spring we saw the power of social media to organize people around freedom. Governments have caught on to understand that their ability to restrict this information is important. These governments will continue to restrict these [services],” said Ryan Dochuk, founder of a Toronto-based company called TunnelBear that offers Internet encryption services. Dochuk said TunnelBear has seen an enormous uptick in usage in Venezuela in the last few days, primarily through Twitter.
TunnelBear’s encryption service hides the way the user is accessing the Internet, what websites he or she is visiting and what is being downloaded. It offers what’s called a virtual private network, or VPN, within a larger Internet service provider. (Another example is TOR.) When a VPN is working, it functions as an invisibility cloak. In Venezuela, it’s allowing people to access banned Web sites and apps, such as Zello.
TunnelBear offers a free service for moderate data usage and two other plans for more heavy usage. In response to user demand, the company has made TunnelBear completely free inside Venezuela.
@fbajak @Zello TunnelBear should unblock Zello for iPhone and Android. We are currently providing free service to #Venezuela #censura — TunnelBear (@theTunnelBear) February 21, 2014
The decision was not an easy one. “When you decide to open up your network for free, there’s financial decisions at play. There’s emotional decisions at play. You open your inbox on a Friday morning and you see dozens of stories of people requiring assistance,” Dochuk said. “We’ll support these efforts where we can, but it’s by no means full proof.”
Dochuk, like Moore, has no direct interest in Venezuelan politics. But he’s opposed to censorship on principle. And TunnelBear already had a lot of users in Venezuela. When he heard that the government was trying block Internet access, he knew that he had to make the service free where it was needed most. But the company would really prefer not to get overly involved in conflict areas, and so the rising death toll in Venezuela is worrisome. Also, he knows that there’s only so much an encrypted network can do. In places where government censorship operations are sophisticated, like in China, Syria or Iran, TunnelBear is non-existent. (Dochuk recommends users in these countries try TOR.)
The national security implications of app wars in conflict areas can’t be understated. Whether Venezuela will follow the path of Tunisia, Libya, Syria or Iran remains to be seen. The outcome depends on multiple factors. But one is how well different sides in the emerging conflict leverage technologies like Zello and TunnelBear to achieve their objectives. Though it sounds hyperbolic, the future of Venezuela, and U.S. involvement in that country, may depend on which side makes better use of this sort of technology in the coming days and weeks. Dochuk is guardedly optimistic.
“Technology can move much faster than these governments, and I think over time, these groups will be successful getting information and freedom out.”Helmuth Günther Guddat Hübener (8 January 1925 – 27 October 1942), was the youngest opponent of the Third Reich to be sentenced to death by the infamous Special People's Court (Volksgerichtshof) and executed.
Life [ edit ]
Hübener came from an apolitical, religious family in Hamburg, Germany. He belonged to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), as did his mother and grandparents. His adoptive father Hugo, a Nazi sympathizer, gave him the name Hübener.[citation needed]
Helmuth had, since early childhood, been a member of the Boy Scouts, an organization strongly supported by his church, but in 1935 the national socialists banned scouting from Germany. He then joined the Hitler Youth, as required by the government, but would later disapprove of Kristallnacht, when the Nazis, including the Hitler Youth, destroyed Jewish businesses and homes. When one of the leaders in his local congregation, a new convert of under two years, undertook to ban Jews from attending its religious services, Hübener found himself at odds with the new policy, but continued to attend services with like-minded friends as the Latter-day Saints locally debated the issue. (His friend and fellow resistance fighter Rudolf "Rudi" Wobbe would later report that of the two thousand Latter-day Saints in the Hamburg area, seven were pro-Nazi, but five of them happened to be in his and Helmuth's St. Georg Branch (congregation), thus stirring controversy with the majority who were non- or anti-Nazis.)
After Hübener finished middle school in 1941, he began an apprenticeship in administration at the Hamburg Social Authority (Sozialbehörde). He met other apprentices there, one of whom, Gerhard Düwer, he would later recruit into his resistance movement. At a bathhouse, he met new friends, one of whom had a communist family background and, as a result, he began listening to enemy radio broadcasts. Listening to these was then strictly forbidden in Nazi Germany |
games, but I feel responsible for our terrible record, because I was brought in to take us over the top, punishing a defense late, sucking it of its spirit, and I haven't done it.But, hey, it's not like that fourth-quarter push matters much, right? It's not like Ditka traded his whole draft for it or anything. I swear I wanted to cry on the way home after we blew a game against Atlanta (Week 5) -- and I had only 53 yards on 19 carries. Dozens of fans in the streets of New Orleans were wearing my No.34 jersey after the game, literally wearing their hopes on their sleeves. There were all these people wearing dreadlock wigs, wanting so badly to believe in something, and all I could think as I drove past was, "My coach, my team, my fans, my city -- I'm letting all of them down."I know it's not all my fault. We've had injuries at quarterback, and that changes everything. Teams are stacking eight and nine guys in the box, daring us to pass, and Ditka told me that my hero,, never saw fronts like that. My perception is so off, every yard a struggle, that I'll make what I feel is a decent run, breaking some tackles in the backfield, and get discouraged when I keep hearing the stadium announcer say, "Williams on the carry. One yard." When you run for more yards than any collegian ever had, you aren't used to this.I've felt so frustrated by injuries this year that I've wanted to release the anger the way my teammatedoes, by throwing things, like his laptop computer, across the room. But it is not my nature to lash out. I'm so quiet and to myself that our QBsays that I'm going to go postal one day and shoot everybody. He says he's nice to me so that he's the last one I shoot. As painful as this year has been, though, Tolliver makes me feel better about my future. He says I'm the best football player he's ever seen, better than, which is just about the best compliment I've ever heard.Of course, 1999 could have been a lot worse than it has been so far. In February, I was at the ESPYs, doing The Dirty Bird on the stage of a New York club withand, and look what's happened to them and their teams since. Every Sunday, an NFL player plays through pain that would make the average human cry and stay home from work for a few days. (That's not tough-guy bragging; it's the truth.) But there's a difference between being hurt and being injured. If you're hurt, you can play. If you're injured, you can't. The measure of a football player isn't how well he performs on Sundays but how well he performs in pain.The physical pain is made much worse when the emotional pain is stacked on top of it. Everyone is happier when you win. The coaches grade you easier and yell at you less. Your teammates are better to be around. Losing is a different animal, though. They say a coach loses a player with every loss, has a player quit on him. I haven't seen that for myself yet.When we lose, I just want to be alone. I've driven around for hours by myself after losses, even though my visiting family and friends have been waiting for me at my house, worried. One night, I left my agent,, and two of his rapper friends,and, waiting at my house, because I knew they were going to baby me and I wasn't in the mood. Instead, I drove around most of the night, the words of a Saints fan echoing in my ears, like the soundtrack to my season. As I ran off the field, he yelled, ", you ain't showed me s--!" The worst part was, he was right.I've talked to former Saintabout all the expectations. I love Rickey, because he is football without all the BS. He explained that I should try to conserve myself, because the sport is a cold business and all a running back is to his team is a pair of legs.Everybody has told me I shouldn't play with these injuries. My friends. My agents. The trainer. Even my teammates. They remind me I am a rookie and I've got a career stretching out in front of me that I shouldn't risk., now a Packers scout, told me I should never play if I'm not 100%, because he played hurt out of love for his coaches, and it cost him five or six years of his career.But how can I sit? With all these expectations? Ditka traded so much for me. If I'm fragile, the jokes start about how Ditka's whole draft is limping on the sideline, useless. If I was just playing for me, maybe I'd sit. Maybe. Well, probably not. But it's moot, because I'm playing for me, for Ditka, for my team, for this whole city. Ditka just knows I'm going to be great, knows it more than I do, actually, and I don't want to betray that belief. I have to do everything I can to prove he was right, even if it means going into the huddle with an oxygen tank and stiff-arming tacklers with one of my crutches.Let me tell you a story about Ditka. We were in Chicago the night before our game with the Bears, and my elbow was still killing me after almost two weeks of rest. I have never felt the kind of pain that was in that elbow, and I've always played in all kinds of pain, never missing a practice or game at Texas. My forearm was swollen to more than twice its size. I couldn't grip a fork, couldn't drive my car, couldn't even push the dreadlocks off my face. I needed help from female friends to even bathe myself (which wasn't such a bad thing). We've got a guy who works for the team, a martial-arts expert who can kill you a million ways with a toothpick, and he gave me acupuncture, which was a nice gesture, but it didn't make my elbow feel any better.Anyway, I meet Ditka at his restaurant for dinner. He never asks me about the injury all night, never asks whether I was going to play, not even during the limo ride back to the hotel, when he told me, "I'm sorry if you don't like cigar smoke, but I'm going to smoke anyway." I love how carefree Ditka is, always himself, and I also appreciate that he has never forced anything on me.So just before the Chicago game, in the locker room, Ditka comes up to me and says, "You're not playing." It was a statement of fact, not a question. I pretended to be okay. I said, "Yeah, Coach, I'll play." I could tell he was really happy. Then he had to help me put on my shoulder pads, because I couldn't do it for myself.On the field before the game, I was so scared, knowing the Bears were going to be going after me at 100 miles per hour, trying to kill the gimp. I wanted to go up to Coach and tell him I'd changed my mind. When I came out during introductions, I could only slap hands using my left hand. I was shaking. One of my teammates came over and asked me how I was doing. I told him that, honest to God, I felt like I was about to wet my pants. He called me a pussy. Football players are real sympathetic souls that way.It was hard to run that afternoon, because you have to lift your elbow to take the handoff. Still, I carried 21 times for 84 yards and was really proud of myself -- until we gave up two touchdowns in the final few minutes and lost again.One of the Bears rewrenched the ankle too. It has been bothering me since I sprained it in the first quarter of my first NFL exhibition, and I haven't been right since. I signed and reported early and felt great, but then I missed 23 days of practice, and I lost everything -- my thinking, my rhythm, my confidence -- and had to start all over. There are certain instinctive things I haven't been able to do this season because of the pain, like using my arm for balance or cutting like I usually do on a strong ankle. Still, I've got more than 800 yards in limited action in 10 games, so I'm thinking I can put up huge numbers when I'm not really, really banged up, if there's ever a time I'm not really, really banged up.The only time I felt truly, 100% healthy was in the 10th game against Jacksonville. It lasted all of a half. I rushed for about 80 yards in the first half. (And got my first NFL TD! Finally!) But then a dude fell on my big toe. I immediately thought it was broken. I got about 15 yards the rest of the game. Funny how something as small as a big toe can knock you out, no matter how big and prepared you are, just like something as small as a spark plug can kill an expensive car. I couldn't move my head after the Browns game, so I've literally been hurting from head to toe this year.If there's one good thing to come out of all this, it's that I think I've earned the respect of my teammates and coaches. I hope so, anyway. After every tackle, one of my linemen always comes over and helps me up, which I think is a sign of appreciation. They treat me like a little brother. It has been important to me to show them that their little brother isn't gutless.Some people think I'm playing because my contract is so heavy with incentives, but the money doesn't matter. I still keep the bank receipt with the $17 balance in my wallet to remind me how little I once had. Besides, we make so much more money than we deserve that it's crazy. I can live off my $8.8 million signing bonus forever, and I received $75,000 the other day just for doing a photo shoot holding up Sprint cell phones. Whenever I'm short on cash, I just start signing the trading cards stacked on my kitchen table, and next thing I know, I've got a $30,000 check in the mail. The money can wreck an athlete who doesn't have pride, and I understand how fans get frustrated with athletes who get fat on fame after they get paid.That's why I structured my contract the way I did, so that I'm paid huge if I produce huge and guaranteed little if I produce little. My contract has gotten a lot of criticism, which I don't understand at all. I mean, it's my money to gain or lose, not anybody else's. My contract is based on production, which is how it should be. There's a huge difference between making a lot of money and earning a lot of money. People seem to write about my contract every week, as if it was something evil. But my honor is the only thing I can take to my grave.The criticism hurts, though, I won't lie. I've got no problem telling you I spent a lot of my record-setting senior year lonely and crying in my apartment because my girlfriend started dating another player on our team. Shoot, I'll cry in my car sometimes if an old song comes on that reminds me of something happy from my childhood. Just because you're sensitive, though, doesn't mean you can't be tough. I'll get through all this, because I know there is something out there that can cure just about everything that ails me and my team.It's called winning. This article appears in the March 6, 2000 issue of ESPN The Magazine.President Trump has signed off on sending an additional 4,000 troops to Afghanistan, ahead of his address to the nation Monday night, Fox News has learned.
Trump is set to unveil his strategy for Afghanistan, becoming the third commander-in-chief to attempt to stabilize the war-torn country and forge a victory in what is now America’s longest war. An estimated 8,400 U.S. troops are currently in Afghanistan.
The speech is scheduled for 9 p.m. EDT Monday. The president will deliver the nationally televised address to troops stationed at the Army's Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall, located next to Arlington National Cemetery.
A big part of tonigh't speech will include "asking the region to do more," specifically asking India and Pakistan to do more to bring the Taliban to the negotiating table, a senior U.S. official told Fox News.
Already, the Trump administration has ramped up airstrikes in Afghanistan this year: 1,984 from January to July, nearly triple the amount from the same period in 2016, according to the U.S. Air Force.
Trump tweeted Saturday that he had reached a decision on the way forward, after meeting to review options with top advisers at Camp David. While the president has not revealed the contours of his plan, associates expect he will keep U.S. troops in the country and possibly approve sending thousands more.
TRUMP'S AFGHANISTAN ADDRESS: WHAT TO WATCH FOR
"I think he is going to give [his generals] a chance to prove what they want and their strategy," former Trump deputy campaign manager David Bossie told "Fox & Friends," noting that Trump can adjust the plan in the future.
The stakes are high. Some 16 years after the 9/11 terror attacks, which first drew U.S. forces into Afghanistan, the local government controls just half the country – beset by the Taliban insurgency and terrorist factions. An Islamic State affiliate has been hit hard but continues to attempt major attacks.
Politically speaking, Trump also is trying to hit reset after perhaps the rockiest stretch of his presidency, one that saw multiple staff shakeups and an all-consuming controversy last week over his response to the violence in Charlottesville. The president took heat for repeatedly blaming “both sides” for the clashes at a white supremacist rally, where a counter-protester was killed in a car attack. The response was met with a bipartisan rebuke from members of Congress and a wave of resignations from various corporate and other advisory boards.
Refocusing on national security, Trump is now faced with one of the most complex and difficult military challenges.
In Afghanistan, Gen. John Nicholson's comments suggested the Pentagon may have won its argument that the U.S. military must remain engaged in order to ensure that terrorists aren't again able to threaten the U.S. from havens inside Afghanistan.
"I assure you we are with you in this fight. We are with you and we will stay with you," Nicholson said during a ceremony at Camp Morehead, a training base for Afghan commandoes southeast of Kabul.
The added forces would increase training and advising of the Afghan forces and bolster counterterrorism operations against the Taliban and the Islamic State affiliate trying to gain a foothold in the country.
The administration had been at odds for months over how to craft a new Afghan war strategy.
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, who visited Afghanistan over the weekend, declared himself satisfied with how the administration had formulated its new strategy. But he refused to discuss details before Trump's announcement.
Fox News' Jennifer Griffin, Lucas Tomlinson and the Associated Press contributed to this report.Confusing civility with comity is a grave mistake in human or international relations. Yes, the Group of 20 summit issued a common communique after the leaders’ meeting. Some see this as an indication that some normality is being restored in international relations between the United States and other countries. The truth is that at no previous G-20 did the possibility occur to anyone that a common statement might not be agreed to by all participants.
Rather than considering agreement on a communique as an achievement, it is more honest and accurate to see its content as a confirmation of the breakdown of international order that many have feared since Donald Trump’s election. And the president’s behavior in and around the summit was unsettling to U.S. allies and confirmed the fears of those who believe that his conduct is currently the greatest threat to American national security.
The existence of the G-20 as an annual forum arose out of a common belief of major nations in a global community with common interests in peace, mutual security, prosperity and economic integration, and the containment of global threats, even as there was competition among nations in the security and economic realms. The idea that the United States should lead in the development of international community has been a central tenet of American foreign policy since the end of World War II. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the aspiration to international community has been an aspiration to global community.
Trump’s rhetoric has rejected the concept of global community and expressed a strong belief that the United States should seek better deals rather than stronger institutions and systems. It has become clear that Trump’s actions will match his rhetoric. The United States is now isolated globally on the question of how to deal with the grave long-run security threat of climate change. It has forced the G-20 to back way off of commitments to reject protectionism. And in part because of U.S. attitudes, the G-20 was mute on international migration at a time when refugee issues are more serious than at any moment in the past 50 years.
All of this is troubling enough. The elephant in the room, however, is the president’s character and likely behavior in the difficult times that come during any presidential term. Biographer Robert Caro has observed that power may or may not corrupt but it always reveals. Trump has yet to experience a period of economic difficulty or international economic crisis. He has not yet had to make a major military decision in a time of crisis. Yet his behavior has been, to put it mildly, erratic.
(Meg Kelly/The Washington Post)
The president chose hours before meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin to cast doubt on judgments of the U.S. intelligence community regarding Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. On the brink of the most important set of international meetings of his presidency so far, he put forward the absurd idea that a main G-20 discussion item involved Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta, in the process making demonstrably false assertions about Podesta’s role.
It is rare for heads of government to step away from the table during major summits. When this is necessary, their place is normally taken by foreign ministers or other very senior government officials. There is no precedent for a head of government’s adult child taking a seat, as was the case when Ivanka Trump took her father’s place at the G-20 on Saturday. There is no precedent for good reason. It was insulting to the others present and sent a signal of disempowerment regarding senior government officials.
The president’s pre-G-20 speech in Poland expressed the sentiment that the primary question of our time was the will of the West to survive. Such a sentiment is inevitably alienating to the vast majority of humanity that does not live in what the president considers to be the West. Manichaean rhetoric from presidents is rarely wise. George W. Bush’s reference to an “axis of evil” is generally regarded as a serious error, not because the regimes he referenced were not evil but because his rhetoric drew our adversaries together. Invoking the idea of “the West against the rest,” as President Trump did, is a graver misstep.
A corporate chief executive whose public behavior was as erratic as Trump’s would already have been replaced. The standard for democratically elected officials is appropriately different. But one cannot look at the past months and rule out the possibility of even more aberrant behavior in the future. The president’s Cabinet and his political allies in Congress should never forget that the oaths they swore were not to the defense of the president but to the defense of the Constitution.Jeffco Public Schools’ Superintendent Cindy Stevenson didn’t want her exit to happen this way.
“My plan would have been to make sense of all of this for the community,” she said.
Get through the state’s standardized tests in March. Meet with stakeholders. Bow out gracefully, albeit sooner than her scheduled June retirement.
Instead, she announced her Feb. 21 exit to the district’s board of education and a packed room of about 250 anxious supporters at an 8 a.m. Saturday meeting, originally scheduled to discuss the suburban district’s budget.
An executive session to discuss a personnel issue regarding Stevenson was added to Saturday’s agenda at the end of the board’s Thursday meeting. But details — even for some board members —were scarce. Rumors flew through the district Friday: Stevenson, who has led the district for 12 years, would be fired; The board is going to buy out her contract; She’ll be put on administrative leave.
In the end, it was Stevenson who engaged the board’s conservative majority, elected in November, about leaving earlier than expected, she said in her statement, which was interrupted by tears, several rounds of applause and standing ovations.
“I can’t lead, I can’t move the district forward,” Stevenson said. “They do not trust me.”
Rise & Shine Colorado Get Colorado’s most important education stories delivered to your inbox daily Subscribe “Chalkbeat is my go-to education news source. Typically, Chalkbeat is the place to find out about district news before you hear about it anywhere else.” — Amy M.
Leaving early would be best for the district, she said.
“My issue is serving you, the community, most importantly the children,” she said.
Despite an effort by board president Ken Witt to proceed to a discussion of the budget, the crowd reacted angrily.
The crowd chanted for respect and a recall of the board’s new majority.
A member of the board’s minority, Lesley Dahlkemper, had a few choice words herself.
“Let’s be clear, this is about the new board majority,” she said. “I want to ask the board: how this is good for the 85,000 kids of Jeffco.”
PHOTO: Tajuana Cheshier/Chalkbeat TN
The meeting, which was expected to run through the early afternoon, ended before 8:30 a.m.
Tensions have risen between the board and some members of Jefferson County since the board’s new conservative majority was elected in November. Observers point to the board hiring outside counsel and accuse the board of unpublicized closed door meetings.
“They’ve broken how many sunshine laws?” Barb Bares, principal of Manning School, asked rhetorically after the meeting adjourned.
After the meeting ended, parents, teacher and administrators stood around — shocked. Some gathered around Stevenson, Dahlkemper and board member Jill Fellman.
“I’m just sick at the loss,” said Jeffco parent Kelly Johnson, who co-chaired the district’s 2012 mill and bond campaign. “There’s a great deal of anxiety. I feel like we have no one guiding the ship. Our kids are in limbo. And the persons I most trust — the teachers, the principals, administrators — they’re in limbo too.”
Lakewood principal Ron Castagna likened the board’s majority to school yard bullies.
“This is about dismantling what we’ve spent years here developing,” he said. “This board is running around like a bunch of rats. The most unethical group. They’ve taking their gold and are selling out our kids.”
Jeffco is commonly revered as one of the state’s best school districts. Until this year, it was the state’s largest. Students routinely outperform state averages on standardized tests.
Teachers, administrators and board members agree Jeffco will continue to provide an “excellent” education, the question now is how.
“We have to be mindful we have 85,000 students and 12,000 employees,” Fellman said. “We need to keep the district going.”
Board member Julie Williams agreed.
“I think Jeffco is strong and it will carry on,” she said. But as a member of the majority, she was short on specifics of what’s next for the district. “We’ll continue to do our good work.”
According to board president Witt, no interim superintendent has been named. He said he’ll expect the Stevenson’s deputies, including the academic and financial officers, to report directly to the board.This is the very last news update for Kane's Wrath Reloaded and the ending has reached its final point.
Posted by PurpleGaga27 on May 9th, 2013
I hereby declared to announce that I am releasing the KW Reloaded 1.7. Alongside with the mod release, I am also releasing the source code of the content that I have done so far so you guys can make your own mods.
I know there are some remaining issues left in this mod, but this is as far as I can go. Unfortunately with all the testing and experimenting for some time, it's sad to tell you that the skirmish AI and the Giga-Fortress (as the 10th epic unit) won't be in version 1.7. Some of the other content that I am working on (such as new SP and MP maps) have been cancelled until further notice. I highly recommend reading the PDF readme before extracting and playing the mod. Any further questions involving this mod, you can PM Fellyne, INtense!, Bibber or some other C&C modder for some help.
Here are the changes of KW Reloaded 1.71:
• Fixed an issue that a Mastodon cannot be seen in-game due to missing art files.
• Removed the mine layer ability for the Steel Talons MRT. It was unnecessary.
• Custom in-game music is now at a high quality of 320bps.
Here are the other changes of KW Reloaded 1.7:
Global fixes:
• Fixed an issue where built aircraft with unlimited ammo cannot go to a rally point from an aircraft structure.
• Fixed an issue that Emissaries cannot be built in Black Hand/Marked of Kane War Factory and/or Redeemer Engineering Facility.
• Fixed tracer guns visibility for Wolverine and Scrapbus due to a change of a new weapon template, enough to see more than one tracer gun fire.
• Fixed an issue that a Rocket Bunker does not show a Quad Turret even if upgraded.
• Fixed an issue that Hardpoints upgrade does not work with newly built Orcas and Zone Orcas.
• Fixed an issue that the Firehawk does not start with its default weapon, but the issue remains for Hardpoints that do not work with newly built Firehawks even when upgraded (regardless of select weapon load).
• Fixed Defiler’s attacking animation but its moving animation issue remains.
• Fixed some portrait icons that were oversized since the last release.
Global Changes:
• Added Service Depot to all GDI and NOD factions. Requires War Factory to be built and only one unit can be placed in a service depot at a time for repair (takes several seconds).
• Added Orca Bomber for GAF and Steel Talons factions. Requires Tech Center to be built.
• Added Underminer for the Marked of Kane faction. It can set mines, attack with mines and repair units. Requires Operations Center to be built.
• Added Smoke Grenade ability to the Riflemen Squad. Applies to all GDI factions. Smoke may or may not be seen.
• In-game music mentioned in the last release is now added to the final version but in low 128 kbps quality.
• Units that fire prematurely before turret changes to the correct position has been fixed with a pre-fire delay on their weapon(s).
• Sorted order of building MCVs, Surveyors, Emissaries and Explorers to the very end of every vehicle building tab, except tier-4 war factories.
• Structures in Logic Command Set that did not previously have Toggle Power, Self Repair and Sell commands have been added in to all factions.
• MOK Vertigo model is replaced by the C&C4 model. Ability and attacking remains the same.
• ZOCOM can now build a Tiberium Field just like the GDI.
• ZOCOM Predator Tank can now use the HEAT ability (effectively against armored vehicles) and now has a Rocket Pod upgrade (which increases damage).
• GDI can now build fake structures (requires fake crane to be built and fake crane requires the original crane to be built at a cost of 500 in 10 seconds and a limit of one on the field). Those fake structures shall cost 100 in 5 seconds and they pertain to do nothing but stand as decoys with low health. Armory, Power Plant, Refinery, Reclamation Hub and other defensive structures are excluded.
• Reduced the upgrade bonuses of Vehicle Bombardment, Offensive Maneuvers and Boosted Power.
• Kane, Mastermind, Prodigy and Cultists can no longer use mind control on epic units and now GAF defenses.
• Tiberium Agitation now applies to all sub-faction units and structures with Tiberium in which were not listed.
• Removed the building limit on any aircraft unit that requires ammo to be refueled at an Airfield, Hangar or Gravity Stabilizer. There is a bug where you can build unlimited aircraft in one turn even though the limit of placing units with reloadable ammo on an aircraft structure is four.
• Cyborg Commando usage of C4s now only applies to structures but not units. (there's an issue somehow that he can use the plasma cannon on structures instead of C4s)
• Cultists finally get their own mind control weapon, and now gets five cultists in a squad. They cannot use mind control on structures, aircraft and epic units. Cost reduced to 1200/15 and still requires Technology Assembler.
• Reaper-17 and Traveler-59 Corrupters can now lay mines.
• Some locomotor, armor and weapon codings have been changed to some units used from KW Patch 1.02+ as part of the enhancement. The following changes are also from KW Patch 1.02+:
-- Shadow Squad attack bugs fixed. Glider landing will start at a range of 50.
-- Scrin/Reaper-17/Traveler-59 MCVs can now be teleported by either Mastermind or Prodigy.
-- Seekers and Fanatics weapon target priority changed from infantry to vehicles.
-- Reaper-17 Reaper Tripod charged reserves bug fixed.
-- Flame weapons can now destroy friendly husks.
-- Shatterer, Zone Shatterer and Shockwave can now destroy husks via force-fire.
-- MRT repair radius increased to 300. Unit movement speed is the same as the APC.
-- Fixed Stormrider damage versus certain sub-faction units (Pitbulls, APCs, MRTs, Wolverines, Attack Bikes, Stealth Tanks, Gun Walkers and Seekers) to match that versus respective vanilla faction units. This gives 25% damage decrease versus these sub-faction units.
-- Shock Troopers, Zone Raiders, Black Hands, Tiberium Troopers and all Commandoes are now immune to damage from the Cloaking Field.
-- Snipers can no longer attack vehicles and structures. Veteran Snipers can now spot for Juggernauts and Battleships from within transports, foxholes and bunkers.
-- Orca Sensor Pods attached to friendly vehicles are no longer removed by friendly drones. Now it has an explosion effect and sounds when destroyed.
-- Delays on several abilities reduced: Jump-Jets, Rig/MCV pack-up, Flame Tank/Mantis pre-attack delay and Orca Sensor Pod deploy delay.
GAF Changes:
• Some C&C4 units now have modified portrait icons rather than the original blue background ones.
• Talon can now fire correctly from its weapon bone positions.
• Archangel now has its first primary weapon fixed (it’s supposed to fire with a particle beam). Speed decreased slightly and health increased slightly.
• Orca Paladin now fires with its laser (unlimited ammo) so it does not need to return to the airfield. Speed decreased slightly and health increased slightly.
• Firehawk model is replaced by the C&C4 model. Ability and attacking remains the same.
• Mobile Repair Transport is now buildable with the same cost and build-time.
Fixes/changes that cannot be done:
• Making skirmish AI to work in-game. Although CNCLabs did it using a Neutral faction for the Forgotten, there’s no way I could use a Neutral faction to work since it results in a game crash.
• Adding a Giga-Fortress in-game as the tenth epic unit. The technical issue is the conflicted id names and an asset error of one default state, preventing this unit (and mod) to load in WorldBuilder and/or C&C3.
• Infantry units of 2 or more being garrisoned in an APC, Armadillo, Reckoner or Mastodon will result getting one infantry unit getting out at one time or even worse, none of them comes out. The only exception is the bunker and civilian structure. This is a common bug that neither EALA nor any modder can fix.
• Harvesters that cannot collect Tiberium automatically on which they were not from the Tiberium Field but independent objects is another common bug that neither EALA nor any modder can fix.
• Fixing tire treads to some C&C4 vehicles require actual coding from C&C4 unless I create tire tread objects.
• Death animations to some C&C4 units require actual coding from C&C4 unless I create collapsed objects.
• In the GDI Mission of Rome, a Mastermind unexpectedly can attack any unit with its tracer gun fire. Because the unit is modified, this affects this odd bug that I cannot resolve.
• Assault Mothership may require a new weapon projectile in order to show laser fire in four weapon bones since it only shows one laser fire.
• MOK Underminer’s ability to burrow itself to another location doesn’t work. Either a missing coding or animation file prevents this to happen.
• GAF Spartan’s ability to turn itself into a turret doesn’t work. A missing animation coding and other animation file(s) prevent this to happen.
• A replacement weapon to the Defiler requires a new weapon projectile (that I have no clue how to set it up) and without the major source code from Carnius, I cannot do it. The weapon art files can be found but the issue is making the new projectile to work.
• Adding a rally point cursor texture (visible from player) and using an EVA announcement on upgrading. Those require permission from Stygs to get the coding and source code from the Tiberium Wars Advanced mod. I would really want this, but time ran short as he is MIA in the C&C community.
I hope you have fun with this mod and hopefully if you want to modify my mod use the public source code that I have released. All credits and other changes are mentioned in the PDF readme.Reading Time: 3 minutes
Here at Codeship we always strive to find the best ways to test our application before we go live. We need to have all the necessary tests and tools in place to make sure our application works.
We have invested a lot of time in our unit and acceptance testing, but we also need to test our application after deployment or on a staging infrastructure.
We have looked into several tools, including Selenium and Testacular, but found that CasperJS provides the perfect mix of being easy to use and being powerful enough for our purposes.
While we are still starting to integrate it into our workflow we want to show you the power it provides and introduce you to its power already.
Testing with CasperJS
We wanted a tool that doesn’t have any dependencies on languages or frameworks a team may use. While tools like Capybara are great and neatly integrated into Rails they still need some effort to be set up. And if you don’t use Rails UPDATE (thx to the comments for mentioning that you of course can use Capybara without Rails. Ruby is more appropriate here) you are out of luck.
We also wanted everyone on our team to be able to write tests with it. The syntax therefore needed to be easy and comfortable for all of us. CasperJS is based on Javascript but has Coffeescript support built in. WIN!
CasperJS is developed by Nicolas Perriault and based on the wonderful PhantomJS developed by Ariya Hidayat.
Getting started with CasperJS
To get started with CasperJS you need PhantomJS and CasperJS installed on your computer. Should be simple to install on every OS.
Now let’s look at three quick examples. The first one simply opens codeship.io, clicks the “Jobs” link and makes sure we are at the jobs page.
The second one sets the user agent header and the viewport size. By default PhantomJS sets the viewport size to 400×300 which is rather small for a web page. Thus we set it to 1024, 768. Then it clicks a menu item at casperjs.org and makes sure the right pages are loaded. In the end it captures the current page as a png image.
The third example translates Guten Tag to Good day using translate.google.com and asserts the correct translation.
You can run the file with casperjs test codeshiptest.coffee for example. Put all the files in a directory and pass the directory path to casperjs, like casperjs test caspertests. This will run all test files in caspertest and its subdirectories.
You can find even more assert commands at the CasperJS documentation page.
Please take a look at the documentation for the then method as it waits for earlier steps to be finished before running the next step. This is important to make sure your asserts work fine.
The test subcommand makes sure the casperjs var is set. You can read more about it at the CasperJS test documentation page.
Conclusion
CasperJS is a great starting point for testing your application, on your local machine as well as against a your hosted application. Setup is very easy and fast as it doesn’t need to be integrated into any other framework. Give it a try and tell us what you are testing with CasperJS. Of course Codeship supports PhantomJS as well as CasperJS. Read more about it in our Browser Testing documentation article.In line with plans to reduce the country’s poverty rate to 16 percent by 2022, the Duterte administration plans to start this year the full implementation of sexuality education modules in schools under the Reproductive Health (RH) law, the country’s chief economist said.
Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Ernesto M. Pernia also said in a briefing Thursday that the government would set a higher budget, from just about P2 billion annually, for family planning and reproductive health as a whole.
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This, as a policy brief released by the National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) and the United Nations Population Fund showed that because fertility rates in the country dropped at a slower pace than most of its Asian neighbors and resulted in a relatively high population growth rate, the country failed to achieve a “demographic transition” in the past decade that would have led to faster economic growth.
The policy brief authored by UP School of Economics dean and professor Dennis S. Mapa showed the country’s fertility rate in 2013 at 3 percent, the highest, alongside a similar rate in Laos, in Southeast Asia.
The lowest fertility rate in the region was Singapore’s 1.2 percent.
In the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, “mortality rates broadly declined at a similar pace,” Mapa said, |
and tablets that enter your network. Critically, your solution should do two things: give you visibility into what’s connected on your network, and help you enforce policies that prevent users from accessing compromised websites or downloading suspicious files.
Consider practicing the “least privilege” concept. That is, any given account should have the least amount of privilege required to perform appropriate tasks. Common places where this concept can be applied, but often is not, include user permissions on endpoints (computers / devices) and user permissions on network shares. The key to this concept is that malicious software most often runs using the privilege level of the currently logged in user. If that user is an administrator, so is the attacker. Always use two-factor authentication. A hacker may steal passwords, but it’s nearly impossible to steal those and a smartphone or token at the same time.
9. Gain Real-Time Threat Intelligence
To proactively combat a threat, it is important to know your enemy. Threat intelligence provides security practitioners with advance warning of cybercriminals targeting their region, industry, or even specific firms so that you have time to take action.
So, how do you gain real-time threat intelligence? By keeping your ear to the ground and learning from threat-intelligence organizations such as Talos.
The Talos team is composed of more than 250 full-time threat researchers who work to protect against known and emerging cybersecurity threats. The team publicly shares security information through blog posts, newsletters, social media, community forums, and instructional videos to help make the Internet safer for everyone. You can benefit from their work by following their content closely and updating your organization when a threat hits close to home.
10. Say NO to Ransoming
Although many businesses are tempted to pay the ransom to regain control over their systems, this should be the last option for you to consider. Contact the authorities instead and refrain from funding these cybercriminals by paying the ransom.
If you have any further questions on any of the above, please feel free to contact us at https://media-moon.com.Ayan Mahamoud, one of the organisers of Hargeysa’s International Book Fair, has all the girly vulnerability of a factory-tested steel girder. So it was disconcerting when, having called to the stage the western writers attending in the teeth of strict travel warnings, she burst into tears. ‘I’m sorry. It’s just so hard when the whole world is against you,’ she sobbed.
The word ‘beleaguered’ constantly comes to mind when visiting Somaliland, a country that doesn’t officially exist. For the past 22 years, this former British protectorate has waited for the world to notice that, in contrast to its unstable southern neighbour — the Somalia of warlords, Black Hawk Down and Al-Shabaab repute — it is peaceful, self-regulating and democratic. Surely the penny would drop, locals told themselves, and once Somaliland’s nationhood was recognised, the government would be able to access the kind of World Bank and IMF loans needed to rebuild an infrastructure shattered by civil war.
Instead, after a series of snubs, they recently received a kick to the crotch, with the announcement by Barclays — fretting over money-laundering regulations — that it intends to close the accounts of hundreds of money transfer businesses which are the only financial link between diaspora families and relatives at home. Somaliland has no banks, and even NGOs like Oxfam use money transfer companies to pay their staff. ‘We get $400 million a year in remittances. It supports families, but it also subsidises most new construction and pays for imports,’ Ali Said Shire, Somaliland’s minister of planning, told me. ‘If that stops, we’re in big trouble.’ He should know. He used to work for one of the biggest money transfer companies.
Somaliland isn’t the only country in the Red Sea which will be hard hit if Barclays sees its promise through, but the move feels cruelly timed given what is happening here. In the breezy capital of Hargeysa, the lobbies of the two main hotels are abuzz with Somalilanders returning from Sweden, Canada, Britain and Italy. Many are using their holidays to reconnect with their roots, but more and more are coming to invest and to stay. Private gyms, glass-fronted multi-storey offices and modern cafés are springing up next to the whitewashed mosques. At times the city, which was nearly erased by bombing and shelling ordered in the late 1980s by dictator Siad Barre — hence the locals’ abiding antagonism to ‘the south’ — feels like one big construction site.
The Hargeysa Book Fair, now in its sixth year, tracks that trend. The star attraction was elderly poet Hadraawi, whose recitations had youngsters pressed against window bars to catch every word. But each year the fair attracts more writers and bigger sponsors. They came from Nigeria, Djibouti, Kenya, Italy and the UK this time. The British ambassador to Somalia was a surprise guest, turning up for the opening ceremony flanked by sweating bodyguards. His presence underlined the essential hypocrisy of the international community’s position on Somaliland. Having lavished decades of funding and diplomatic effort on dysfunctional governments which failed to unite the country from Mogadishu, donors are reluctant to undermine their work. It should not be for outsiders, they argue, to call time on post-colonial borders. The breakaway state of Somaliland must first be recognised by its peers in the African Union, not an organisation known for swift action.
In fact, donors do support Somaliland. Britain and Denmark back a $55 million Somaliland Development Fund, which is as close to budget support as it’s possible to get without recognising a government. But being viewed by the world as a sliver of a violence-addled state with a penchant for Islamic fundamentalism has massive knock-on effects. Take major infrastructure projects. Ethiopia would dearly like to make more aggressive use of Somaliland’s Berbera port. It has built a modern, high-speed road all the way to their mutual border, but Somaliland’s government, cut off from international credit because of its unofficial status, has so far been unable to upgrade its side. I was struck by the quietness of the road from Hargeysa to Berbera, potentially one of the Horn of Africa key arteries.
And then there’s the little matter of those travel warnings. Type ‘Somaliland’ into the Foreign Office Travel Advisory website and you get zero hits, of course. Look up ‘Somalia’ and it tells you to stay well clear, citing a ‘high threat from terrorism, including kidnapping’.
It would be naive to underplay the threat posed by Al-Shabaab, given the organisation’s proximity, but the last major terrorist incident was in 2008. Determined to prevent a repeat, the government assigns armed escorts to foreign visitors who venture outside the capital. Despite such nannying, tourists are such a rare sight on the streets of the capital that residents come up to say hello, invite you to take pictures, and ask for your impressions so far.
Businessman Mohammed Yusef believes a certain national resignation has finally set in, coupled with a determination to Just Get On With It. ‘There was a time when we thought recognition was our sole problem. Now, without surrendering our demand for sovereignty one single bit, we know that there are other priorities, like building the economy of this country.’
Last weekend, that pragmatism was on display as President Ahmed Mahamoud Silanyo, flanked by flower-garlanded police ponies, re-opened Hargeysa’s international airport. Near the newly tarmacked runway lie the metal corpses of the Migs which once rained horror down on the valley below. There were very few white faces in the audience, but the launch in a flag-festooned hangar was a moment for ululation, self-congratulation and laughter, with local comedians performing a series of skits on the theme of Development. To quote the movie: build it and they will come.The viewing options for those who can’t make it to Soldier Field in Chicago over the Fourth of July weekend for Fare Thee Well -Celebrating 50 Years Of Grateful Dead continue to increase. As expected, The Capitol Theatre in Port Chester, New York and NYC’s Brooklyn Bowl -two of Fare Thee Well co-organizerNYC area venues -will host simulcasts of the Chicago shows July 3 -5.
A potential plan of simulcasts was mentioned by Shapiro to Rolling Stone, who said Peter “is working on simulcasting the shows around the country” adding that “Shapiro is already holding the dates at his venues, including the Capitol Theatre in Port Chester, New York, and the Brooklyn Bowl.” The impresario went on to tell Billboard he “want(s) to provide video and audio, the best shit out there, and try to bring it to people with the same vibe as being there.” The shows will be shown in high-definition for those at Brooklyn Bowl and The Cap with audio provided by each venue’s prized sound systems.
Tickets for the simulcasts go on sale Friday, May 22 via Ticketfly. (Links -Capitol Theatre: 7/3, 7/4 & 7/5 | Brooklyn Bowl: 7/3, 7/4 & 7/5) Other venues expected to screen the simulcasts live from Chicago include Gypsy Sally’s in Washington, D.C.; Sweetwater Music Hall in Mill Valley, California; both Ziggy’s in North Carolina and Park West in Chicago. Those who want to tune in from the comfort of home can purchase pay-per-view broadcasts. Internet webcasts of all five Fare Thee Well shows are available for pre-order here as a bundle for $79.95 through Friday, May 15. In addition to the webcasts, broadcasts of the Chicago shows will be available via select cable providers and will be screened at movie theaters. Fare Thee Well will find Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Bill Kreutzmann and Mickey Hart joined by Trey Anastasio, Jeff Chimenti and Bruce Hornsby at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California on June 27 and 28 as well as at Chicago’s Soldier Field on July 3 -5.The House will vote next week on a legislation to require the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to focus its efforts on storm predictions instead of researching climate change.
Members will consider the Weather Forecasting Improvement Act, H.R. 2413, as early as Tuesday.
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Rep.(R-Okla.) introduced his bill last year after tornadoes hit his home state. Those storms led him to argue on the House floor the government spends too much on climate change research and not enough on developing weather forecasting tools to predict tornadoes and other events.His bill does not explicitly kick the government out of the business of studying climate change. But it does say NOAA must "prioritize weather-related activities, including the provision of improved weather data, forecasts, and warnings for the protection of life and property and the enhancement of the national economy, in all relevant line offices."Last year, Bridenstine released a statement saying the intent of the bill is to "protect lives and property by shifting funds from climate change research to severe weather forecasting research.""The bill does not increase spending but rather shifts funding to make improved severe weather forecasting a higher priority of the Federal government," he said in July.The bill was first introduced only with the support of Republicans. But since late last year, seven Democrats have added their names as cosponsors, and aides said language was added in committee that makes it more acceptable to to Democrats.
Specifically, the bill requires NOAA to take on the protection of lives and property as one of its core missions, and to improve weather-related research. Among other things, it creates a tornado warning program and requires development of a plan to improve tornado forecasting.
"My state has seen all too many times the destructive power of tornadoes and severe weather. In the wake of the latest outbreak in May that cost 48 lives, it is painfully clear that we must do more," Bridenstine said.
— This story was updated Saturdy at 5:17 p.m.Image copyright Belgian police Image caption The pair used fake IDs bearing the names Soufiane Kayal (L) and Samir Bouzid
Police are seeking two new suspects accused of aiding the fugitive suspect from the Paris attacks Salah Abdeslam, the Belgian prosecutor's office says.
The pair are "armed and dangerous" and are thought to have helped Abdeslam travel to Hungary in September.
Investigators say Abdeslam may have driven the suicide bombers at the Stade de France to their target on the night of the Paris attacks.
The assaults on 13 November left 130 people dead and more than 350 wounded.
Abdeslam was stopped at the Hungary-Austria border in September accompanied by two men with fake IDs bearing the names Soufiane Kayal and Samir Bouzid, Belgian police said.
"The Federal Prosecutor's Office and the investigating judge wish to appeal to the public again to look out for two new suspects the investigators are actively searching for," the prosecutor's statement said.
Abdeslam's precise role in the attacks remains unclear. There are suggestions he was meant to carry out a suicide attack on the night but decided against it.
Belgium has also issued an international arrest warrant for another suspect, 29-year-old Mohamed Abrini, who was driving the car in which Abdeslam was a passenger when it stopped at a petrol station in Ressons, on the motorway to Paris.
Image copyright Belgian police Image caption Belgian police also released stills of the two new wanted men
The name Soufiane Kayal was used to rent a house searched in November after the Paris attacks.
The identity card of Samir Bouzid was used to transfer money to Hasna Aitboulahcen, the cousin of attacks ringleader Abdelhamid Abaaoud, four days after the attacks, police said.
Both Aitboulahcen and Abaaoud were killed in a police raid on the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis, along with a third, as-yet unidentified person.
Earlier on Friday, the Paris cafe La Bonne Biere became the first of the venues targeted during the co-ordinated assaults to reopen its doors.More than one percent of all children born in the United States today have autism. Some people, whom we shall politely refer to as "squealing jackasses" (we have some far more impolite terms ready), blame vaccines for the rise in cases. The real cause of this supposed autism boom is the simple fact that it was first diagnosed in 1943, so we basically only just figured out autism is a thing. We sat down with several high-functioning autistic people and asked them what our readers should know about their condition. Here's what they said:
#6. Pop Culture Always Gets Autism Wrong
Warner Bros. Television
You can say this for Hollywood: They're not at all scared to depict autism on screen. The problem is that they have one very narrow vision of what an autistic person looks like. It's nearly always a white dude who's employed in some sort of field where all his "hilarious" quirks allow him to shine.
Chris: "... which is a pipe dream for the many of us who can't get a job beyond janitor, even with college degrees. We need more portrayals that focus on the disability part of high-functioning autism, while still humanizing us."
alphaspirit/iStock/Getty Images
This is gibberish to most autistic people, too.
In reality, 25 percent of autistic people are non-verbal and 54 percent of them have an IQ below 85. It's not easy to fit those stories on TV, though. And when high-functioning, "media-friendly" autistic people are depicted on television, they're about as far from "accurate" as Big Bang Theory is from "comedy."
Nina Mason: "QUICK: I say 'autistic person in television,' you think... who? Probably Sheldon from Big Bang Theory or Sherlock from A Show Definitely Not Named for the Main Character. Neither is a good representation of autism, starting with the fact that both are very sarcastic men, and most people with autism cannot understand sarcasm."
altrendo images/Stockbyte/Getty Images
Don't think too hard about the irony of most autistic people not being able to see the irony in that. You'll just give yourself a headache.
"There's actually a sort of Voight-Kampff test for Asperger's syndrome... in which you get read this story where Bob takes Sally to a restaurant that's supposed to be great, and the food and service turn out to be a disaster. At the end of the story, Sally says, 'Yeah, this sure was a great restaurant you took me to.' Most people recognize that she's being a smartass. People with Asperger's (and some forms of autism) will say that she's lying so she doesn't hurt Bob's feelings."
shironosov/iStock/Getty Images
The added line "... and now I totally want to sleep with you" merely tests whether the subject is male.
More nuanced, realistic portrayals of autistic individuals -- The Bride and Parenthood, to name two -- were praised by our sources. But there are no portrayals to be found of non-verbal individuals or their caretakers. Hollywood's fine with showing autism, but only the sexy kind where utterly charming geniuses simply aren't very tactful.
#5. Our Largest Charity Wants To "Cure" Us
djedzura/iStock/Getty Images
Autism Speaks is the largest autism advocacy organization in the world, which is kind of weird, considering that they have zero autistic people on their board of directors. They used to have one, but he quit because he was tired of the organization making autistic people out to be defective or diseased. It's not a super great sign when you can't pay an autistic person to lead your autism charity.
Riccardo_Mojana/iStock/Getty Images
"That's it? He didn't even leave a witty one-liner, or a 'Bazinga?'"
Obviously, our sources had profoundly negative opinions of the organization:
Nina Mason: "I honestly can't talk about it without devolving rapidly into a tiny rabid ball of incoherent fury."
Chris: "According to their own internal audit, the organization only uses four percent or so of its money to actually help people who have autism live better lives, and over 30 percent of it researching the causes of autism so they can 'cure' it. This includes researching what causes autism in the womb. Meaning they are researching eugenics so that we can stop existing."
Fastfission, via Wikimedia
Combining modern medical science with decades-old outdated social science isn't the wacky romp you'd think it'd be.
Many autistic people are high-functioning, and the fact that they are autistic is just one factor that's contributed towards making them whoever they are today. If somebody wanted to start a campaign to "breed out" something integral to your personality -- your affinity for science fiction, your inexplicable love of penny farthings, your penchant for terrible puns -- you might find it a bit offensive as well. But then again, about half of autistic people are low-functioning, and a quarter are non-verbal. Autism has robbed them of any chance at a normal life. You can't look at a child who lives trapped inside of their own head and not want to do something about it. Not to mention the other, less talked about downsides:
Chris: "It's incredibly common for autistics to have problems with their GI tract. These health problems blow, and you can't say that it's a mixture of good and bad. The mental differences, yeah. You could say it's not all bad, and some of it's good. The physical health problems? We don't all have them, but the problems really suck."
#4. Sometimes Self-Diagnosis Is Important
Laikwunfai/iStock/Getty Images
"Self-diagnosed autistic person" is Internet shorthand for "terrible person." And to be sure, anybody who exploits a disease to excuse their awful behavior is a big burlap sack full of flaccid dongs. But there are a whole bunch of people who had to self-diagnose, because there was a time when almost nobody knew what autism was.
Devonyu/iStock/Getty Images
"I found out because it was the next word in my 'highlight every word in the dictionary' hobby."
Nina Mason: "... when I was a kid, I'd been diagnosed with ADHD and OCD for years, with a whole lot of disturbing symptoms that were covered by neither diagnosis, and so got lumped together into 'probable schizophrenia.' When I was 14, one of my teachers went, 'But wait -- I read this article, and this, this, and this are all covered by autism, as are these, these, and these, which none of your diagnoses cover. I think you should show this article to your mom.'
"My mom agreed, and spoke to my psychiatrist, who didn't want to change my diagnosis, because although autism was first described in the 1940s and these conversations took place in 2004, he had never heard of a woman with autism."
Comstock Images/Stockbyte/Getty Images
"Don't worry, kiddo; you can still be whatever you dream, be it a housewife, librarian, or even a powerful man's secretary."
Women are still less likely to be diagnosed with autism today, and part of it is due to the fact that we expect young girls to be more social. So they get more experience interacting with other kids, which helps to "camouflage" their symptoms. Nina's psychiatrist eventually did some research and changed her diagnosis. She was one of the lucky ones. It's incredibly common for people with autism to be misdiagnosed as bipolar. Unless we're talking medical marijuana, it is generally a bad idea to take medicine for conditions you don't have. For example:
"... look up 'lithium toxicity' and 'barbiturate poisoning' if you want some nightmares tonight, or consider that for twelve years I had to have blood work every three to six months to be sure my medication was not literally eating my liver."A hard-hat wearing teen in a loader sparked a police pursuit in Christchurch's southwest Saturday night.
Did you see the incident? Email your comments, photos or video to reporters@press.co.nz.
A social media user posted on Facebook on Saturday night to inquire about a police chase he saw, involving a loader.
"LOL anyone else see the [loader] cruising down Yaldhurst road with like 10 cop cars chasing it?!?"
One passer-by, who wished to remain anonymous, said she saw a large orange loader travelling along Johns Rd at about 11.30pm. She and her boyfriend were able to follow it for some distance before it turned right on to Yaldhurst Rd.
She said she saw eight police cars pursue the loader, before it turned a sharp left into a residential area.
"We lost it for a while and then found it pulled up surrounded by police. People were running out of their houses to see what was going on."
The passer-by said she pulled over and walked up to the scene and saw a "very young looking guy aged 12-14 years-old sitting in the back of a police car.
"You could barely see him because he looked so small. He was wearing a hard hat while operating the [loader]."
"It was the funniest thing I have seen in a long time, yet we were a little nervous for police cars."
She said the digger was going about 25-30km when the police were able to surround it.
"The guy was too young for a licence for one. We didn't see him break any road rules apart from drive in the middle of the two lanes."
One witness said he saw it "ditched" off Apsley Dr, before it was towed away.
On Sunday, a spokesman for police's southern communications centre confirmed police were called to an incident on Saturday night where a loader was stolen.
"They followed the loader at low speed until the offender stopped the vehicle of his own accord and was spoken to by police."
The spokesman said he was unable to provide further information about the incident without speaking to staff who dealt with the incident.雑描きlog4 by lustaking
Source
It was kinda tricky to find a cover image to go with this song, but I’d say that this one by Lustaking certainly fits the bill.
I’m normally the sort of person who prefers HD video over lower definitions, but this video took me by surprise. The mix of low-res video with some higher resolution material works with the Fall Out Boy music in my opinion. It’s like you’re remembering something from a long time ago, and it’s kinda fuzzy, but still clear in your mind.
Also, keep in mind that this was made back in May, when we didn’t have any HD video to use. Good job working with what you had, Hopeful Clumsy. Let’s see what you do in the future.
Check out the video after the break.A British mother accused of cheating on her husband under Bahrain's strict Sharia law was only freed from prison when her 'abusive' Muslim husband dropped the charges against her.
Hannah James, 26, is said to have survived on three meals of rice and water a day after her partner Jassim Alhadder told the police she was having an affair with a married man who works for the government.
After languishing in jail since early December she was finally let go when Alhadder, 29, personally told the authorities to clear her of the alleged adultery.
He told MailOnline: 'I dropped the charges because she is the mother of my child and I still love her.
Broken family: British mother Hannah James, right, who was thrown in Bahranian jail after being accused of adultery by husband Jassim Alhadder, left, was freed when he dropped the charges against her
Anger: Ms James' family say he accused her of cheating on him with a married man after she threatened to leave the country because he beat her. They shared photos on social media, above, which they held up as proof of his violent ways
Locked up: Ms James, right with her four-year-old son, is said to have survived on three meals of rice and water a day after Alhadder accused her of having an affair with a married man
'I am her husband so I had to clear her, because of the laws in the country. She's now been released and she's in safe hands.'
Ms James, from Fraserburgh in Aberdeenshire, is now stuck in the conservative Muslim country because Alhadder burned her passport, her family has claimed on a crowdfunding page raising money for her legal fees.
Alhadder denies doing so but his stories are inconsistent. He told MailOnline she lost the document but in another interview, he said she destroyed it herself after 'hiding it in the oven' and forgetting about it.
Ms James married Alhadder shortly after moving to Bahrain in March with their British-born son Nelson, four, who is now back in the UK with his grandparents.
Her family claim he turned violent soon after the move - and shared Facebook photos of a black eye and bruise on her arm as proof of the abuse she suffered.
They say Alhadder only accused her of cheating after she stated her intentions to return to the UK because he beat her.
Stranded: Ms James' family claims she is now stuck in the conservative Muslim country Alhadder, above, burned her passport. He has denied the claim but his stories have been inconsistent
Happier times: Ms James married Alhadder shortly after moving to Bahrain in March with their British-born son Nelson, four. Pictured: The family together in the UK
Not so happy couple: But the British mum's family claim he turned violent soon after the move and shared several photos of the bruises on her body as proof of the abuse she suffered at his hands. Pictured: Ms James and Alhadder before they moved to Bahrain
Mercy? Alhadder, who wants revenge on the man who had a relationship with his wife, says he cleared her of the charges because she is the mother of his child and 'because I still love her'
Alhadder has hit back at the family by saying he acted in self-defence, claiming Ms James attacked him after he confronted her about the alleged affair, and that bruises show more clearly on her skin because she is white.
He said: 'She's been going out twice a week drinking and every time she tries to beat me up because she doesn't like me anymore, because she has another man in her life.
'Every time she tries to beat me up and I push her away. And every time she falls down in the house because she's drunk and of course she will get bruises. I didn't mean to hurt her once.'
'She's the one who has put herself in jail, I didn't put her in there. She put herself there when she went with him.
'She's taken my heart with her - she's taken my son, I will never see him again.'
Heartbroken Alhadder says he wants revenge on the Saudi-Bahranian man who he claims had an affair with his wife.
He said: 'He's run away because he's afraid he's going to lose his wife. But I've lost everything, I lost my family because of this guy.
War of words: Alhadder denies beating his wife, above, claiming she attacked him after he confronted her about the alleged affair
Accusation: 'She's been going out twice a week drinking and every time she tries to beat me up because she doesn't like me anymore, because she has another man in her life,' said Alhadder, who said he is heartbroken at the thought of never seeing his son again
'I'm not done with him. This guy who made me lose my family, I have to make him lose his family too.'
Last night, Ms James' mother Shelley confirmed her daughter had been released from jail and was in'safe hands' but that she was still not allowed to leave Bahrain.
Shelley had earlier written in an online petition that Bahrain 'is a law unto themselves' and that her daughter was'suffering being in prison'.
Writing on a JustGiving page set up to raise funds to bring her daughter home, Mrs James said: 'Things became very difficult for her as she was suffering from domestic violence.'
The British Foreign Office said in a statement: 'We are providing support to a British woman following her arrest in Bahrain. We remain in contact with both her family and with Bahraini authorities.'Why Study Estranged Parents' Forums?
Estranged parents claim that parental estrangement is an epidemic, and that record numbers of adult children are cutting all contact with their good, loving, nonabusive parents for no good reason. While some estranged parents have lost contact with their children because of their children's addiction or serious mental illness, the focus of the parental estrangement movement is on cases where the adult child has no such "excuse," and has become estranged simply because they are making a power play, establishing their independence in an immature way, under the thrall of the estranged parent's abusive ex-spouse or their own abusive spouse, or otherwise unwilling to have a relationship for reasons unrelated to the estranged parent's own actions and personality. Estranged parents claim that they are normal, and their children are pathological.
But is it true?
The members of estranged parents' forums may or may not be a representative selection of parents whose adult children have cut them off. (They claim to be representative.) However, analysis of their members' posts and comments reveals a pervasive pattern of behavior that sheds light on the phenomenon of parental estrangement. In short, members of estranged parents' forums tend to be classic enablers and abusers.
Abusive Behaviors and Beliefs That Are Common on Estranged Parents' Forums
Members of estranged parents' forums frequently do these things, or encourage others to do these things:
Joke and fantasize about spanking, slapping, beating, publicly shaming, and euthanizing their adult children
Stalk their adult children after requests for no contact by: Going to their children's and their children's spouses' homes or workplaces Going to their grandchildren's schools, concerts, and games Using Facebook accounts belonging to other family members to see their children's Facebook accounts Creating false Facebook accounts to trick their children into friending them Enlisting others to contact or photograph adult children who live too far away for the parents to stalk them directly Hiring private investigators to find adult children who moved without leaving contact information
Deny that the adult child has a right to set terms to the relationship, because children are permanently subordinate to parents
Feel betrayed if family members have a relationship with the estranged adult child
Demand that family members and mutual friends choose sides
Express a belief that God agrees with them and will punish their adult children for cutting them off. Less religious members substitute "karma" for "God"
Fantasize about the punishments God or karma will inflict on their children
Act as gatekeepers of their adult children's maturity. No matter how old or accomplished an adult child is, he or she is "immature" unless he or she reestablishes a relationship on the parent's terms
The more disturbed members can be observed lying, contradicting themselves, and rewriting history. One member documented a months-long process of following her estranged son around town, cornering him at work, reporting him to CPS (without effect), and putting him and his wife "in their place" with threats to go to court if they didn't let her visit their child. She sent him insulting messages, which she copied to the forum. Once she was faced with an actual court date, she claimed she never spoke to her son any other way except except politely and restrainedly, on the very few occasions when she absolutely had to. Another member's son stated in court that she had posted enough personal information online to identify himself and his entire family. The member went into a whirlwind of panic, declaring that she had never mentioned any personal names online—in the process reawakening a thread where a few months before she had named all of her children and many of their spouses and children.
Sometimes the distortion is even more severe. The member who took her son to court sent him these two texts:
Her son replied, "I'm tired of fighting I do love you, but we are very angry you called [CPS] over nothing. This has to stop are lives are busy growing and we don't want this nonsense arguing and negativity."
The member told the forum, "I think he feels remorse, or he wouldn't have replied he 'loves' me." Later she advised another member not to be "nicey-nice" to his daughter, because she had sent her son a "truthful" message and her son replied that he loved her.
The value of these distortions is threefold. First, it confirms that a larger-than-average proportion of the membership of estranged parents' forums is composed of profoundly disturbed people. Second, the typically enabling reaction of the membership confirms that the majority of the members hold abusive beliefs and/or condone abusive beliefs in others. And third, it provides dramatic proof of lying and history-rewriting for people who find it hard to believe such things happen.
So why study members of estranged parents' forums? For a deeper understanding of how abusers think. To learn how abusers present themselves as non-abusive, and how to tell when they're distorting their stories. Because the face the estranged parent movement presents to the world is false, and good-hearted people are being convinced to aid in the very abuse they want to prevent.
Stories from estranged parentsHow do you tell which parents are abusive?
Updated 2/5/2015
This page may contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. It is being made available in an effort to advance the understanding of psychological issues. It is believed that this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law.
The analyses on this page are my own opinions and should not be construed as medical advice or statements of absolute fact.Press contacts Ester Arauzo-Azofra Press officer +32 2 281 53 61 +32 473 63 07 23
The EU 27 ministers today selected Amsterdam, the Netherlands, as the new seat for the European Medicines Agency (EMA). The selection took place in the margins of the General Affairs Council (Article 50), in accordance with the procedure endorsed by the EU 27 heads of State and Government on 22 June 2017.
The two EU agencies currently based in the UK, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and the European Banking Authority (EBA), need to be relocated in the context of the UK's withdrawal from the EU.
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) is responsible for the scientific evaluation, supervision and safety monitoring of medicines in the EU. The EMA is essential for the functioning of the single market for medicines in the EU.
Next steps
The Commission will now prepare legislative proposals reflecting today's vote for adoption under the ordinary legislative procedure with the involvement of the European Parliament. The Council and the Commission are committed to ensuring that these legislative proposals are processed as quickly as possible in view of the urgency of the matter.
Amsterdam, the Netherlands - Offer to host the European Medicines Agency (EMA):Police arrested numerous protesters who blocked southbound lanes of I-43 Friday evening. The group is pushing District Attorney John Chisholm to issue charges against former officer Christopher Manney in the fatal shooting of Hamilton in April. Credit: Rick Wood
By of the
Protests over the fatal police shooting of Dontre Hamilton produced mass arrests in Milwaukee for the first time Friday as demonstrators temporarily closed I-43 in both directions during the evening rush hour.
The Milwaukee County sheriff's office said late Friday that 73 adults and one juvenile were arrested. After the scene cleared at I-43, about 100 people picketed outside the Milwaukee Police Administration Building.
The protesters were calling for justice in the case of Hamilton — who was fatally shot by a Milwaukee police officer during a confrontation at Red Arrow Park — and pledged to stay downtown until those who were arrested on the freeway were released.
Among the protesters outside the Police Administration Building were Dontre Hamilton's brother Nathaniel Hamilton and mother, Maria Hamilton.
"We're still peaceful," Nathaniel Hamilton said. "Nothing is burning. Nothing is torn down. No one's hurt. I don't want them to think being disruptive is being violent."
Demonstrators gathered at Red Arrow Park at 4 p.m. Friday before marching from Water St. to westbound State St. They then headed north on N. 6th St. and split into several groups that took the highways.
During the freeway disruption, which lasted for about 75 minutes, one group was standing in the southbound lanes and another in the northbound lanes.
According to Nathaniel |
available for download, or you can play the Flash version directly. Each week has 3 lectures that are 50 minutes each.
Review of linear algebra
Groups. Examples of groups. Basic properties and constructions.
Permutations
Cosets, Z/nZ.
Quotient groups, first isomorphism theorem
Abstract fields, abstract vectorspaces. Construction and invariants of vectorspaces.
Abstract linear operators and how to calculate with them
Properties and construction of operators.
Orthogonal groups
Isometrics of plane figures
Cyclic and dihedral groups. Finite and discrete subgroups of symmetry groups.
Group actions
Basic properties and constructions. Groups acting on themselves by left multiplication. Groups acting on themselves by conjugation.
A5 and the symmetries of an icosahedron
Sylow theorems. Study of permutation groups.
Rings
Examples of rings. Basic properties and constructions.
Extensions of rings
Quotient rings. Integral domains, fields of fractions.
Special lecture
Euclidean domains, PIDs, UFDs
Gauss’ lemma. Eisenstein’s criterion. Algebraic integers.
Structure of ring of integers in a quadratic field
Dedekind domains. Ideal class groups.
Wrap-up
Class MaterialsThe ACC tournament begins on Tuesday in Washington, D.C., where N.C. State and Wake Forest will play at noon, followed by a Florida State-Boston College game that will undoubtedly leave the nation’s capital in a state of frenzied delirium.
Jokes aside about tournament Tuesday, the 2016 ACC tournament just might be the best in years. Why? Because it’s impossible to know what might happen, and who might do what under the bright lights of the Verizon Center.
It’s always that way, to an extent. Look at last year, when the tournament championship game included neither Virginia, the regular-season champion, nor Duke, which wound up winning the national championship. Instead, Notre Dame beat UNC to win the league championship.
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This year, though, seems a lot more unstable than last year. With that in mind, here are five questions to ponder at the beginning of the ACC tournament:
1. Can North Carolina get it done?
A better way to ask this: Can the Tar Heels put together consistently good performances against good teams? If it wins on Thursday against either Pittsburgh or Syracuse – no guarantees there, either – then UNC will likely face a bigger challenge on semifinal Friday.
The Tar Heels are coming off an emotional, intense victory against Duke but even so, their 2-4 record against the five teams behind them in the league standings can’t be discounted. UNC simply hasn’t had an abundance of success against the ACC’s other good teams.
It has a chance to change that in Washington and, if it does, it will likely be because the Tar Heels really did turn a corner in that victory at Duke on Saturday. Meaning: they found their toughness and developed some savvy to make winning plays in tense moments.
2. And if not UNC, then who?
Recent history – and logic – suggests the Tar Heels will have a good chance of reaching championship game, at least. Before last season, the tournament’s top seed had advanced to the championship game in five consecutive seasons.
UNC’s path to that point could include a rematch with Duke on Friday, or a rematch with Notre Dame, which rallied for a victory against the Tar Heels in South Bend in early February. Any of the top 11 teams seem capable of making a run to Saturday, though.
Virginia Tech, for instance, beat Miami and Virginia – the two teams that stand in the Hokies’ way in Washington. Georgia Tech ended the season strongly.
Florida State, where talent hasn’t been in question, awoke from the dead and won its final two regular season games. But if not UNC, the wise pick is Virginia, which enters the postseason playing as well as any team in the ACC.
3. Which off-the-radar team could come out of nowhere to make a run?
The answer here should always be a team that underachieved during the regular season but showed the potential for much more. Like, say, Georgia Tech. Or Florida State.
Let’s start with the Yellow Jackets. Once 3-9 in the ACC, they finished 8-10, winning five of their final six games. Along the way they beat Notre Dame, which will be in the NCAA tournament, and Pittsburgh, which hopes to be in the tournament, and lost by three at Lousiville.
Georgia Tech has a player in Marcus Georges-Hunt who can get hot and carry a team. The Yellow Jackets have a decent matchup on Wednesday against a Clemson team they just beat on Feb. 23. And, oh yes, Georgia Tech also beat Virginia, which would await the Yellow Jackets in the quarterfinals.
Florida State, meanwhile, has never lacked for talent. Chemistry maybe, but not talent. If freshmen Malik Beasley and Dwayne Bacon and sophomore Xavier Rathan-Mayes can come together, the Seminoles could easily find themselves in the quarterfinals with a winnable game against Miami.
4. Is there anyone who could go all Randolph Childress and take over the tournament?
Always, though maybe not at UNC, which is among the worst 3-point shooting teams in the country. Even there, though, Brice Johnson is capable of taking over – and very well could if the Tar Heels can consistently get him the ball in position to score.
The memory of Childress, the Wake Forest guard, and his epic scoring spree in 1995, though, endures because of what he did on the perimeter. And there are several players whose shooting – hot or cold – will likely determine their team’s fate.
If you’re looking for one who could go pure Childress, Duke’s Grayson Allen might stand the best chance. He averages nearly six 3-point attempts per game and has made 42.3 percent of them. For pure volume, Georgia Tech’s Adam Smith is a candidate to go off. He made at least four 3s in three of Georgia Tech’s final four games.
5. What will the reception for the tournament be like in Washington, D.C.?
The tournament is back in D.C. for the second time, and first since 2005. Back then, the tournament site wasn’t too far from Maryland’s campus. But Maryland is now in the Big Ten and here the ACC is, throwing its biggest party of the year in the Terrapins’ backyard.
There’s likely to be some envy from Maryland fans who long wished the tournament came through the neighborhood more often. Virginia is the closest thing the ACC has to a “hometown” team in Washington, though Pittsburgh isn’t tremendously far away, and neither are the North Carolina schools.
Still, it’ll be interesting to see what the reception is like – especially if things get strange and the main draws (that’d be Virginia, UNC and Duke) are upset. The Verizon Center isn’t likely to be too festive on Tuesday, and the Wednesday games aren’t exactly mesmerizing, either, though Duke’s presence then should help attendance.
Depending on the matchup in the championship game on Saturday, good seats might be available at a decent price outside the Verizon Center.Today we’re going to take a look back on the most popular memes from each of the five major Magic: The Gathering releases in 2017.
Aether Revolt: Fatal Push
2017 was the year you could push over a helicopter… TO DEATH.
Among other entertaining shenanigans…
(source: mtg-realm.tumblr.com)
(source: magic–the–memeing.tumblr.com)
Amonkhet: Tokens
Let’s not forget these cool creatures (with totally legit names) from Amonkhet!
Of course we couldn’t forget… they’re the stuff of nightmares…
Hour of Devastation: Thank you (not so fast Bontu…)
Oh Bontu, how could you? We trusted you… even with your color identity.
Ixalan: He Protec
Who doesn’t love a good, good *dino boy???
*we felt it necessary to remind you that no dinos were harmed in the making of this meme.
Unstable: Squirrely Mood Board
There’s a squirrel for every mood of everyday. A meme that truly never stops giving.
Thank you!
This MTG Meme Retrospective was made In Loving Memory of Snake Dad. May he rest in power.This article is over 4 years old
Kim Sang-geun came to North Korea after having unspecified difficulties living in the South
North Korea to return South Korean man who had entered illegally
North Korea says it will deport a South Korean man who entered the country illegally, in an apparent conciliatory gesture.
The North's official Korean Central News Agency said on Friday that Kim Sang-geun entered through a third country after having unspecified difficulties living in the South.
It said Kim asked to live in North Korea but it would repatriate him next week. South Korea's unification ministry has agreed to take custody of Kim.
Analysts say the man's return suggests that North Korea is keen to improve relations with its neighbour.
North Korea has previously been accused of using illegal migrants as propaganda tools by bringing false espionage charges against them.LONDON (AP) The Church of England owes Charles Darwin an apology for its hostile 19th-century reaction to the naturalist's theory of evolution, a cleric wrote on an Anglican website launched Monday.
The Rev. Malcolm Brown, who heads the church's public affairs department, issued the statement to mark Darwin's bicentenary and the 150th anniversary of the seminal work On the Origin of Species, both of which fall next year.
Brown said the Church of England should say it is sorry for misunderstanding him at the time he released his findings and, "by getting our first reaction wrong, encouraging others to misunderstand (Darwin) still."
The Church of England said Brown's statement reflected its position on Darwin but did not constitute an official apology.
The church's stance sets it apart from fundamentalist Christians, who believe evolutionary theory is incompatible with the biblical story of the Earth's creation.
Darwin was born into the Church of England, educated at a church boarding school and trained to become an Anglican priest.
However, his theory that species evolve over generations through a process of natural selection brought him into conflict with the church.
The Church of England did not take an official stance against Darwin's theories, but many senior Anglicans reacted with hostility to his ideas, arguing against them at public debates.
At an Oxford University debate in 1860, the bishop of Oxford, Samuel Wilberforce, famously asked scientist Thomas Huxley whether it was through his grandfather or his grandmother that he claimed to be descended from a monkey. Critics included the Rev. John Stevens Henslow and Adam Sedgwick, both scientists who had taught Darwin at Cambridge. Sedgwick wrote that he found some of Darwin's ideas "utterly false and grievously mischievous."
Brown said that from a modern perspective, it was hard to avoid the thought that the reaction against Darwin was based on what would now be called the "yuck factor... when he proposed a lineage from apes to humans."
Brown called for a "rapprochement" between Christianity and Darwinism.
The bishop of Swindon, Lee Rayfield, who also is an immunologist, said religion and science were not mutually exclusive.
He said he opposed Christians for whom "evolution is equated with atheism" as well as Darwinists who felt ideas about evolution "completely undermine any kind of credibility for God."
"That's completely wrong," he told British Broadcasting Corp. radio. "It's a false polarization."
This is not the first time a cleric or a church has been pressed to apologize for past actions. In 1992, Pope John Paul II said the Roman Catholic Church was wrong to condemn astronomer Galileo Galilei for maintaining that the Earth is not the center of the universe.
The Church of England said sorry two years ago for its role in the trans-Atlantic slave trade.
Still, a descendant of Darwin's said the Anglicans' latest bout of soul-searching served little purpose.
"Why bother?" the scientist's great-great-grandson Andrew Darwin was quoted as saying by the Daily Mail newspaper. "When an apology is made after 200 years, it's not so much to right a wrong, but to make the person or organization making the apology feel better."
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.1. What is there to the off the field stuff that Lewan is facing?
Honestly, not much. Lewan gets a bad rap for the nasty streak he carries on the field. I personally had a way bigger issue with his propensity for personal fouls than with anything else. (He was very frustrating as a redshirt freshman.) Lewan has grown up a lot, though. He turned down millions of dollars last season to come back for his fifth year, which he did not need to do, either athletically or academically. He claims he did purely because he was loyal to his teammates and wanted to have one more shot to chase a Big Ten championship. Obviously, it didn't work out that way, but I don't think he regrets it.
Currently Lewan is facing potential charges for assault and battery after an alleged fight he got into after the Ohio State game with a couple of Buckeye fans. (Really, is it any type of surprise that Buckeye fans would press charges against a Michigan player?) From my understanding, the worst that he faces in terms of sentencing is a fine, especially since he maintains that he was trying to stop the fight. But his reputation often brings this into doubt. He's a guy with a nasty streak, through and through. Even though he's all smiles, he takes absolutely no b.s. from anybody.
The more concerning off-the-field element that NFL fans seem to be worried about is the alleged rumor that he threatened to rape a woman -- in 2009, when he would have been redshirting at 18 -- in order to intimidate her into backing off his teammate, kicker Brendan Gibbons, who was expelled from Michigan five years later because they concluded his contact with the woman in question was inappropriate and unwanted. As the son of a former public defense attorney, I have something of a legal background and I analyzed the Lewan case as thoroughly as I could without an actual law degree.
The first thing I noticed was that there is practically no credible evidence that Lewan actually threatened this woman. The report that claims so comes from a blog called the Washtenaw Watchdog, which locally has a reputation for creating controversy where none exists. (That doesn't necessarily mean it's wrong in this case, but something to consider when coming to a conclusion.) The blog links to a police report where officers warned a player not to threaten the victim again, but the player's name is redacted. The writer, Douglas Smith, frequently referred to as a "gadfly" by other news outlets and blogs, makes the strong assertion that the redacted name is Lewan's despite no other damning evidence, such as an eyewitness testimony. Because there is no other evidence, the report is generally seen as nothing more than an allegation against Lewan. He has not been charged legally. When investigating Gibbons, the University of Michigan found no link to Lewan and nothing which indicated that he threatened the woman.
Lewan himself has denied the allegations publicly. Clearly he has done enough to convince NFL organizations that it was not an issue. More importantly, the Tennessee Titans have determined through their own vetting that he was worth a draft pick. I did a post over at Maize n' Brew where I summed up my thoughts on Lewan, both good and bad. He's a nasty player, but he's fiercely loyal to his team. You have to decide if that's something you can live with on the offensive line.
Bottom line, you have to decide if you trust the Titans to have done their homework. I vouch for the guy, but I'm a Michigan fan, so take it for what it's worth.
2. Break down his strengths and weaknesses.
Without a doubt, Lewan's biggest strength is his size. He's easily 6'8" and has long arms to go with a long, extremely well-built frame. He locked down the left tackle position at Michigan for four straight years and never once was in danger of losing the spot. No one ever came close to beating him out. No one.
He's also very consistent. He never takes a play off -- ever. (If he has, I've never seen it, and I watched him quite closely over the years, being the skeptic about hyped players that I am.) He likes to "play through the whistle" (as opposed to "playing up to the whistle") because he feels that as an offensive lineman it is his job to put defenders in the ground. His nasty streak is something you just can't teach. He's also one of the fastest offensive lineman that Michigan has ever had, and one of the fastest I have personally seen. He has great feet and an even better sense of the rush and the blitz. If he has a forte, it's pass blocking.
In terms of weaknesses, the biggest issue I've had with Lewan is that sometimes his emotions get the better of him. When losing a game (especially against a hated rival), he tends to lose his cool. That can lead to personal fouls, which can cost your team fifteen yards. I don't care how good you are technically, giving up fifteen years for some bogus emotional crap is 100% unacceptable.
His height, while sometimes an asset, can sometimes be a hindrance. I've seen him struggle when edge rushers get low and try to get around him. He tends to do much better around tall defensive ends (like Clowney) than against short, stout rushers. But once he gets locked on somebody, they're probably going down. He's very rarely out-muscled.
3. Do you think he is a guy that can anchor an offensive line for a decade?
Absolutely. The fact that no one even came close to unseating him at Michigan even when he was a redshirt freshman should tell you everything you need to know. He's been our best offensive tackle since Jake Long. I'm not even joking.
Once he gets a few NFL games under his belt, he'll settle in and you won't have to worry about that left tackle position unless an unexpected injury occurs. (And even then, Lewan has always been a guy who bounced back quickly. He often played through injuries in huge games.) He's definitely a guy who can come in and contribute right away. Expect your quarterback production to improve, at least in terms of pocket protection. That's the Michigan difference. (lol just kidding)
4. Is there cause for concern that his off the field issues will follow him to the NFL?
I sincerely doubt it. Nothing he did affected him playing at Michigan, and Brady Hoke runs a pretty tight ship. If nothing else, you guys will be impressed and delighted by his loyalty and his toughness. I will be honest: he is a bit quirky. He did do some odd things. For example, he and his roommate bought a pig as a pet. (They later had to part ways with it, per the coach's instructions.) He also rode on a "twosie" bike and liked to take funny pictures. He has a bizarre sense of humor too. It's not everyone's cup of tea. (I actually didn't like him for the first three years of his career. Now I love him.)
5. What was his best game at Michigan that Titans' fans could go back and watch to get us off the ledge?
Check out how he did against Jadaveon Clowney in the 2013 Outback Bowl. For the plays where Clowney and Lewan went head-to-head, i.e. the plays where Clowney was actually being blocked by Lewan, I think he held up pretty well against the guy who, even then, was considered the best college athlete in the nation. He also did very well against Ohio State in 2013. The 2013 Indiana bout was another one that also produced some odd offensive lineman highlights, but Indiana's defense was terrible, so only view that one if you want to feel good.
A big thanks to Jack for answering these questions. He said he will be around MCM to answer any questions you might have in the comments.Get FANTASTIC RESULTS! – Download “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” 6 e-book bundle and START WRITING GREAT SONGS!
Is it true that the longer it takes you to get to the chorus of your song, the less likely it is that it’ll be a hit? On the face of it, it would appear to be true. After all, for most songs, the chorus is the most “hooky” part of the song, the part everyone remembers, the part that’s supposed to keep us coming back. So let’s take a quick look at the top ten hits on Billboard Hot 100 this week, and find out how long it actually takes them to get to the chorus.
Starting the clock with the first note of the song, and checking when it reaches the chorus, and then when the title words are sung, we get the following results:
Far East Movement: Like a G6: 0’15” to title words (song starts with the chorus). Bruno Mars: Just the Way You Are: 0’52” to chorus, 1’05” to title words. Nelly: Just a Dream: 0’20” to start of chorus, 0’29” to the title words. Rihanna: Only Girl (in the World): 0’46” to start of chorus, 0’48” to title words. Usher, feat. Pitbull: DJ Got Us Falling in Love Again: 0″39′ to start of chorus, 0″41 to title words. Taylor Swift: Back to December:0’55” to start of chorus, 1’05” to title words. Katy Perry: Teenage Dream: 0’52” to start of chorus, 0″56 to title words. Taio Cruz: Dynamite: 0’38” to start of chorus, 0’54” to title words. Flo Rida: Club Can’t Handle Me: 0’21” to title words (song starts with chorus). Trey Songz Feat. Nicki Minaj: Bottoms Up: 0’17” to title words (song starts with chorus).
Three of Billboard’s current hit songs start with the chorus, and it’s a great way to make sure that your song title gets into the listeners’ heads early and often.
The song that takes the longest to get to the chorus is Taylor Swift’s “Back to December”, notable for being the only ballad currently in the Top Ten.
And when you start looking at other songs within the current top 100 hits, it seems to be pretty much a rule that you’ll get to hear the chorus, and in most cases the title words, before the first minute of the song has elapsed.
We know that verses give us background – they lay the groundwork and give us the basic story. And we know that choruses give us the emotional response to all of that.
And, it would appear, the longer you make your audience wait for that emotional response, the more frustrated you’ll find your audience to be.
With that in mind, the following tips will probably apply to 90% of the songs you’ll write:
Get to the chorus before the 1-minute mark of your song; on average by the 45-second mark. Only use a pre-chorus in your song if the verse is short and does not venture very far harmonically. Don’t use a bridge or instrumental solo until after the second chorus. Consider starting the chorus directly after the song intro, then Verse 1. Place the title words in a structurally significant part of your chorus melody: at the start, at the end, or on the highest note.
Written by Gary Ewer, from “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” website.
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By DePaul YAF
At DePaul University, our Catholic and Vincentian ethics require our professors, staff, and administrators to urge students to ask the simple, yet profound question: “What must be done?”
We at DePaul’s Young Americans for Freedom chapter(YAF) have been asking ourselves that question over the last few months. What must be done to stop the near daily attacks on students’ speech rights? What must be done for DePaul to restore its faith in its students? What must be done to return DePaul to an institution of free thought and open debate?
Last August, DePaul announced a ban of conservative commentator Ben Shapiro for the foreseeable future. When our YAF chapter requested a room for the event, Bob Janis, Vice President of Facilities Operations, informed us that, “given the experiences and security concerns that some other schools have had with Ben Shapiro speaking on their campuses, DePaul cannot agree to allow him to speak on our campus at this time.”
Since that announcement, Shapiro has spoken on multiple college campuses, including Yale, Clemson, and UT Austin. He has been speaking on college campuses for years, making appearances at many different schools, too many to count. Furthermore, he holds a degree from Harvard Law, where he graduated cum laude, and is a New York Times bestselling author.
DePaul University’s Guiding Principles on Speech and Expression clearly state that “DePaul affirms the right of speakers to voice their viewpoints, even at the risk of controversy.” These viewpoints, DePaul points out, help foster “a community that welcomes open discourse.” The statement goes on to explain, “We believe that intellectual inquiry is enriched immeasurably by robust debate and exposure to differing points of view. By remaining open to a broad range of ideas and opinions, we foster mutual understanding, test our beliefs, and create the most effective conditions for seeking knowledge.”
There is no argument to be made that Ben Shapiro does not substantively contribute to this crucial dialogue. Therefore, DePaul YAF is excited to announce that on Tuesday, November 15, alongside Christina Hoff Sommers, Ben Shapiro will be speaking on our campus in Cortelyou Commons at 5:00 PM.
Consistently, DePaul has maintained that “security concerns” are the reason for Ben’s initial ban—that if Ben comes, students will attack him for promoting strong conservative values. We at DePaul YAF have faith that the DePaul community will not attack Ben Shapiro for promoting principles that more than half the country holds. We have faith that in this divided time in our country and our community, DePaul can be a shining example for the nation that we all can come together, listen to, and debate each other. After all, that is what higher education—and we would hope DePaul—is all about.
Back in August, even the DePaul College Democrats agreed with these sentiments. In a statement they said, “We do not view Ben Shapiro as an overt threat to peace on campus, nor does he inherently fan the flames of controversy on campus. As an executive board, we disagree with the precedent set by banning his speech on campus.”
We speak now directly to the DePaul administration: Will you uphold free speech? Will you allow the supposed dialogue you so often revere to actually take place? Will you reject our Guiding Principles on Speech and Expression and the promises you made regarding students’ speech rights? Do you have such little faith in thestudent body and the institution that one person expressing a different (and quite common) point of view will cause students to commit acts of violence?
It is time for you to show to your prospective and current students, faculty, staff and alumni your faith in yourstudents and your commitment to free expression and open debate.
If you choose to stop this event from going forward, know that you are making clear to everyone that you do not support free speech and you believe the environment you have created at DePaul is not conducive to free expression or open debate.
We at DePaul YAF feel that would be a sad admission ofDePaul’s rejection of its values and its utter lack of faith in its student body. We hope that DePaul University makes the right decision and that the DePaul community is excited for our event with Sommers and Shapiro next week.It has often been noted that Google's CEO Larry Page comes across as somewhat muted when speaking, which he took a break from entirely last year with an unexplained throat issue. Now he has revealed what the problem is.
His vocal issues began 14 years ago after a heavy cold left him very hoarse. His condition was diagnosed as partial paralysis of the left vocal cords, possibly as a result of the virus which sparked his initial cold.
"While this condition never really affected me – other than having a slightly weaker voice than normal which some people think sounded a little funny – it naturally raised questions in my mind about my second vocal cord," he said. "But I was told that sequential paralysis of one vocal cord following another is extremely rare."
Not rare enough, it seems. Last June he caught another cold and his voice got worse, with the right side of his vocal cords suffering serious damage. Again, no cause could be found, but Page took time off from public speaking until October's Google earnings call.
Page said that the problems also slightly affect his breathing abilities while exercising (although he claims his kiteboarding stamina is undiminished), and that although his voice is strong enough for work and home use, public speaking is tough.
Cofounder Sergey Brin tells Page it makes him a better CEO because he chooses his words carefully.
Over the course of his illness, Page said he ran into Dr. Steven Zeitels of the Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts General Hospital Voice Center, and agreed to fund research into the problem and how it might be cured. But, frustratingly for a Googler, there's a lack of data.
Vocal paralysis isn't a widespread condition, and there is a lack of case-study evidence for the condition. Page, therefore, is asking members of the public to contribute their experiences of the condition to the Voice Health Project.
As El Reg has noted Page's voice has noticeably deteriorated over time, and he says he finds giving long-winded speeches tiresome, in any case. "So surprisingly, overall I am feeling very lucky," he says – although that won't stop him trying to find a cure. ®Yesterday, Iggy Pop and Josh Homme (of Queens of the Stone Age and Eagles of Death Metal) announced a new collaborative album Post Pop Depression. Iggy Pop has now detailed the project, which is billed as an Iggy Pop album, produced by Homme. He's shared the first single from the album, "Gardenia," too. Listen to it and check out the tracklist below.
Post Pop Depression is out March 18 via Loma Vista. In addition to Homme's involvement, Queens of the Stone Age's Dean Fertita (also of the Dead Weather) plays guitars and keyboards on the album. Arctic Monkeys drummer Matt Helders also contributed to the record. Pop and Homme plan on taking the album on the road, where they'll be accompanied by Fertita and Helders, plus QotSA's Troy Van Leeuwen (guitar) and Chavez's Matt Sweeney (bass).
In an interview with The New York Times, Homme revealed that it was "by a stroke of fate" that he didn't perform with his other band Eagles of Death Metal at the Bataclan the night of the Paris attacks. He added that making Post Pop Depression helped him overcome the trauma of the event: "The fact that I had this to work on, it saved me," he said.
Post Pop Depression:
01 Break Into Your Heart
02 Gardenia
03 American Valhalla
04 In the Lobby
05 Sunday
06 Vulture
07 German Days
08 Chocolate Drops
09 Paraguay
Watch Marc Maron talk about meeting Iggy Pop in an episode of Pitchfork.tv's "Frames:The highest court in Germany may soon have to consider whether the mock church should be treated as an "ideological community," which could allow them to claim rights similar to traditional religious groups.
"We believe that a satirical religion should have the same rights as other religions," chairman of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, Rüdiger Weida, on Monday. Weida also goes by his church name, Brother Spaghettus.
The so-called Pastafarians seek to satirize the concept of religion by ironically worshiping a deity made of spaghetti and meatballs, promoting their vision of heaven which involves strippers and a beer volcano, and gathering for a weekly "noodle mass" to share pasta and beer. They argue that this FSM's heavenly existence is no less likely, and just as impossible to disprove, as that of more traditional deities.
No dogma, no church?
Weida posing with a Noodle mass sign before their removal
For several years, the followers of the Flying Spaghetti Monster have been clashing with authorities in the northeast town of Templin over the right to display street signs with the times of their church service. Similar signs are commonplace for Christian churches in Germany.
However, Templin officials removed the signs posted by the Church of the Flying Spaghetti monster. In the ensuing legal battle, German local and regional courts sided with the authorities. Last month, the judges in Brandenburg ruled that the church was not a true religious group, partly because they have "no dogmas." The higher regional court also ruled that the group's criticism of religion is not enough to form an "ideological community."
In a paragraph from the verdict cited at the church's website, the judges say that church members were willing to alter "their perspective and claims based on the changes in reality."
"So it seems German law stipulates that only worldviews with dogmatic, fixed lines and beliefs can really be counted as such," the carbohydrate-rich church said on Monday. "Those [ideologies] that can develop apparently aren't worldviews."
Members of the Church with Weida, aka Brother Spaghettus in the right
Read more: Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster conducts legal wedding in New Zealand
Pasta strainer
It was not immediately clear if or when Germany's Constitutional Court would decide on the case. After the August verdict, Weida said that he was ready to take the case all the way to the European Court of Justice - which would be the last legal option if an appeal in Karlsruhe failed.
In 2011, an Austrian Pastafarian won a right to wear a pasta strainer on his head for his drivers' license photo, claiming that it was required by his religion.
Since its inception in the US in 2005, the church has spread to various parts of the world. The German branch estimates that at least 20,000 people practice Pastafarianism.
dj/msh (epd, KNA, dpa, AFP)Airships may be the key component in a new robotic system for exploring the celestial bodies most likely to harbor life like Mars and Jupiter's moon, Titan.
The dirigibles would provide regional observations and autonomous command for ground-based vehicles, while maintaining contact with orbiters.
It'd be a new role for airships, which were the wonder of the aerial world in the days before airplanes (and rockets and space shuttles).
"The balloon or airship has a lot of advantages: It's buoyant, so it keeps its altitude and you do not need to invest energy to keep it afloat," said Wolfgang Fink, who led the work at Cal Tech's Visual and Autonomous Exploration Systems Research Laboratory, before accepting an appointment at the University of Arizona. "It has a lot of advantages, especially in places like Titan, which has a dense atmosphere that's perfect for an airship."
Current robotic exploration missions are limited. Orbiting telescopes like the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter provide low-resolution views of vast swaths of a celestial body while rovers and landers provide detailed observations of a tiny region. Fink argues that we'll need teams of robots to do any serious exploration looking for interesting features that might tip us off to the presence of life or geological activity.
And on planets with atmospheres, airships are the ideal middle layer for "tier-scalable reconnaissance," a vision Fink has spelled out in a series of papers over the past several years.
To test how teams of autonomous robots working together could explore an area, Fink's team built a miniature lab version of the system, as seen in the image above. At just 4 feet by 5 feet, it's not exactly the surface of Mars, but it allowed the team to test a piece of software that picks out anomalous objects in a landscape, the Automatic Global Feature Analyzer.
The software doesn't try to place what it reads in images into known categories. Surveying a scene, it doesn't try to identify certain kind of rocks or geological features. Instead, it just looks for the odd stuff out — the Waldo — in the scene. For a place like Mars, where we know a lot of the territory is similar and seemingly lifeless, the weird stuff is probably the good stuff.
"If you do not know what you will encounter, you have to embrace the unknown," Fink said.
With the miniature lab tests complete, Fink plans to take his show on the road, probably to the Arizona desert. Over a large geographic region, they'll float an airship with on-board camera and release rovers controlled by the feature analyzer software.
"For initial test purposes, we could put a Coke can and see if the science algorithms will flag these anomalies," Fink said, "And then, once they are flagged, generate the navigation commands that are issued from the airships to the ground."
They plan to try the Coke can test in the next year. As time goes on, they will try more difficult terrains out because ultimately, it's the extreme areas of other planets that could prove the most interesting. By keeping the ground units cheap, they can also have more of them, allowing the missions to take greater risks.
"Mountain ranges, canyons, cliffs – those are the locations where interesting stuff might happen," Fink said. "You need to be able to get into those high-risk areas to get a nice and interesting science return. You might lose some of these agents you deploy, but because they are simplified, you can deploy more of them and still afford to lose some of them."
The entire system — satellite, airships and ground rovers — could be ready to go in the next decade, which would be long before NASA could actually use it.
Image: 1. NASA/JPL. 2. Wolfgang Fink. 3. The invasion of Normandy, U.S. Coast Guard Collection.
See Also:
WiSci 2.0: Alexis Madrigal's Twitter, Google Reader feed, and green |
same conclusions seem to follow from very different assumptions. Thus roughly similar structures of rights can be and are deduced by libertarian philosophers trying to show what set of natural rights is just and by economists trying to show what set of legal rules would be efficient. And the structures of rights that they deduce seem similar to those observed in human behavior and embodied in the common law. In Part III of this essay I will try to suggest at least partial explanations for this triple coincidence—the apparent similarity between what is, what is just, and what is efficient.
Part I: Schelling Points, Self-Enforcing Contracts, and the Paradox of Order
Several writers have tried to analyze the transition from a Hobbesian state of nature to a state of civil order in terms of a set of hypothetical contracts establishing an initial distribution of property rights based on a preexisting distribution of power. [4] One difficulty with this approach is that in the initial situation there are no institutions to enforce contracts. How can people in that situation change it by making contracts which are unenforceable and so of no effect? [5]
The same problem can be seen from the other side by asking in what sense we, or any society, are ever out of a Hobbesian state of nature. What do we have, what have we created, that does not exist in the Hobbesian jungle? Civil order is not defined by the existence of physical objects—court rooms, police uniforms, law books. We can easily enough imagine a Hobbesian jungle—in the middle of a war, say—coexisting with all the physical appurtenances of civil society. And primitive peoples, without court rooms or law books, nonetheless live in a state of civil order.
Nor does it suffice to say that we are in a state of civil order because we have judges to interpret our laws and police to enforce them. Why do those people act in that way? Presumably because it is in their private interest to do so—just as potential criminals obey the law for the same reason. But that is how people act in the Hobbesian jungle. There too, one man may happen to enforce a rule, and another happen to obey it, because each finds it in his own interest to do so. What is it that we have and the Hobbesian jungle does not have that makes it in the interest of people to behave in a law abiding and peaceful manner? To say that the answer is "police, courts, government" only throws the question back a step; if civil order is enforced by men with guns, what controls them?
There are two sorts of answers to these questions. One is that the difference is a moral one. People somehow accept an obligation, agree not to behave according to simple self interest, feel themselves bound by that agreement and alter their actions accordingly.
There are difficulties with this sort of explanation. First, there is the empirical observation that people do not feel themselves bound to obey laws; many, perhaps most, people feel free to violate those laws (speed limits, drinking laws, customs regulations) which they disagree with and believe they can get away with breaking. Second, to the extent that people do feel a moral obligation to obey social rules, it is hard to derive that feeling from any variant of social contract theory. The traditional variants encounter the difficulty eloquently described by Lysander Spooner; [6] since we ourselves did not sign the contract we are not bound by it.
The difficulties with deriving moral obligation from the sort of pairwise social contract suggested by Winston Bush [7] are equally great. Even if we consider that each of us is, at every instant, in an implicit contract with each of his neighbors to respect some agreed upon set of rights, still that contract, in Bush's model, is based on the threat of coercion. It has no more moral legitimacy, according to conventional moral ideas, than the obligation to pay off a protection racket.
It may be possible to explain the difference between a Hobbesian state of nature and civil society as a moral difference, but I prefer the alternative explanation—that the essential difference is not in the motivation of the players but in the strategic situation they face. This raises the question of how making an agreement—in a society with no mechanisms for enforcing agreements—can change anything, the strategic situation included.
I. A. The Tool: Schelling Points [8]
2, 5, 9, 25, 69, 73, 82, 96, 100, 126, 150
Two people are separately confronted with the list of numbers shown above and offered a reward if they independently choose the same number. If the two are mathematicians, it is likely that they will both choose 2—the only even prime. Non-mathematicians are likely to choose 100—a number which seems, to the mathematicians, no more unique than the other two exact squares. Illiterates might agree on 69, because of its peculiar symmetry—as would, for a different reason, those whose interest in numbers is more prurient than mathematical.
There are three things worth noting about this simple problem in coordination without communication. The first is that each pair of players is looking for a number that is in some way unique. To a mathematician, all three squares are special numbers, as are the three primes. But if they try to coordinate on a square or a prime, they have only one chance in three of success—and besides, one may be trying primes and the other squares. 2 is unique. If the set of numbers did not contain 2 but did contain only one prime (or only one square, or one perfect number) they would choose that.
The second thing to note is that there is no single right answer; the number chosen by one player, and hence the number that ought to be chosen by the other, depends on the categories that the person choosing uses to classify the alternatives. The right strategy is to find some classification in terms of which there is a unique number, then choose that number—a strategy whose implementation depends on the particular classifications that pair of players uses. Thus the right answer depends on subjective characteristics of the players.
The third point, which follows from this, is that it is possible to succeed in the game because of, not in spite of, the bounded rationality of the players. To a mind of sufficient scope every number is unique. [9] It is only because the players are limited to a small number of the possible classification schemes for numbers, and because the two players may be limited to the same schemes, that a correct choice may exist. In this respect the theory of this game is radically different from conventional game theory, which assumes players with unlimited ability to examine alternatives and so abstracts away from all subjective characteristics of the players except those embodied in their utility functions. [10]
Consider now two players playing the game called bilateral monopoly. They have a dollar to divide between them, provided they can agree how to divide it. Superficially there is no resemblance between this game and that discussed above; the players are free to talk with each other as much as they want.
But while they can talk freely, there is a sense in which they cannot communicate at all. It is in my interest to persuade you that I will only be satisfied with a large fraction of the dollar; if I am really unwilling to accept anything less than ninety cents, you are better off agreeing to accept ten cents than holding out for more and getting nothing. Since it is in the interest of each of us to persuade the other of his resolve, all statements to that effect can be ignored; they would be made whether true or not. What each player has to do is to guess what the other's real demand is, what the fraction of the dollar is without which he will refuse to agree. That cannot be communicated, simply because it pays each player to lie about it. The situation is therefore similar to that in the previous game; the players must coordinate their demands (so that they add up to a dollar) without communication. It seems likely that they will do so by agreeing to split the dollar fifty-fifty.
The same points made about the previous game apply here, although less obviously. The players are looking for a unique solution; if I decide that the natural split is one third-two thirds and you agree, both of us reasoning from a mystic belief in the significance of the number three, there is still the risk that each will decide he is entitled to the two-thirds.
To see that the solution depends on the particular categories used by the players, imagine that both have been brought up to believe that utility, not money, is the relevant payoff, and suppose further that both believe the marginal utility of a dollar to be inversely proportional to the recipient's income. In that case, the solution to the game is not a fifty-fifty split of money but a fifty-fifty split of utility—implying a division of the dollar into shares proportional to the two players' incomes. [11]
Such an outcome, chosen because of its uniqueness, is called a Schelling point, after Thomas Schelling who originated the idea. It provides a possible solution to the problem of coordination without communication. As this example shows, it is relevant both to situations where communication is physically impossible and to situations where communication is impossible because there is no way that either party can provide the other with a reason to believe that what he says is true.
Even if it is impossible for the players in such a game to communicate their real demands, it may still be possible for them to affect the outcome by what they say. They could do so, not by directly communicating their own strategies (any such statement will be disbelieved), but by altering the other player's categories, the ways in which he organizes the alternatives of the game, and so changing the Schelling points which depend on those categories.
In the example just discussed, for example, one player (presumably the richer) might remind the other of their shared belief in the importance of utility in order to make sure the equi-utility Schelling point would be chosen. If, in the first game I described, the players were allowed to talk before seeing the numbers, a conversation on the interesting properties of primes or the special uniqueness of the lowest of a series of numbers might well alter the Schelling point, and so the result of the game. One can interpret a good deal of bargaining behaviour in this light—as an attempt by one party to make the other see the situation in a particular way, so as to generate a Schelling point favorable to the first party.
A slightly different way in which one may conceptualize the process of agreement on a Schelling point is in terms of bargaining costs in a context of continuous bargaining. [12] Consider a situation in which the number of possible outcomes is very large. Suppose the process of bargaining is itself costly, either because it consumes time or because each player bears costs (such as staying out on strike) in trying to validate his threats. As long as the players are faced with a choice among a large number of comparable alternatives, each proposal by one player is likely to call forth a competing proposal from another, slanted a little more in his own interest.
But suppose there is one outcome that is seen as unique. A player who proposes that outcome may be perceived as offering, not a choice between that outcome, another slightly different, another different still,... but a choice between that outcome and continued bargaining. A player who says that he insists on the unique outcome and will not settle for anything less may be believable, where a similar statement about a different outcome would not be. He can convincingly argue that he will stand by his proposed outcome because, once he gives it up, he has no idea where he will end up or how high the costs of getting there will be.
In order for a Schelling point to provide a peaceful resolution to a conflict of interest, both parties must conceptualize the alternatives in similar ways—similar enough so that they can agree about which possible outcomes are unique, and thus attractive as potential Schelling points. So one interesting implication of the argument is that violent conflict is especially likely to occur on the boundary between cultures, where people with very different ways of viewing the world interact.
IB. Up From Hobbes
Two people are living in a Hobbesian state of nature. Each can injure or steal from the other, at some cost, and each can spend resources on his own defense. Since conflict consumes resources, both could benefit by agreeing on what each owns and thereafter each respecting the other's property. The joint benefit might be divided in different ways, according to the particular set of property rights they agree on—what property belongs to whom, and whether either has a property right in tribute from the other. This is a special case of the game—bilateral monopoly—described above.
Each player, of course, will threaten to refuse to make any such agreement unless he gets the division he wants. Each will disbelieve most of the other's threats. If their ability to coerce and defend is roughly equal, and if there is some natural division of contested property (such as a stream running between their farms), it is likely that they will find a Schelling point in the form of an agreement to accept that division, respect each other's rights, and pay no tribute.
If one (being, perhaps, slightly more powerful) tries to insist on a small tribute, arguing that it will still leave the other better off than continued conflict, the other may believably refuse, arguing that once he concedes any tribute there is no natural limit to what the other can demand. Agreeing to tribute costs the victim not only the tribute but the only available Schelling point. The expected cost to him of such an agreement includes both the possible cost of paying higher tribute in the future and the risk of future conflicts if in the future he rejects demands for higher tribute. That cost may be high enough to make his insistence that he will choose continued conflict over the payment of even a small tribute believable.
So far we have considered the Schelling point that generates an agreement. But the agreement itself, whether generated by a Schelling point or in some other way, is thereafter itself a Schelling point. It is a unique outcome of which both players are conscious. Once it has been made, a policy of "if you do not abide by the agreement I will revert to the use of force, even if the violation is small compared to the cost of conflict" is believable for precisely the same reason the refusal to pay tribute, or any insistence by a bargainer on a Schelling point, is believable. The signing of a contract establishes a new Schelling point and thereby alters the strategic situation. The contract enforces itself.
This applies not only to the initial pairwise social contract but to subsequent contracts as well. Suppose you have an orchard and I have an axe. After agreeing on our mutual property rights, you offer me a bushel of apples to cut down a tree that is shading your orchard. I cut down the tree as agreed, but you refuse to give me the apples. What happens?
So far as our physical situation is concerned, I am in no more able to compel you to pay me a bushel of apples now than I was before you made the offer and I cut down the tree—our material resources, our ability to hurt each other and defend ourselves, are the same as they were. Yet my threat to cut down your orchard unless you pay up is more credible than it would have been before, both because I have more reason to carry through on it and because you have less reason to resist it. Before, the attempt to get a bushel of apples from you would have been an attempt to move you away from the Schelling point established by the initial contract. Now it is an attempt to restore the Schelling point established by our subsequent agreement.
A more conventional explanation of this is that the reason it is in your interest to deliver the apples once you have agreed to do so is that you wish to establish a reputation for keeping promises, and that the reason it is in my interest to punish you if you do not deliver the apples is because I wish to establish a reputation for enforcing contracts made with me. While this may be true, there are two reasons why it cannot be a complete explanation. First, it depends on a particular perception of consistent behavior—in pure logic, there is no more reason to think of "always enforce" as more consistent then "back down the first, third, fifth,... time and fight the second, fourth,...." Both describe single possible strategies. The important difference between them is that the former is a Schelling point and the latter is not— a fact not about the strategies but about the way we classify them.
A second and related problem with the conventional account is that I might equally well wish to establish a reputation for following through on extortionary demands. We need some way of explaining why I cut down the shade tree first, instead of simply committing myself to demand your apples. If the former pattern creates a Schelling point of contract fulfillment and the latter does not, that provides a possible explanation.
I believe I have now resolved the apparent paradox of contracting out of the Hobbesian jungle. The process of contracting changes the situation because it establishes new Schelling points, which in turn affect the strategic situation and its outcome. The same analysis can be used from the other side to explain what constitutes civil society. The laws and customs of civil society are an elaborate network of Schelling points. If my neighbor annoys me by growing ugly flowers, I do nothing. If he dumps his garbage on my lawn, I retaliate—possibly in kind. If he threatens to dump garbage on my lawn, or play a trumpet fanfare at 3 A.M. every morning, unless I pay him a modest tribute I refuse—even if I am convinced that the available legal defenses cost more than the tribute he is demanding.
If a policeman arrests me—even for a crime I did not commit—I go along peacefully. If he tries to rob my house, I fight, even if the cost of doing so is more than the direct cost of letting him rob me. Each of us knows what behavior by everyone else is within the rules and what behaviour implies unlimited demands, the violation of the Schelling point, and the ultimate return to the Hobbesian jungle. The latter behaviour is prevented by the threat of conflict even if (as in the British defense of the Falklands) the direct costs of surrender are much lower than the direct costs of conflict.
One question this raises is how we succeed in committing ourselves not to back down in such situations. One answer has been suggested already. It is in my long run interest not to back down because if I do I can expect further demands: "if once you have paid him the danegeld/You never get rid of the Dane." [13]
This explanation is not entirely adequate. In some situations, the aggressor may be able to commit himself to keep your surrender secret and limit his own demands. In others, the short run costs of resistance may be larger than the long run costs of surrender.
People (and nations) do sometimes surrender to such demands. If they do so less often then a simple calculation of costs and benefits might predict, the explanation may be found in a class of arguments made by Robert Frank and others. [14]
The central insight of such arguments is that even if surrender is sometimes in my private interest, being the sort of person who will surrender when it is in his interest to do so may not be, since if it is known that I will not back down there is no point in making the initial demand. [15] My first best option is to pretend to be tough, in the hope that the demand will not be made, while reserving the option of surrendering if my bluff is called. If, however, humans are imperfectly able to lie to each other about what sort of people they are—as seems to be the case—then the best available option may be to really be tough, despite the risk that I will occasionally find myself forced to fight when I would be better off surrendering.
None of this argument depends on moral sanctions. I may (indeed do) believe that the tax collector is morally equivalent to the thief. I accept one and fight the other because of my beliefs about other people's behaviour—what they will or will not fight for—and because there are beliefs about my behaviour which I wish others to hold. We are bound together by a set of mutually reinforcing strategic expectations.
II. Two Routes from Hobbes to Here
My argument so far has dealt with two ends of an extended process. I started with an explanation of how it was possible, in a two person world, to take the first steps towards bargaining out of a Hobbesian state of nature. I ended with an explanation of how the same logic maintains civil order as we know it. Missing is any explanation of the intermediate steps by which the complicated and functional order in which we live might have been constructed.
One possibility is legislation. If an important part of the way in which individuals classify actions is "legal/illegal," then the fact of legal change, whether by a king, legislature, or court system, changes the way in which they classify the alternatives, which in turn changes the set of Schelling points. If the court has recognized property rights in water but not in air, I classify pollution of my section of the river as aggression and fight it, by legal, social, or even illegal means. I classify pollution of my air by my neighbor's soap factory as an inconvenient nuisance and either put up with it or try to buy him off. Under these circumstances legislation is, to a considerable degree, self-enforcing; the pattern of property rights might well survive even if the enforcement arm of the state vanished or became impotent.
While this may be part of the explanation for civil order, it cannot be all of it, for at least three reasons. First, some rights have no legal rules associated with them. Second, many, perhaps most, people are selective about which legal rules they take seriously—as can easily be observed on any U.S. highway. And finally, there are well documented situations in which property rights exist and are respected even though they are inconsistent with the relevant legal rights.
This final point brings up a second possible explanation of how the pattern of expectations might have come into existence—that it is due not to the creation of laws but to the evolution of norms. Robert Ellickson, in a recent book, describes how relations among neighbors function in Shasta County California. [16] One of his most striking observations was that in several cases, including conflicts over trespass by animals and the allocation of the cost of building fences between neighbors, the inhabitants ignore the relevant laws and act instead according to well understood non-legal norms. Ellickson offers no adequate account of how such norms develop or of why they provide, in some contexts but not in all, at least approximately efficient rules. A possible answer to that puzzle brings us back to the two person social contract discussed in the previous section. [17]
One might try to explain functional norms by evolution. Perhaps, over time, societies with better norms conquer, absorb, or are imitated by societies with worse norms, producing a world of well designed societies. The problem with that explanation is that such a process should take centuries, if not millennia—which does not fit the facts as Ellickson reports them. Whaling norms in the 19th century, for example, seem to have adjusted rapidly to changes in the species being hunted.
Perhaps what is happening is evolution, but evolution involving groups much smaller and more fluid than entire societies. Consider a norm, such as honesty, that can profitably be followed by small groups within a society, applicable only within the group. Groups with efficient norms will prosper and grow by recruitment. Others will imitate them. Groups with similar norms will tend to fuse, in order to obtain the same benefits on a larger scale. If one system of norms works better than its competitors, it will eventually spread through the entire society. When circumstances change and new problems arise the process can repeat itself on a smaller scale, generating modified norms to deal with the new problems. In effect, what we have is the pairwise contracting out of the Hobbesian state of nature, repeated many times between pairs and within small groups.
This conjecture about how norms arise and change suggests a prediction: Even if a norm is efficient, it will not arise if its benefits depend on its being generally adopted. Suppose we define a norm as locally efficient if, with regard to any two individuals following the norm, there is no different norm such that at least one would be better off and the other no worse off if they both switched to it. A norm is globally efficient if there is no different norm such that at least one person would be better off and nobody worse off if everyone switched to it. [18]
Consider the whaling norms that Ellickson discusses. It is in the interest of any pair of captains to agree in advance to an efficient rule for dealing with whales that one ship harpoons and another one brings in, just as it is in the interest of a pair of individuals to agree to be honest with each other. But a rule for holding down the total number of whales killed so as to preserve the population of whales is useful only if almost everyone follows it. The former type of norm existed, the latter did not—with the result that 19th century whalers did an efficient job of hunting one species after another to near extinction. [19]
So the evolution of norms provides a second possible account of how we get from Hobbes to here. Where the recognition of rights between two people, such as neighbors, or within a small group, provides mutual benefits, it is in the interest of the parties concerned to recognize such rights. [20] By doing so they change the pattern of Schelling points that determines the equilibrium of their interaction, in a way which provides (some) protection for the rights in question. Over a long period of time, the result is to create a set of consistent mutual expectations, and one that tends to be locally, although not necessarily globally, efficient.
III: Law, Justice, and Efficiency
In thinking about issues of rights, I find myself playing two quite different roles. As a human being and (like all human beings) an amateur philosopher, I have moral intuitions; from that standpoint, the question is "why ought one not to steal" and the answer is "because it is wicked." As an economist I ask and answer different questions. One is "what are the consequences of people being free to steal." Much of the economic analysis of law is devoted to answering questions of that sort. Another is "why do people (often) not steal?"
This essay is an attempt to answer that final sort of question. I have tried to answer the economist's question about rights rather than the philosopher's not because economics is more important than moral philosophy but because I am more confident in my ability to use economics to produce answers. [21] I have been encouraged in this policy by a curious and convenient coincidence: in most cases, the rules I conclude to be efficient are also the rules I believe to be just.
It is not a double but a triple coincidence. The rules I believe to be efficient and just are also, to a significant degree, the rules enforced by the laws and norms of the society I live in. [22] In this essay I have sketched some ideas about the nature of those rules and how they have evolved. This raises the question of why, if my account is correct, the rules produced in this way resemble those that I deduce to be efficient and intuit to be just.
In trying to answer that question, I find it useful to start by considering a class of property which underlies all other property and exists even in a Hobbesian state of nature.
I can control the motions of my body by a simple act of will. You can control its motions by imposing overwhelming force, by making believable threats to which I will yield, or in various other ways. Controlling it may be possible for both of us, but it is much cheaper and easier for me. In this sense, we may describe my body as my natural property. The same description applies to my gun—because I know where I hid it and you do not. Even land may be natural property to some extent if my detailed knowledge of the terrain makes it easier for me to use or defend it. Such property is natural inasmuch as my possession of it exists in the state of nature and is independent of social convention. The fact that I can control certain things more cheaply than you can is technology, not law or morals.
Natural property is a useful starting point for explaining the similarities among what is, what should be, and what would be efficient because it is relevant to all three.
If the account I have offered is correct, our actual civil order is the result of extended bargaining, based ultimately on natural property. It was my control over my body that made the initial steps out of the state of nature possible. So natural property is relevant to what is—to the existing pattern of laws and norms.
In a world of no transaction costs, any initial allocation of property rights is efficient. [23] In a world with positive transaction costs, the basis for choosing among alternative allocations is the cost of enforcing and changing them. A set of rules in which I own my body and you own yours is superior to one in which each owns the other's body, or each has a half interest in each body, in part because it is so much easier to enforce. So we have a Coasian argument for the relevance of natural property to what is efficient.
This argument also provides a second connection between natural property and what is. My earlier arguments suggest that the evolution of rules tends to move in a direction that is at least locally efficient. If so, and if rules that allocate natural property to its natural owner are efficient, we would expect to observe such rules. Put differently, the argument for local efficiency of evolved norms provides a reason for some similarity between the rules we observe and the rules that are efficient. [24]
What, if anything, does natural property have to do with what ought to be? That depends on what normative account one accepts. For those of us who accept a libertarian account, in which the underlying right is my right to own myself and whatever I have obtained by voluntary agreement with others who own it, the connection is immediate. Self ownership is both a moral axiom and a technological fact. Voluntary exchange is both a morally legitimate way of altering the pattern of ownership and, if my account of bargaining from the state of nature is correct, a technologically possible way (although not necessarily the only such) of altering a Schelling point and thus an equilibrium.
We now have the beginning of an explanation of the similarity among actual rules, efficient rules, and just rules. The status of this explanation, and of the fact being explained, is not, however, the same for the relation between the first two as it is for the relation of either to the third.
What rules exist can be observed and what rules are efficient can be deduced, at least in principle, from observed technologies and economic theory. Thus the claim that there is some correspondence between what exists and what is efficient is a positive rather than a normative claim. [25]
What ought to be, on the other hand, is, at least in this essay, simply a description of my moral intuitions. If I conclude that the rules that would be just are similar to both the rules that exist and the rules that would be efficient, that may simply be evidence that my moral judgments are ex post rationalizations of the world I live in or the conclusions of my economic analysis.
One further similarity between the ethics and the social order that I have been discussing is worth mentioning. Both are essentially decentralized. The ethical position makes no attempt to evaluate individuals from above—in terms of their worth in the eyes of God. It consists rather of a description of what obligations each individual has to each other individual. [26] The social order, to the extent that it is evolved rather than legislated, is a set of rules that exist because it was in the interest of pairs of individuals to abide by them, not because they promote the general good of society. [27]
IV: Conclusions
The central project of this essay has been to give an account of rights, especially property rights, that is both amoral and alegal—an account that would explain the sort of behavior we associate with rights even in a world lacking law, law enforcement, and feelings of moral obligation. [28] I have tried first to explain how, with no legal system to enforce contracts, it might still be possible to contract out of a Hobbesian state of nature, and then to show how the same analysis can be used to understand in what sense a civil order, such as our own society, is different from a Hobbesian state of nature. Having offered answers to those questions, I then tried to show how we might get from the state of nature to something like the present society, and to use the analysis to partially explain the puzzling similarity between actual rules, just rules, and efficient rules.
If my analysis is correct, civil order is an elaborate Schelling point, maintained by the same forces that maintain simpler Schelling points in a state of nature. Property ownership [29] is alterable by contract because Schelling points are altered by the making of contracts. Legal rules are in large part a superstructure erected upon an underlying structure of self-enforcing rights.
Back to the list of articles.British Cycling descended deeper into crisis on Thursday night after it emerged that one of their leading riders has failed a drugs test.
Sportsmail can reveal that Simon Yates, a road specialist and a former world champion on the track who is funded by British Cycling and is a member of the Olympic podium programme, is understood to have tested positive after a stage of the Paris-Nice race last month.
The 23-year-old, rated as one of the brightest prospects in British cycling alongside his twin brother Adam, has been among those contesting a place in the British team for the Olympic road race in Rio de Janeiro this summer.
Sportsmail can reveal Simon Yates is understood to have tested positive after a stage of the Paris-Nice race
Yates celebrates gold in the points race on day three of the UCI Track Cycling World Championships in 2013
The 23-year-old cyclist, pictured winning stage six of the 2013 Tour of Britain, is considered a bright prospect
SO, WHO IS SIMON YATES? The Bury-born rider, 23, won gold in the points race at the 2013 World Championships. That year he also saw off Bradley Wiggins to win stage six of the Tour of Britain. His twin brother Adam is also a cyclist.
But the immediate future of the Bury-born cyclist is now uncertain. On Thursday night, his Orica-GreenEDGE team confirmed his positive test for the asthma drug Terbutaline — but blamed their team doctor.
A statement issued by a British Cycling spokesman to Sportsmail said: ‘British Cycling can confirm that it has been notified by the UCI of a potential anti-doping rule violation against a British rider based on an analysis of a sample provided in competition.
‘As with any other doping violation charge at this level, those proceedings will be managed independently of British Cycling by the UCI.’
In a week when British Cycling are reeling from the discrimination scandal - exposed by Sportsmail - that has led to the resignation of technical director Shane Sutton, this will come as a hammer blow.
Shane Sutton resigned as British Cycling technical director on Wednesday after allegations of bullying
That said, Yates has little contact with the British Cycling programme in Manchester, since he is now on the pro tour.
Yates is a product of British Cycling, having been selected at 18 for the Olympic academy programme.
He won points race gold in the 2013 World Track Championships and now rides for the Australian professional team, Orica-GreenEDGE.
He finished seventh in the Paris-Nice, once again underlining his prowess as a climber and someone considered a future Tour de France contender.
He impressed in last year’s race, placing eighth on Stage Three, which finished on the brutally steep Mur de Huy, and 11th on the penultimate Alpe d’Huez stage.
Orica-GreenEDGE said In their statement on Thursday night: ‘The positive result is for the substance Terbutaline. It was given in an ongoing treatment of Simon Yates’ documented asthma problems.
‘However, the team doctor made an administrative error by failing to apply for the TUE (Therapeutic Use Exemptions) required for the use of this treatment. The doctor in question has taken full responsibility, There has been no wrong-doing on Simon Yates’ part.’
British Cycling has been plunged further into crisis with Yates failing a drugs test coming as a hammer blowGeneral Sir David Richards said he believed the time had come for negotiations with Nato’s enemies to pave the way for the eventual withdrawal of troops.
The Chief of the General Staff said that while British forces would continue to “punish” the Taliban battle by battle, he was “less certain” that an overall victory could now be secured.
“There's always been a point at which you start to negotiate with each other," Gen Sir David said. In his “private view” there was “no reason why we shouldn't be looking at that sort of thing pretty soon,” he said.
His comments came soon after the death of another British serviceman in the conflict. The soldier, from 4th Regiment Royal Artillery, had been injured in an explosion in Helmand Province on June 10.
It was the 19th British fatality this month, raising the total close to last June’s record of 22. In all 308 British servicemen have now died in the Afghan campaign.
Another allied soldier was killed yesterday, bringing Nato’s death toll to 91 this month, which was already the deadliest for international forces since the war began in 2001.
Liam Fox, the Defence Secretary, will this week warn the public to brace itself for a summer of “increased casualties” as troops engage in more intense fighting.
About 10,000 British soldiers are fighting in Afghanistan. Many are engaged in a counter-insurgency campaign in Helmand province in the south of the country.
Gen Sir Richard Dannatt, Gen Sir David’s predecessor, told the BBC yesterday that the military must continue to put “maximum pressure” on the Taliban and have the “strategic patience” to clear them out of Afghanistan.
He urged ministers to provide an urgent boost in funding for troops on the ground, at the expense of future projects. “The here and now is staring us in the face,” he said.
He appeared to play down David Cameron’s suggestion that troops should leave in less than five years. He said the Taliban should not be given a timetable to "sit this out for five years, 10 years or whatever".
Yet Gen Sir David later said that while fighting must continue “to make sure that they don't think that we are giving up”, allied politicians and military chiefs should begin talking to the Taliban sooner rather than later.
He told BBC Radio 4 that he was sceptical a complete military defeat could ever be inflicted on the Taliban, however many smaller victories were won by British troops.
"I think on one level, the tactical level, the lower military level, we need to continue to make the Taliban feel that they are being punished for what they are doing in a military sense,” he said.
"So that needs to continue, but whether we can turn that into some sense of strategic defeat I'm less certain."
Dr Fox will this week address American politicians and military chiefs during his first official ministerial visit to Washington.
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Ronald Reagan. But Trump is another story, she claimed.
“His harsh and distasteful commentary regarding religious and ethnic groups, as well as women, only serves as a lightning rod for promoting further hate,” Iannello wrote. “He displays neither a record of public service nor an understanding of the word statesmanship. In the history of our country, it is hard to recall anyone less prepared to take office.”
When asked by The College Fix if her stance would be fair to students who might not share her politics, Iannello said it would.
“I can assure you that all students will have a voice in my classes,” she told the site.
Officials at Gettysburg College said they believe the class will be fair, too.
“It’s an important part of our mission as a liberal arts institution to ensure that ideas can be shared openly, and we have every confidence that students will be given opportunity to express their views freely in their classes,” a spokesperson told the site.
Students who claim to have taken Iannello’s classes in the past may doubt her ability to tolerate dissenting opinions.
“Professor Iannello means well and is a decent teacher, but she preaches her liberal propaganda way too much in class,” read a 2008 entry on Ratemyprofessor.com, adding, “she is not open to new ideas and is very closed-minded on her beliefs.”
Other entries described her as “intimidating if you lean right” and a person who gives “conservatives a hard time.” “If you’re a right-winger, be prepared to walk into a brick wall whenever you enter the classroom,” one review states.
Click for more from The College FixMicrosoft execs have struggled to explain for the past year or more where the company is going with Windows.
Thanks to a passing comment by CEO Satya Nadella during the July 22 Microsoft's Q4 fiscal 2014 earnings call, the struggle is continuing.
"We will streamline the next version of Windows from three operating systems into one single converged operating system for screens of all sizes," Nadella told press and analysts listening to the call.
Wow! One Windows OS running on phone, tablet, PC and gaming console?
Not exactly. Later in the call, Nadella attempted to clarify his remarks, but not in time to stop the breathless headlines.
Here's what "one Windows" really means:
1. A single team developing all Windows variants. This team has been in place since July 2013 when Microsoft created the unified Operating System Group under Terry Myerson. This team works on the Windows Phone OS, Windows Embedded, Windows (for PCs and tablets) and the Xbox One operating systems.
2. A single "core." Windows Phone, Windows 8, Windows RT and Windows Server are all built on top of a common "core," known as the NT core. Because of Microsoft's layered architectural approach, each OS builds on top of this core using different pieces that make sense for the form factor/hardware on which it runs.
3. A unified Store and commerce model across all platforms. Microsoft has taken steps toward unifying its Windows Phone Store and Windows Store over the past year. But it still has a ways to go to reach the holy grail: A single store that spans all platforms. The next major versions of Windows Phone and Windows (both codenamed Threshold) may be where a single Store debuts. I am not sure when Xbox apps will be added to that Store.
4. A unified developer platform. Microsoft execs have been promising for years that one day, developers will be able to write once and run on any Windows variant. To get there, Microsoft is working to unify, as much as possible, the core set of application programming interfaces (APIs) and the developer tooling for building apps for Windows Phone, Windows and the Xbox operating system. Microsoft has many of the pieces in place now that allow Windows and Windows Phone developers to reuse more of their code when writing what are called "Universal Windows apps."
Here's what "one Windows" doesn't mean: There will not be one Windows SKU. Or even two. There will continue to be multiple versions of Windows. Nadella stated this quite plainly on the earnings call.
"Our SKU strategy will remain by segment," he said. "We will have multiple SKUs for enterprises, we will have for OEM, we will have for end-users.... We will be disclosing and talking about our SKUs as we get further along."
For now, nothing new to see here, folks. Hopefully more of the promised pieces will be in place by the time Microsoft makes a public preview of Windows Threshold, which the company is hoping to do by this fall, from what I am hearing....This article is over 2 years old
Utah police say an officer who pulled over the Empress of Soul 40 miles south of Salt Lake City was treated to an impromptu rendition of Happy Birthday
Soul singer Gladys Knight serenades officer who pulled her over for speeding
Police in Utah say an officer who pulled over legendary soul singer Gladys Knight was treated to an impromptu rendition of Happy Birthday.
Pleasant Grove police captain Mike Roberts says Knight was a passenger in the car stopped for speeding about 40 miles south of Salt Lake City on Wednesday night.
Officer Paul Rogerson was checking the driver’s license when the woman said she was with Gladys Knight, who is known as the Empress of Soul, on the way to a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints choir performance. Knight is a Mormon convert, and Rogerson says she was speaking at the event.
Rogerson told the woman it was his birthday and Knight got out of the car and sang to him.
Police say Rogerson let the driver go with a warning.
Jeanteil Livingston, a spokeswoman for Knight, says the singer lives in Las Vegas but was in Utah for the choir rehearsal.
Three-time Grammy winners, the group Gladys Knight and the Pips was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996. They became a success with songs like I Heard It Through the Grapevine and their classic Midnight Train to Georgia.Pierre Guillaumat was a supertanker, built in 1977 by Chantiers de l'Atlantique at Saint-Nazaire for Compagnie Nationale de Navigation. Pierre Guillaumat, which was the third vessel of Batillus class supertankers (the other three, slightly smaller, were Batillus, Bellamya and Prairial), is distinguished as the biggest ship ever constructed (by gross tonnage, a value based roughly on internal volume, not mass). It was surpassed in length, deadweight tonnage(≈cargo mass), and displacement, only by Seawise Giant[5][6] (later Jahre Viking, Happy Giant and Knock Nevis), which, though it was originally smaller when it was built in 1976, was subsequently lengthened and enlarged.
Named after the French politician and founder of Elf Aquitaine oil industry, Pierre Guillaumat, the vessel was completed and put in service in 1977. Due to unprofitability, accentuated by huge dimensions of the ship, which placed restrictions on where she could be employed, the Pierre Guillaumat was put on hold at Fujairah anchorage since February 2, 1983,[2] and later that year, bought by the Hyundai Corporation, and renamed Ulsan Master, she arrived at Ulsan, South Korea for demolition on October 19, 1983.
Because of her gigantic proportions the utility of Pierre Guillaumat was very limited. She couldn't pass through either the Panama or Suez canals. Because of her draft, she could enter a minimal number of ports in the world, and was therefore moored on offshore rigs, and oil terminals like Antifer and after off-loading to reduce her draft, at Europoort.
Technical data [ edit ]
Length overall was 414.23 m, beam 63.05 m, draft 28.603 m, deadweight tonnage 555,051, and gross tonnage 274,838. Propulsion was provided by two propellers each driven by two Stal-Laval steam turbines developing a total power of 65,000 Hp. The service speed was 16.7 knots, with fuel consumption of about 330 tonnes[1] of heavy oil per day and fuel enough for 42 days.
The cargo was carried in 40 tanks with a total volume of 677,300 m3. They were divided into central and lateral tanks, whose dimensions were designed to reduce considerably the risk of pollution caused by collision or grounding. Ahead of the international standards of the time, the wing tanks had a maximum unit volume not exceeding 17,000 m3, which was reduced to 9,000 m3 in the most vulnerable parts of ship.
See also [ edit ]A few weeks back, Trouble Knows Me was thought to be the title-track of the almighty Madlib and Future Islands ambassador Sam Herring‘s debut collaborative EP. We now know that to be the unconventional duo’s operative moniker as they officially drop pressings of their first-time-out on Lib’s Rappcats imprint. Today they’ve dropped a celebratory remix of one of the album’s cuts, taking “Streetsweeper” to the shop and reworking Herring’s vocal to suit a minimal, penetrating new concoction that’s anchored by flutes, slightly-swung drums and Herring’s grip of tuff wordplay. Clocking in at just a minute and sixteen seconds, the cut may be considered criminally short to you die-hards, yet it offers a heaping dose of the alchemy these two have cooked up in the bomb shelter. Madlib & Sam Herrings’ Trouble Knows Me is out today and can be copped via Rappcats featuring one of the 15-20 handprinted covers with artwork helmed by Stone Throw great Jeff Jank and Gustavo Eandi. Madlib’s gritty new remix of “Streetweeper” below and catch your boy on the other side of the pond as he spins tomorrow night at Fort Punta Christo in Croatia or Friday night at London’s XOYO.When De'Marieya Nelson steps out onto Frank Kush Field for Thursday night's game against Sacramento State, it will be the biggest moment of his career.
The Stockton, Calif. native will not only be making his Division I debut, but he will also be doing it against a team that he is very familiar with.
Nelson, the 6-foot-4 tight end, played junior college football at San Joaquin Delta College, which is just 50 miles away from the Sacramento State campus.
"Sacramento State will be the biggest game I've ever played in. The biggest crowd I've ever played in front of before that was at Camp T," Nelson said. "I know a couple of guys on their team. I'm originally from Stockton, which is pretty much still the valley. I'm going to go out there, take what the coaches say, and give my effort."
Last year, Sun Devil fans witnessed the emergence of Chris Coyle. He flourished under offensive coordinator Mike Norvell's system by playing the 3-back. Nelson hopes to be just as effective.
"I think I see myself fitting in well. In my junior college, I played the same 3-back position," Nelson said. "There are a lot of things I still have to learn. The biggest thing is my technique, getting the tempo down, and getting plays done."
Nelson said that Coyle has been a mentor to him, and has helped him adjust to the Sun Devils' scheme.
"It's great to have an older guy like that guide me through it. I mean, he helps me a lot during practice. After practice, if I have a question he's always there for me," Nelson said.
While the jump from junior college football to Pac-12 football has been difficult, Nelson believes that he is transitioning well.
"It's very different. It's very fast. This is a very disciplined program, but I think I'm molding to it," Nelson said. "I give my full effort, whether it's running the ball, catching the ball, or having to block."
Even though Nelson is officially listed as the backup to Coyle on the depth chart, head coach Todd Graham said that he will definitely contribute to the offense.
"He's definitely a guy that I consider a starter now," Graham said "De'Marieya will be a guy that will get significant time, no question about it."
The 3-back is a position that requires a player to be multifaceted, skilled and disciplined. Graham believes that Nelson fits that mold.
"De'Marieya is a weapon. We've got a whole bunch of weapons there and he's definitely one that adds a lot of dimensions to the run game as a blocker, as a runner, and as a guy throwing the football to," Graham said.
Following the Sacramento State game, the Sun Devils will face arguably one of the toughest four game stretches in college football as they battle Wisconsin, Stanford, USC and Notre Dame. Nelson said that he can't wait to play the cream of the crop.
"I'm looking forward to all of them. I'm looking forward to all the experiences, and to all the talent I get to go up against," Nelson said.
More from House of Sparky:Omni-Driven Game Play in Skyrim with Microsoft Omni-Driven Game Play in Skyrim with Microsoft Kinect
Virtuix Omni Treadmill Mechanical 3D Model
Virtuix Omni Treadmill Mechanical 3D Model
The concept of gaming accessories has been taken to a whole new level. We’ve covered the Oculus Rift before, and the virtual reality headset looks like an exciting evolution in the world of gaming, but other enterprising souls are looking to add VR to the lower portions of the body, as well.A company called Virtuix is developing the Omni, which is essentially a multidirectional treadmill that its creators call “a natural motion interface for virtual reality applications”. The company posted a video showing someone playing Team Fortress 2 and using the Omni along with the Oculus Rift.You can see in the video how much running and movement this fellow does. With something like the Omni in our living room (eh, who are we kidding, the basement), we imagine that we’d get ourselves in terrific shape in no time at all. (Instead of Doritos and Mountain Dew, we’d be slamming back Power Bars and Gatorade for all night gaming sessions.)In fact, Virtuix says that the Omni would be ideal for applications such as home exercise, as well as training an simulation physical therapy, and even virtual tourism. The whole thing is still pretty much in the prototype phase, but the company is about to launch a Kickstarter campaign to raise some more cash.The Omni looks awesome. And ridiculous. And we want one. Skyrim might be a little less of a workout. Watch...This 1973 Ligier JS2 is a late production model, meaning it features a Maserati Merak/Citroen SM V6 instead of the rather more pedestrian Ford bent six of earlier cars. From what we can make out through the ad, it’s recently been completely restored mechanically and cosmetically. Though not a great commercial success, the JS2 was a thoroughly engineered and well regarded sports car, and is a model rarely seen outside of its native France. We can’t find an agreed upon production figure, but you can be sure there weren’t many made. Find this one here on Leboncoin.fr in Western France for 65k Euros (~$86,000 today) OBO. Special thanks to BaT reader Jan W. for this submission!
Founded by French rugby player and racing driver Guy Ligier in 1968, the SJ2 remained into production until the 1973 Oil Crisis put a halt to things in either ’73 or ’74 – an internet expertise consensus isn’t forthcoming, as is the story for most info regarding the JS2. Named in honor of his friend and F1 business partner Jo Schlesser, who was tragically killed at the 1968 French Grand Prix at the wheel of a Honda RA302, the JS2 was built with a fiberglass, Frua-designed body over a separate frame that featured all independent suspension by means of coil springs and A-arms at all four corners.
Designed with handling and comfort in mind, the JS2 featured relatively large doors allowing easy entry to an airy, tall glasshouse. First sold with a 165 HP fuel-injected Ford V6 of 2600 CC, the Maserati six of this car became the production standard from 1971 forward-both cars featured an SM five-speed transaxle, however. Incidentally, late production run SM construction was contracted out by Citroen to Ligier, who assembled the cars at the same Vichy plant where the JS6 took shape.
This one certainly looks good based on the few pictures provided, but as with any car, let alone an overseas, low-production exotic, we’d want to see it for ourselves before seriously considering a purchase. Fiberglass can badly haze and crack with age, and it’s not very difficult to hide big flaws under a bit of hasty patchwork and new paint. The complex nature of the SM V6 further necessitates a thorough PPI. Said to handle beautifully, you’ll already have guessed that they sound fantastic. Apparently they were quite fast, too, and could top out at 154 MPH.
While this car is likely to remain in France, we wouldn’t at all mind seeing it parked in a spectator lot at Laguna Seca or as a participant at a good vintage show-and-tell. Lovers of fast, sophisticated, and rare machines with a taste for the unusual would be hard-pressed to find another car that pushes so many buttons for the asking price, after all.FORTUNE — The Deputy Director of the U.S. Mint is telling me that I am holding in my hand what could be a future nickel. I don’t believe him.
Standing in the Mint’s research and development lab in central Philadelphia, I look down at a brown piece of metal that is the size of a nickel, but about the color and weight of a penny. I am immediately thrown off by both its light feel and dark hue. There is no way anyone would ever think this is real, I keep thinking.
Since 2011, Mint officials in this lab have been looking into alternative metals for coins that could bring down the agency’s growing production costs. After spending $8.1 million on research, scientists discovered six potential metal alloys for pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters that could save the government between $30 and $40 million a year. The copper-plated zinc option for nickels that I have in my hand is just one of them. (Researchers here refer to it as the “nonsense nickel.”)
More: Preview: Inside the U.S. Mint’s R&D lab
But before any cost-saving alternatives are pursued, the Mint must figure out if Americans will reject a brown nickel — or other cost-saving changes to U.S. coins — just like I did. The government arm is embarking on an extensive coin usage study this year to find out how, when, and why in a digital age we still pay for things with coins, and if the size, color, and feel of them really matter.
“There could be a new metal that could work that would have transition costs, but it is really all about how people use their coins,” Deputy Director Richard Peterson told me when we sat down for an interview. “What will people say when you feel what you felt [in that lab]? That’s what we need to go and figure out.”
The broad mission of the Mint is to facilitate commerce with trusted American coins. Changing the weight, color, or thickness of the coins we touch everyday could jeopardize the American people’s confidence in coinage. That’s partly why the Mint hasn’t altered its currency significantly for nearly 50 years.
In 1965, rising silver prices forced the Mint to switch the nickel, dime, and quarter to a mostly copper composition. Today, the Mint is facing a similar dilemma with copper. The penny and the nickel have cost more to produce than their face value for eight years. In 2013, the Mint lost $105 million just producing those two coins.
MORE: Beyond bitcoin: Inside the cryptocurrency ecosystem
The absurd cost of production has led some to conclude that the Mint should just stop producing these small forms of currency altogether. After all, the Royal Canadian Mint announced in 2012 that it would phase out its penny, saving taxpayers $11 million a year. But even in an age when more and more people pay for goods with plastic cards and smartphones, the demand for pennies and nickels is still growing. Last year, circulating coin production increased nearly 18%. About 62% of that production came from 6.6 billion pennies.
As the economy expands, there are more transactions. More transactions always mean more small change, Peterson explained. Even in 2013, cash still accounts for at least 45% of all exchanges under $25. Although Peterson acknowledges that technologies like mobile wallets and Square are shaping the future of payment, he said he has to plan as if coins — even pennies — are going to be here for a long time.
“How we can [make coins] most cost effectively has become the real issue,” he added.
The American public is not the only stakeholder wary of altering or eliminating U.S. coins. The $40-billion-a-year vending industry, which relies on coins as its principal form of payment, would also be heavily impacted by any changes at the Mint. By taking away the copper base of some coins, all coin accepting machines would have to be recalibrated to accept currency with a new metal signature.
MORE: Don’t cut up your credit card (yet)
The National Automatic Merchandising Association estimates it could cost as much as $3.5 billion to upgrade every piece of equipment. Even as payment technology advances, only about 7% of machines were equipped with cashless readers in 2012, said Eric Dell, NAMA senior vice president of government affairs.
“The majority of our members in the industry are small businesses,” said Dell. “Whatever the financial impact is, it would be on small business, which are creating many of the jobs in the country.”
This December, the Mint must outline in a report to Congress the progress of its research into alternative medals and perhaps make a recommendation about what should be done. The organization plans to work closely in 2014 with all coin-accepting industries as well as survey the American people. Ultimately, the Mint’s recommendation will be dictated not necessarily by what plan will save the government the most money, but by what the American people and vending machine industry will most readily accept.
“I give the American public a lot of credit,” Peterson said. “If we gave them a proper public relations campaign about what we are going to do and why we are going to do it, people will get on board and support the program.”
Despite Peterson’s optimism, I can’t help but think about the bizarre brown nickel I held in my hand last week. Change is hard — figuratively and literally. After 50 years of little modifications made to coinage, is America really ready to see a brown nickel? What about a smaller one — or none at all? Based on my jarred reaction last week in the Mint’s lab, Peterson and his colleagues have their work cut out for them.The Diversity Baseline Survey (DBS), released Tuesday, seeks to establish a ground floor of “hard numbers” that measures the diversity of publishing staff. According to a description in its methodology, the survey was made available to 1,524 reviewer employees and 11,713 publishing employees across most major publishers and several independent presses — although it appears that HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster did not participate in the study. They survey’s response rate was 25.8%.
The impetus for the survey, according to its introduction, was the publisher’s belief that it could “illuminate a problem that can otherwise be dismissed or swept under the rug” and “measure whether or not initiatives to increase diversity among publishing staff were actually working.”
It seems that such initiatives are not working. The overall industry numbers point to staff makeup that is 79% white, 78% cis woman, 88% straight, and 92% not differently abled. A further breakdown shows an industry that is only 4% black, 7% Asian/Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander, and 6% Hispanic, Latino, or Mexican. And these dismal numbers are consistent across industry categories, with only a minor improvement, exclusively for Asian employees, in marketing.
One bright spot in the survey results is the publishing industry’s gender composition, which leans heavily away from men/cis men and toward women/cis women (again, the overall number is 78%). Still, all other categories (trans man, trans woman, intersex, and gender nonconforming) are at or less than 1%. And the numbers, though still strong, dip in the executive category, which is 40% male.
A missing category from the survey, one that could be implemented (however imperfectly) in the coming years, is socioeconomic and/or educational background. Without survey results, it is difficult to determine the number of publishing professionals who have never completed college, for example. The importance of this category was underscored recently by a A missing category from the survey, one that could be implemented (however imperfectly) in the coming years, is socioeconomic and/or educational background. Without survey results, it is difficult to determine the number of publishing professionals who have never completed college, for example. The importance of this category was underscored recently by a new policy from Penguin Random House UK, one that removes the requirement that employees earn a college degree. No such policy has been implemented by Penguin Random House in the US, but Claire von Schilling, its Director of Corporate Communications, tells Flavorwire that although the company does have some job listings that require college degrees, it has “long been routinely hiring staff throughout our company who have not received college degrees, enabling us to employ many excellent professionals who have never completed certified higher-education schooling.”
The conclusion to the survey nods to similar problems in other media, and certainly the film industry’s reluctance to commit to producing or honoring black and non-white artists and staff comes immediately to mind. “Now that the Diversity Baseline Survey is completed,” the report concludes, “the real work toward changing the status quo begins”:
It is not going to be easy. Knowing where we stand and establishing a baseline was the first step. Knowing the baseline numbers gives us a way to measure progress going forward, but only our actions can change things for the better.A promising young hockey player who trained in Scottsdale is now caught up in an immigration battle.
On August 22, Hector Majul was coming back from a visit to his hometown in Mexico. However, when he tried to re-enter the United States, he was denied and his student visa was stripped.
Majul told 12 News he was called to a second inspection as he was going through an immigration check at Houston's William P. Hobby Airport. Agents questioned a small amount of prescription pills he was carrying for his girlfriend.
He was cleared by Houston police and thought he'd be able to catch his connecting flight. But Majul said immigration officials still detained him and for hours he was questioned about his trip.
“They asked me about 50 questions,” said the 23- year-old. He was later told he was being immediately deported on an expedited removal order.
The all-star hockey player said he thought he was being deported for the misunderstanding with his girlfriend’s prescription pills, but was then told it was for a different reason. He would later learn that it was because of his answers to the questions he was asked.
“When he [agent] asked me that question about why did I leave my last place of residence, all I said was to go pursue a career in hockey. He [agent] assumed that I was trying to stay illegally in the United States pursuing this career after my visa had expired,” said Majul.
According to his deportation order, Majul was deported because he is “an immigrant not in possession of a valid unexpired immigrant visa…” even though he had already presented his student visa and had it stamped by immigration officials upon his arrival at the airport. His deportation order states that he cannot enter the country for five years.
Majul has appealed his deportation order but it was denied.
Now, his Scottsdale host mom, Marian Daughterty, is doing whatever she can to get him back, creating a Facebook page to garner support.
Copyright 2017 KPNXI think you can tell a tremendous amount about a person, intellectually and psychologically speaking, by the extent to which a person is willing to believe in conspiracy theories. I think most people fall somewhere on the spectrum of reasonable credulity, in which conspiracies that are supported by a great amount of evidence are believed or disbelieved based mainly on ideological predispositions.
On the other hand, there are certain people who just refuse to dismiss any conspiracy theory out of hand, no matter how insane it sounds. In fact, the more insane it sounds, the more they are willing to embrace it as being at least possibly true. In the modern era, no politician of any prominence was more willing to believe the most batsh*t insane conspiracy theories on earth than former Texas congressman and Presidential candidate Ron Paul.
Let’s review, just briefly, the things that Ron Paul either said or entertained as possibly true during the course of his 2012 Presidential campaign:
Let me just note something here that I’ve observed that’s true, and you can draw your own conclusions. Back several years ago, I knew a kindly old woman who had been happily married to her husband for over sixty years. They were not wealthy, had no appreciable savings, and in fact lived on a fixed income. One day out of the blue, he started accusing her of stealing his money, for no discernible reason. Whenever any new person was introduced to him, he would accuse the new person of being in league with his wife to steal all his money (he didn’t even really have any money to speak of to steal).
One day his wife had enough and actually took him to the doctor and wanted to know what was going on. On hearing this woman’s story, he immediately diagnosed her husband with Alzheimer’s induced dementia. See, connecting dots that ordinary people would not, in order to fit a pre-concocted tale in which people scheme nefariously for no valid reason is a hallmark behavior of those afflicted with organic brain dementia.
Why do I mention this? Well, because in addition to angrily muttering this morning about Ted Cruz’s father being involved in JFK’s assassination, Donald Trump has also during the course of this campaign dabbled in open 9/11 trutherism, has proved to be literally obsessed with birtherism as it relates to everyone in the United States, his ironclad belief in the conclusively discredited story of General Pershing with pig’s blood, and so on and so on.
Ideologically, Donald Trump and Ron Paul are really not all that much alike. But they have one important thing in common: you can’t identify a single conspiracy theory that anyone has ever confronted Donald Trump with, no matter how insane, and show that Donald Trump has refused to believe it.Secrets Management and Chef
Everyone has secrets. Database passwords, API credentials, recovery questions. These secrets need to be stored somewhere, and then made available to servers that use them.
This post has now been expanded into a conference talk, with updated information and more detail. You can check it out over on my Talks page.
Requirements
When working with secrets we have a few needs above and beyond that of “normal” configuration data. As with any security-relevant system, the overarching rule must be the Principle of Least Privilege. This means that if a server doesn’t require a specific secret, it should not have access to it. We also generally want some level of access logging to analyze any future problems. We are sometimes willing to give up some ground, usually in the form of version control. Accessing the old value of a password is only needed in “oops” situations, so it isn’t always a hard requirement for the storage system.
Online vs. offline
The first decision to make is if you are looking for online (also called hot) storage or offline (also called cold). Online system are used for data that is needed by servers non-interactively. This is the bulk of secrets, things like database passwords are needed every time you spin up a new webapp server, so they need to be retrieved without specific human intervention.
Offline systems are for secrets you don’t access often, but do need to store somewhere for future reference. For example, the master password on an AWS account should never be needed during day-to-day operations, but you do need to keep it written down somewhere safe. Offline systems are generally more secure in an absolute sense, but require human interaction to access data, sometimes from more than one person.
Data bags
I covered some of these issues in my article on data bags. Just in the context of secrets, data bags don’t really offer great support for either of our required features. Least Privilege can be accomplished but only with Enterprise Chef’s ACL system, and that is a difficult beast to manage to say the least. Access logs do exist, but there is nothing to easily search/manage them. If you use Hosted Chef, the access logs are not directly accessible at all.
I’ll spare you many more reasons they are unsuitable but overall I recommend not using data bags for secrets storage.
Encrypted data bags
Encrypted data bags use a shared secret and symmetric encryption of the data bag values. The current version (v2) uses AES-256-CBC with an additional SHA256 HMAC. The next version (v3) will use AES-256-GCM.
This offers a bit of a trade, you can achieve Least Privilege by ensuring that only those that are granted access will have the decryption key for a particular secret. The downside of this is now you need to manage and distribute the decryption keys. While this isn’t impossible, the keys are secrets themselves so this is a bit of a recursive problem. On the positive side, because the data is encrypted at rest it can be checked in to version control.
Additionally the primary APIs for working with encrypted data bags only allow one decryption key per server, which usually results in an all-or-nothing approach and thus violating Least Privilege. Because encrypted data bags use the same APIs for access, the same issues with audit logging carry over.
The same general issues apply to Ansible’s Vault system.
Chef-vault
Chef-vault builds on encrypted data bags. Rather than a single shared decryption key, chef-vault creates a separate copy of the data bag item for each node that is granted access, using the existing RSA public/private key pair normally used for Chef API authentication. This means you no longer have to worry about distributing the decryption keys, but it also moves chef-vault into the gray area between online and offline storage systems.
Once a server is granted access to a secret, it can continue to access it in an online manner. However granting or revoking new servers requires human interaction. This means chef-vault is incompatible with auto-scaling or self-healing systems. It also inherits the same issues with audit logging as all other data-bag driven approaches.
If you are okay with the limitations on auto-scaling, chef-vault is a solid option for storing secrets. Make sure to check out the accompanying cookbook for some handy DSL extensions.
Citadel
The Citadel cookbook uses a different approach. Rather than control access via encryption, it uses a Trusted Third Party to mediate access, specifically AWS IAM. It makes use of the IAM Role feature of EC2 to provide AWS API credentials to the server. Combined with a private S3 bucket and IAM access policies bound to a role and you can very tightly control access to secrets. Access logs and versioning are both available through S3, as is at-rest encryption though this is most likely a red herring for security.
The big downside of this is it requires you to be entirely AWS-based. It also comes with a fair amount of complexity on the IAM configuration side, though this can be somewhat handled through tools like CloudFormation. If you are already committed to using AWS, it is my current recommendation for secrets storage.
Trousseau
Trousseau has a lot of similarities to chef-vault. It follows the same pattern of encrypting the secrets separately for each server that will have access to them, but it uses GPG instead of Chef’s encrypted data bag system. This makes it easier to interface with non-Chef tools, but it doesn’t have the same slick DSL extensions for use within Chef. It also requires an external synchronization server of some kind, currently it supports S3 and SCP as mechanisms to get the encrypted data to the server before Trousseau can process it. Due to the complexities of the synchronization, I would consider Trousseau to be a mostly offline storage system.
I don’t actually know of anyone using Trousseau with Chef, so this is mentioned largely for completeness.
Barbican
Barbican is a young project being developed by Rackspace for OpenStack. Its goal is to handle infrastructure-level secrets storage for OpenStack, such as Cinder encryption keys. I don’t think it is yet at a point where it could be used smoothly for secrets storage with Chef, but I am hopeful for the future. It could eventually allow something like how Citadel works, but against a local Barbican server instead of AWS.
Red October
Red October is an N-of-M storage system developed by CloudFlare. It is primarily aimed at offline storage, but does provide a remote API for online use. Its defining feature is the N-of-M encryption, meaning that a given secret can be encrypted so that any N out of the total M people can access it. Let’s say you have 5 engineers, you could set some secrets to be 1-of-5 so they are accessible by anyone, while more important secrets could be 3-of-5 to ensure a majority of the team authorizes the access. For very high-value secrets this helps ensure a single laptop compromise doesn’t put you at risk.
Unfortunately tooling around it is incredibly minimal, and it offers little logging. If you are looking for a solid offline storage tool for business-critical secrets, definitely give Red October a look.
ZooKeeper, etcd, consul
Some might be tempted to store their secrets alongside their other run-time configuration data in ZooKeeper, etcd, or consul. ZooKeeper does have an ACL system to restrict access, but I’ve not seen many cases of it being used well due to the high level of complexity. etcd and consul both lack authentication and authorization controls, but they are being worked on.
If you are willing to bite off the complexity that is ZooKeeper ACLs, it can be a good option. You will need to consider the ZooKeeper hosts a Trusted Third Party for the most part, so be prepared to harden those machines more than usual.
The Future
One potential solution for this mess is to move more services toward asymmetric keys for authentication instead of shared (symmetric) secrets. This is already supported in both PostgreSQL and MySQL. This trades secrets management for identity management, which is still a hard problem but does have some |
present 20 after a draft amendment to the Constitution passed a first reading Friday.
The draft amendment will now be sent to the Constitutional Amendment Committee for review.
The draft amendment, which was co-signed by 31 lawmakers, says that voting age restrictions stipulated in the Republic of China Constitution have not been discussed or amended during the past seven decades.
The proposed amendment notes that many democratic countries have a voting age of 18.
Japan, which had previously set its age of suffrage at over 18, lowered it to 18 in June 2014, and this shows that Taiwan's voting age of 20 lags behind some other democratic countries, it says.
The proposed amendment says that currently, over 90 percent of countries give people over 18 voting rights.
Countries such as Argentina, Brazil and Scotland have lowered the voting age to 16.
A proposal to amend the Constitution requires the endorsement of 25 percent of the 113-seat Legislature to be valid.
(By Justin Su and Lilian Wu)
ENDITEM/JCHAPEL HILL -- Police charged a Chapel Hill man Wednesday with first-degree murder in the deaths of three Muslim students in a quiet neighborhood near Meadowmont, just south of N.C. 54.
Craig Stephen Hicks, 46, is being held in the Durham County Jail on three counts of first-degree murder.
Hicks is accused of shooting his Finley Forest neighbors, Deah Shaddy Barakat, 23, and his wife Yusor Abu-Salha, 21, and Abu-Salha’s sister, Razan Abu-Salha, 19, of Raleigh.
Police said in a statement Wednesday morning that a dispute about parking in the neighborhood of rented condominiums may have led to the incident.
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“Our preliminary investigation indicates that the crime was motivated by an ongoing neighbor dispute over parking. Hicks is cooperating with investigators,” Lt. Joshua Mecimore, a police spokesman, said.
Barakat was a doctoral student in UNC-Chapel Hill’s School of Dentistry. The sisters were N.C. State University students.
Wake County Public School System officials confirmed that Razan and Yusor Abu-Shala graduated from Athens Drive High School, Yusor in 2011 and Razan in 2013. Deah Barakat graduated from Broughton High School in 2009.
Chapel Hill police found all three victims dead at the scene, after responding to a report of gunshots on Summerwalk Circle at 5:11 p.m. Tuesday.
The neighborhood, adjacent to the Friday Center, is mostly rental apartments and modest condominiums. It rarely appears in reports of crime in Chapel Hill. Police worked early into the morning trying to piece together what happened. Police have not offered a motive for the shootings.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations on Wednesday called on law enforcement to address speculation about a possible bias for the shootings. CAIR is a Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization.
The victims’ bodies were sent to the State Medical Examiner’s Office in Raleigh, friends posted. Funeral arrangements are pending.
As news of Tuesday’s murders spread through the international Muslim community, many turned to Facebook and Twitter to share their grief. A Facebook community – Our Three Winners ( nando.com/xl) – was started early Wednesday to share news and memories of the students.
“Deah Barakat, Yusor Abu-Salha and Razan Abu-Salha have returned to their Lord,” the community’s creators state. “They have set an example in life and in death.”
Twitter posts speculated the slayings might be a hate crime.
“Three Muslims murdered tonight in Chapel Hill, NC by a man because they were Muslim. What a sad night in America,” one person tweeted.
Barakat and Abu-Salha were married Dec. 27. Abu-Salha’s Facebook photo – posted two days ago – shows her smiling as her father twirls her around the wedding dance floor.
She was scheduled to graduate in December with a degree in biological sciences from NCSU, according to a university release, and she graduated in 2011 from Athens Drive High School in Raleigh. Her sister Razan Abu-Salha graduated from Athens Drive in 2013 and was studying architecture and environmental design at NCSU.
Barakat, a Syrian-American, majored in business administration and management at NCSU before enrolling at UNC-Chapel Hill in 2013 to pursue his doctorate in dental surgery.
Both he and Abu-Salha advocated for global dental health, providing care and supplies to people in the United States and the Middle East. On Jan. 29, Barakat posted a Facebook photo of a Durham project that gave dental supplies and food to more than 75 homeless people this year.
Barakat was scheduled to travel with 10 other dentists this summer to Reyhanli, Turkey. There, they planned to treat Syrian refugee students for urgent dental needs, pass out toothbrushes and toothpaste, and support Turkish dentists and clinics.
Hours after the murders, more than $8,200 had been donated to the online campaign for "Project: Refuge Smiles," ( nando.com/xk) which Barakat was spearheading. The UNC-Chapel Hill School of Dentistry and the Syrian-American Medical Society are helping to organize the trip.
At last count Wednesday morning, the campaign had surpassed its $20,000 goal by $892 and with 170 days to spare.
This story is no longer being updated. Find the latest developments here.My fellow Planeswalkers,
as the Hour of Defraudations came and that filthy dragon ditched us all making our Dark Intimations the foiled pinnacle of his lies, we decided to give you guys a little treat to help with the sorrow of this Cruel Reality so it is our pleasure to host the retribution act in which we summon all of you for the last tournament of the Magic Duels iOs community. As this is our last big scale organized tournament we really want it to be the best one of all. So, we have a few surprises for you and an actual prize (one that will be delivered to your house anywhere in the world—that´s right, Zen, even to you! :D). Although we want this event to be fun we know that it can only be great with each and every one of you. :D So, we urge you to pass from The Hour of Constipation and join us in The Hour of Transformation.
The way Wizards ended Duels was just so disrespectful to the community at large that there isn’t much more to say about it, we just think that the game deserves better, the community deserves a proper farewell to this game that has given us so much hours of fun. The invitation is simple enough and it is open to anyone who is willing to gather around for one final showdown with all this select -euphemism- group of people from all over the world that share this addiction that is Magic Duels. It is not required to have an NGA account if you like to participate and get your fix, just follow the instructions listed below and join us.
No more than 8 weeks
Tournament starts September 2
Timeline:
Round 1: September 4 - 10
Round 2: September 11 - 17
Round 3: September 18 -24
Round 4: September 25 - October 1
Discord account
iCloud email address
Time availability to play 1 match per week.
GMT Report
1-3 Decks
Rules & Regulations Participants get your info for signing up here!
First stage ladder type blind matches - Players play with any of their submitted decks--one per match. Decks will be released on Magic Duels Wikia after they are played, and all decks will be released before the second stage starts.
All matches are best of 3.
Second Stage revealed decks - Players must choose one of their submitted decks for this stage and keep it till the end of the tournament.
All matches are best of 5.
Twitch or upload video recordings on youtube, if you can.
If not you have to post a little report of the match on discord.
For Pairings, Results and Media Coverage on youtube and twitch.tv
visit the Scrutinization page.
To join the party enter the discord channelDehumidifiers are meant to protect homes from mold and mildew, not burn them down. Yet, that’s apparently a possibility for 3.4 million dehumidifiers — covering dozens of brands, including GE, Honeywell, Kenmore, and Sunbeam — that are being recalled after being linked to $4.8 million in property damage.
According to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, China-based electronics manufacturer Midea is recalling the dehumidifiers, made under its own brand name and for dozens of other brands (see full list below) after receiving 38 reports of smoke and fire resulting from overheated devices.
While there has been nearly $5 million in property damage, the company says it is unaware of any injuries related to the fires. Still, Midea and the CPSC urge consumers to immediately turn off and unplug the dehumidifiers.
The recall covers 25, 30, 40, 50, 60, 65, 70, and 75-pint dehumidifiers from the following brands:
Airworks
Alen
Arctic King
Arcticaire
Beaumark
Comfort Star
ComfortAire
Continental Electric
Coolworks
Crosley
Daewoo
Danby
Danby Designer
Dayton
Degree
Diplomat
Edgestar
Excell
Fellini
Forest Air
Frigidaire
GE
Grunaire
Hanover
Homestyles
Honeywell
Hyundai
Ideal Air
Kenmore
Keystone
Kul
Midea
Nantucket
Ocean Breeze
Pelonis
Perfect Aire
Perfect Home
Polar Wind
Premiere
Professional Series
Royal Sovereign
Simplicity
SPT
Sunbeam
Sylvania
TGM
Touch Point
Trutemp
Uberhaus
Westpointe
Winix
Winixl
The devices were sold at Lowes, Menards, PC Richard and other stores nationwide for $100 to $300 from Jan. 2003 to Dec. 2013.
Owners of affected devices should contact Midea for a replacement unit or partial refunds. According to the recall, consumers whose dehumidifiers were manufactured before Oct. 1, 2008 will receive a partial refund, not a replacement.
Affected products can be identified by brand name, model number, pint capacity, and manufacture date printed on the nameplate sticker on the back of the dehumidifier. To determine if your dehumidifier has been recalled, enter the model number at https://www.recallrtr.com/dehumidifier.
The recall of Midea-manufactured humidifiers comes seven months after federal safety regulators imposed a recored $15.45 million civil penalty against Gee Electric Appliances related to dehumidifiers recalled in 2013 and 2014. The penalty settled charges that Gee failed to report fires, “knowingly made misrepresentations to CPSC staff,” and put UL safety marks on products that didn’t meet UL standards.Posted by Brian Shih, Product Manager
A little while back, our friends over at NewsGator told us that lots of people who use their client RSS readers like FeedDemon and NetNewsWire had been asking for the ability to synchronize with Google Reader, since maintaining two separate subscription lists was a hassle. Today, we're happy to report that we've worked with NewsGator to make this possible, and new versions of their client readers released today will use Google Reader as the synchronization backend. If you use one of these applications, check out NewsGator's instructions and FAQ on transitioning your subscriptions.
Now that Google Reader can be used as the online companion to NewsGator's client applications, they've decided to discontinue consumer use of NewsGator Online, their free web-based RSS reader, at the end of August. If you've been using this service, you'll need to transition your subscriptions to Google Reader. To do this, all you need to is a Google account (you already have one if you use Gmail), and here's a video to help you get started. To those of you who have been waiting for this integration and to those of you who are using Reader for the first time, welcome!
As always, we'd love to hear your feedback in our help group, Twitter or Get Satisfaction.My friend Sema Lao came to Glasgow last week.
She had been invited to paint a huge mural in Glasgow, by StreetArt360 and SWG3 Yardworks.
Sema created another great street art masterpiece, a colorful creative portrait full of kids sensitivity, poetry and innocence. Sema, I believe is one of the most talented artists of this decade and I’m very happy to call her a good friend. If you want to discover the mural then visit: 100 Eastvale Place, Glasgow G3 8QG
I’ve included some photos of Sema’s amazing artwork and 2 videos where you can see the technique and work in progress.
Enjoy!.
Special Thanks to Sema LAO, Gaz Mac (SWG3), Hamish Christie (Full Crate Gallery) and to my son Alexandre.
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Videos:And so Judah and his fellow citizens celebrated the festival of the restoration of the sacrifices of the Temple for eight days, and omitted no sort of pleasure, but everyone feasted upon very rich and splendid sacrifices; and they honoured God, and delighted themselves with psalms of praise and the playing of harps. Indeed, they were so very glad at the revival of their customs and, after so long a time, having unexpectedly regained their right to worship, that they made it a law for their posterity that they should keep a festival celebrating the restoration of their Temple worship for eight days. And from that time to this we celebrate this, which we call the Festival of Lights [ phôta ], because, I imagine, beyond our hopes this right was brought to light [ phanênai ], and so this name was placed on the festival.
As it happened, these things took place on the very same day on which, three years before, the divine worship had been reduced to an impure and profane form of worship; for the Temple had remained desolate for three years after being made so by Antiochus...And the desolation of the Temple came about in accordance with the prophecy of Daniel, which had been made four hundred and eight years before; for he had revealed that the Macedonians would destroy it.
And on the twenty-fifth day of the month Kislev, which the Macedonians call Apellaios, they lighted the lights [ phôta ] that were on the menorah, and offered incense upon the altar, and laid the loaves upon the table, and offered whole burnt offerings upon the new altar.
So he chose some of his soldiers and gave them an order to fight the men that guarded the upper city until he has purified the Temple. When therefore he he had carefully purged it he brought in new vessels -- the menorah, the table and the incense altar, which were made of gold, and hung up the veils at the doors and restored the doors themselves. He also took down the altar and built a new one of stones that he gathered together, and such as had not been hewn with iron tools.
But when he with the whole multitude came to Jerusalem and found he Temple deserted, its gates burned down, and plants growing in the Temple of their own accord because of the desolation, he and those with him began to lament in their distress at the sight of the Temple.
The generals of Antiochus's armies having been defeated so often, Judah Maccabee assembled the people and told them that after the many victories which God had given them they ought to go up to Jerusalem and purify the Temple and offer the appointed sacrifices.Image caption Jo Stevens said Labour would seek a "progressive partnership" with the EU after Brexit
An MP who quit Labour's shadow cabinet rather than back the bill to trigger Brexit has welcomed the party's call to stay in the single market temporarily.
Cardiff Central MP Jo Stevens said Labour was "shifting in the right direction" on relations with the EU.
She resigned as shadow Welsh secretary in January when Labour MPs were told to vote in favour of the Article 50 bill.
A spokesman for First Minister Carwyn Jones welcomed the policy announcement, playing down a Labour split on Brexit.
In February, 52 Labour MPs defied an instruction by leader Jeremy Corbyn to vote in favour of the Article 50 bill to trigger the Brexit process, with Ms Stevens one of four people to quit the shadow cabinet over the issue.
Since then, the Labour leadership has been criticised by opponents for a lack of clarity on what deal the UK should seek immediately after leaving the EU.
Shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer was seen to signal a change in policy on Sunday when he announced the party wanted the UK to stay in the single market and customs union for a transitional period after leaving the EU.
'Pragmatic solution'
Ms Stevens told BBC Radio Wales: "I'm very happy that we've made this shift - it's in the right direction."
"I personally would like to see us go further - obviously it's no secret I want us to stay in the European Union," she told the Good Morning Wales programme.
Ms Stevens claimed her party was more united than the Conservatives on Brexit, saying the "vast majority" of Labour MPs had supported the policy announcement, as well as business and union leaders.
"What our manifesto said - post that transitional deal - was that we want the exact same benefits of membership of the single market and the European Union," she added.
"We've got to avoid the situation where we end up with a hard border on Northern Ireland, we've got to avoid risks to the economy and we've got to be sensible about getting a pragmatic solution and a progressive partnership with the European Union after transitional arrangements end."
On the resumption of Brexit negotiations with the EU, Ms Stevens added: "I think we'd do a better job than the clowns from the cabinet that are doing it at the moment."
Image caption A spokesman for Carwyn Jones said Labour's position would not alienate Labour supporters
Wales voted to leave the EU in the June 2016 referendum with many Labour heartland areas backing Brexit.
A spokesman for the First Minister said: "We do not think our position is going to alienate Labour supporters - far from it.
"It puts jobs and the economy first, whilst recognising the result.
"We feel confident as a party in our position and will be supported by the majority of people who currently vote Labour, and indeed go much wider than that."
Differences 'overplayed'
Over the summer, senior Labour figures openly discussed the relationship the UK should have with the EU after Brexit, with differences emerging over whether to seek membership of the European Economic Area, the so-called Norway model.
But the spokesman described divisions on Labour's position on Brexit as "overplayed".
"We have never felt that we were that far apart," he said.
"We've worked really closely with Keir and his team over a long period. We welcome this.
"It is very close to where we have been, and the position we set out in the White Paper."
Welsh Conservative leader Andrew RT Davies accused Labour of changing its position on Brexit many times.
"What is clear here is that there is no collective Labour position on Brexit and they would sell the UK out during the negotiations," he said.White House spokesman mocks CNBC after Stewart skewering David Edwards and Stephen C. Webster
Published: Friday March 13, 2009
Print This Email This The public skewering of CNBC's Jim Cramer on Thursday night's Daily Show with Jon Stewart quickly became the talk of the nation. Even the White House had something to say about it.
Asked if he'd seen the interview, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said he thoroughly enjoyed it, then mocked the embattled financial news network with the aside, "I'm not surprised that the video of Mr. Cramer's appearance doesn't appear on CNBC's website today."
"Cramer was assured an opportunity for public humiliation on television, with the guarantee that it will subsequently go viral," opined blogger Sharon Waxman.
"And thats what he got."
At the time of this writing, CNBC.com appeared to be having server load difficulties.
"I don't know if you or the President saw the Jon Stewart piece last night, but was serious journalism. Does the White House believe this is the obligation of journalists, to call out lies and warn of dangers ahead?" Gibbs was asked.
"The president and I talked earlier in the day about watching it," he replied. "I forgot to e-mail to remind him it was on, so I don't know if he's seen it."
Gibbs hesitated.
"I... enjoyed it thoroughly," he said with a grin and chuckle, drawing laughs from the press corps. "Despite, even as Mr. Stewart said, it may have been uncomfortable to conduct and uncomfortable to watch. I thought it was, um -- I thought somebody asked a lot of tough questions.
"I am not surprised that the video of Mr. Cramer's appearance doesn't appear on CNBC website today," he concluded.
The jab, while a humorus insight, is at least slightly unfair. Shortly before Cramer appeared on Stewart's show he made an appearance with Martha Stewart, which is also absent the network's Web site. CNBC.com does not host outside content or links.
Friday morning, Cramer was strangely absent at a planned exclusive sit-down with MSNBC host Joe Scarborough.
"Perhaps another example of oversleeping," said Scarborough. "Guess he had a late night. That is too bad. Producers told he was only talking to us."
This video is from CNN.com, broadcast Mar. 13, 2009.
Download video via RawReplay.com
Get Raw exclusives as they break -- Email & mobile Email - Never spam:Welcome to Rogue Squadron, pilot! In this series we will be looking at different squadrons you can fly in Fantasy Flight Games X-Wing miniatures game. We give you the squad, what expansion pack all of the upgrades come from and then give you the low down on how best to fly it. Strap in and get ready to fly…
All Wings Report In
TIE Defender “Countess Ryad” (Imperial Veterans Expansion) (36 pts) (PS5)
When you reveal a Straight maneuver, you may treat it as a K-turn maneuver.
Elite Pilot Talent- Juke (TIE F/O Expansion): When attacking, if you have an evade token, you may change 1 of the defender’s results into a result.
Juke (TIE F/O Expansion): When attacking, if you have an evade token, you may change 1 of the defender’s results into a result. Title- TIE/x7 (Imperial Veterans Expansion): Your upgrade bar loses the Missile and Cannon upgrade icons. After executing a 3-, 4-, or 5-speed maneuver, you may assign 1 evade token to your ship.
2x TIE Defender “Delta Squadron Pilot” (TIE Defender Expansion) (33 pts) (PS1)
None
Cannon- Ion Cannon (B-Wing/M3-A/Slave-1/TIE Defender Expansion): Attack (3, range 1-3): Attack 1 ship. If this attack hits, the defender suffers 1 damage and receives 1 ion token. Then cancel all dice results.
Ion Cannon (B-Wing/M3-A/Slave-1/TIE Defender Expansion): Attack 1 ship. If this attack hits, the defender suffers 1 damage and receives 1 ion token. Then cancel all dice results. Title- TIE/D (Imperial Veterans Expansion): Once per round, after you perform an attack with a secondary weapon that costs 3 or fewer squad points, you may perform a primary weapon attack.
Lock S-Foils in Attack Position
With the release of Imperial Veterans the TIE Defender, these long neglected ships, will be seeing a resurgence in a big way. It’s hard to saw how often we’ll see triple Defender lists but I like the idea of this kind of list (so much so that I bought triple Defenders when they first launched). I debated what list to put as the showcase list for talking about triple TIE Defenders. While the potential variations are many, I went with the above solely because I’ve flown it. We’ll discuss it’s strengths and weaknesses and compare to some other builds.
My first desire when building a triple Defender list was to run three generics with the TIE/D title and cannons. But since I didn’t want to buy two Imperial Veterans (netting me five TIE Defender models) I went with a mix of the two titles. The TIE/x7 will probably see the most play as it is quite powerful with it’s free evade token and price reduction but the above combo is all about maximizing damage potential.
With two ships wielding ion cannons and the TIE/D title you get a total of five shots from three ships. Two ships could end up ioned each round giving you a lot of board control. Thanks to their preference for jousting, due to the white 4 K-turn, Defenders get a lot of mileage out of ion cannons.
While the two Delta’s are trying to control movement and generally be annoying, the Countess is flitting about being unpredictable and stripping tokens. Thanks to Juke and TIE/x7, as long as she goes fast she’s forcing her target to either take extra damage or spend a Focus token. This increases the hit chances of the two Delta’s. With her ability you can never be sure if she’s going to turn around or pull something sneaky by just taking the soft one. Just having the option to make a 5 K-turn is incredibly potent as that allows you to clear a good distance so it’s hard to block.
Variations
Sticking to these pilots, the best variation is to drop one ion cannon to a tractor beam and give Ryad Push the Limits and a TIE Mk II. She suddenly becomes a lot more dangerous as she can get a Focus, Target Lock and Evade every round. Just giving her the option to clear a stress on a maneuver other than straight is also very useful.
As for other potential triple Defender lists, we’ll stick with the restriction of just using one copy of Imperial Veterans:
Vessery + Marksmanship + TIE/D + Ion Cannon + TIE Mk II
2x Delta’s + TIE/x7 + TIE Mk II
This one has potential as Vessery can be one of the most accurate ships in the game if played right. If you take TL with your Deltas Vessery is almost definitely going to get three hits on all of his attacks. The main downside is that Vessery becomes the obvious first target. Compared to the above list, the Delta’s are easier and therefore more tempting, leaving Ryad around longer to be more useful in the end game.
Vessery + TIE/D + Tractor Beam
Ryad + TIE/x7 + Adaptability
Glaive + TIE/x7
The main advantage of this list is that you have three PS 6 Defenders. They are moving after all generics so you have some arc dodging potential. You’ll want Vessery firing first to get maximum benefit out of the tractor beam but it adds a lot of potential shenanigans. Of course, the list suffers against real aces as it fairs no better than triple Delta’s.
Comments
commentsESPN has made its second high-profile signing in a week, and it’s someone well known to Hollywood political circles. The New York Times announced online tonight that its political number cruncher Nate Silver is heading to the sports giant and taking his FiveThirtyEight crystal ball column with him. Silver began his career by compiling spreadsheets of baseball statistics before he became the best known 2012 national election prognosticator and the most accurate. The NYT said that, in political years, he will have a role at ABC News, which is also owned by Disney. Most of the statisticians had Mitt Romney beating President Obama in the electoral college count for months prior to the election, but Silver called the contest correctly. (Said the president: “Nate Silver completely nailed it. The guy’s amazing.”) Prior to the 2008 election, Silver gained recognition for developing an algorithm known as PECOTA (Player Empirical Comparison and Optimization Test Algorithm), which was used to predict players’ future performance.
The news of Silver’s defection comes just days after the ESPN re-signed Keith Olbermann to do a late-night show on ESPN2 and less than a month before News Corp launches its rival sports network Fox Sports 1. The NYT said Silver’s 3-year contract was set to expire in late August, “and his departure will most likely be interpreted as a blow to the company. … The relationship between The Times and Mr. Silver was mutually beneficial. The news organization gained web traffic and prestige by hosting his work. … Jill Abramson, the newspaper’s executive editor, and Mark Thompson, the chief executive of The New York Times Company, said earlier this year that they would try hard to sign Mr. Silver to a new contract. NBC News and its cable news channel MSNBC was another interested party… [Silver] occasionally hinted in interviews and public appearances that the [NYT] relationship was tense at times.”
Related: Disney, ESPN “Blessed” Bringing Back Keith OlbermannJames Madison once wrote, “A popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy; or, perhaps both.” Nearly two centuries later, the tragic farce that is Donald Trump’s presidential campaign is making a mockery of the right to public information and freedom of the press. Ad Policy Each week we cross-post an excerpt from Katrina vanden Heuvel’s column at the WashingtonPost.com. Read the full text of Katrina’s column here.
Last week, Trump banned The Washington Post from receiving credentials to cover his campaign events, making the paper the latest media outlet the presumptive Republican nominee has summarily banished. Trump, who has called journalists “sleaze,” “slime,” “scum,” and “the most dishonest people ever created by God,” lashed out at the Post for performing the most basic of journalistic duties: accurately reporting his words in the wake of the horrific mass shooting in Orlando. In a statement, Post Executive Editor Martin Baron described Trump’s move as “nothing less than a repudiation of the role of a free and independent press.”
There is a certain irony in Trump, who benefited from the obscene amount of coverage lavished on him throughout the Republican primaries, melting down under even a whiff of media scrutiny. Trump’s dangerous attacks on the press, however, go beyond his name-calling and childish tantrums. If elected, Trump has also pledged to “open up” libel laws in order to facilitate more legal action against journalists, saying, “We’re going to have people sue you like you’ve never got sued before.” He has made it painfully clear that a Trump administration would have disdain for the First Amendment.
Read the full text of Katrina’s column here.Workers who make protected disclosures gain extensive protection under the Protected Disclosures Act 2014 which came in to force in July of this year.
To constitute a protected disclosure there must be a disclosure of information, which, in the reasonable belief of the worker, shows relevant wrongdoing and which came to the workers attention in connection with his employment.
The definition of relevant wrongdoing is extremely broad and includes criminal offences and failure to comply with legal obligations, other than ones arising under the workers contract of employment.
Notwithstanding that the maximum award under existing unfair dismissal legislation is two years remuneration, the Act provides for maximum awards of five years remuneration.
Also, unlike the unfair dismissals acts, employees can bring a claim under the 2014 Act from the first day of their employment. In addition to the potential for extremely high awards, employees alleging dismissal on the grounds of a protected disclosure have the added protection of being entitled to apply to the Circuit Court for interim relief requesting the continuation of their employment pending the hearing of their claim. Such a claim could take in the region of one year (or longer) to come on for hearing.
This extraordinary level of protection has caused considerable concern amongst employers that workers will make pre-emptive disclosures for the purpose of gaining protection under the Act in circumstances where there may be other reasons why the employer believes it is justified in dismissing the employee.
As the motivation of the worker is irrelevant as to whether the disclosure will be regarded as a protected disclosure or not, it is understandable that employers have raised such concerns.
Wrong information
The UK Court of Appeal decision of Babula v Waltham Forest College, which could well be followed in Ireland, provides clarification. In this case the worker resigned from his employment as a lecturer following his disclosure to the college, the Metropolitan Police, the CIA and the FBI that a previous lecturer was inciting racial hatred.
The court held that the worker was entitled to protection under the UK whistleblowers legislation as it would not be reasonable to expect workers to have sufficient knowledge of criminal law to enable them to decide if particular facts which they reasonably believe to be true could, as a matter of law, constitute a criminal offence. Therefore an employee may in fact be protected in circumstances where the information he discloses is untrue and also where the matter to which the information relates would not amount in law to a criminal offence.
The above makes stark reading for employers, many of whom have asked whether the Act gives workers protection regardless of how they behave and even when the disclosure relates to their own personal position.
Personal grievance
Bolton School v Evans Employment Appeals Tribunal
Helpfully, the Act specifically excludes failure to comply with legal obligations arising under the workers contract of employment. Therefore if a disclosure relates to a workers’ own contractual position it will not be protected. This will hopefully minimise use of the legislation by workers to argue that detrimental treatment by their employer was as a result of a previous disclosure by them of a breach of a personal contractual right.
To benefit from this proviso properly however it will be important that employers carefully consider all employee grievances and complaints to ensure that private matters relevant to the employee are dealt with under the grievance process and any matters which may be capable of constituting a protected disclosure are dealt with under a clear company policy in relation to protected disclosures. The distinction between personal grievances and public interest disclosures may not always be clear and having a clear whistleblower policy providing examples of protected disclosures and how they differ from personal grievances will be important. Circumstances may arise where personal grievances are linked to broader workplace concerns and having proper systems in place which distinguish these matters and provide for clear investigations which separately record matters and any steps taken by the employer is vital in such circumstances. Lack of clarity in this area will result in uncertainty as to the basis for any actions taken by an employer and will make it more difficult to defend against a claim for penalisation arising from a protected disclosure.
Jennifer O’Neill is a solicitor with LK ShieldsManchester United's Rio Ferdinand
Rio Ferdinand says he would "pack his bags and go straight there" if he was recalled to the England squad.
Ferdinand, 34, has not played for his country since June 2011 and was left out of Roy Hodgson's Euro 2012 squad.
"I'm no different to anyone else - I love playing for England," he said. "If I'm not then I'll keep doing what I'm doing for Manchester United."
In October, Hodgson denied telling London Underground passengers the defender's England career was over.
Rio Ferdinand's England Career Born : 8 November, 1978
: 8 November, 1978 1997: Makes England debut v Cameroon at Wembley
Makes England debut v Cameroon at Wembley 1998: Named in squad for 1998 World Cup finals but does not play
Named in squad for 1998 World Cup finals but does not play 2000: Left out of Euro 2000 squad
Left out of Euro 2000 squad 2002: Scores first England goal in 3-0 win over Denmark at 2002 World Cup
Scores first England goal in 3-0 win over Denmark at 2002 World Cup 2004: Banned for eight months after missing a drugs test
Banned for eight months after missing a drugs test 2006: Plays five games at World Cup in Germany
Plays five games at World Cup in Germany 2008: Captains England for first time in defeat by France in March - loses out to John Terry in battle for permanent skipper role
Captains England for first time in defeat by France in March - loses out to John Terry in battle for permanent skipper role 2010: Terry is stripped of captaincy and Ferdinand is given the armband but injury rules him out of the 2010 World Cup
Terry is stripped of captaincy and Ferdinand is given the armband but injury rules him out of the 2010 World Cup 2011: Makes his 81st appearance in a Euro 2012 qualifier against Switzerland
But Hodgson did apologise after admitting he had discussed the defender's international future with members of the public as he travelled on the Tube.
Ferdinand, who has won 81 caps for England, has not played an international match since the Euro 2012 qualifier against Switzerland at Wembley.
He was the highest-profile omission from England's Euro 2012 squad, with Hodgson insisting the move was a "footballing decision".
His absence avoided a potential conflict with Chelsea defender John Terry, who was named in Hodgson's squad as he awaited trial over allegations he racially abused Ferdinand's brother Anton.
Terry was cleared of the charge at Westminster Magistrates' Court in July, but was later found guilty by the Football Association.
Rio Ferdinand has not been picked by Hodgson following Euro 2012, with United manager Sir Alex Ferguson admitting the centre-back's international exile benefits the Premier League club.
"It is what it is," Ferdinand. "I'm not being picked. The manager hasn't picked me. If I got picked I'd pack my bags and go straight there."
In an interview broadcast on BBC Radio 5 live on Monday, Ferdinand also warned younger players not to become "sidetracked" by football's huge salaries.
He said the moment he realised his life and career should not revolve around money came after being told his new car was worth more than the flat owned by his father.
"That was the moment you go 'you know what - I need to revaluate the way I'm thinking'," said the London-born player.
"It is good to get nice stuff but it's about playing and what you achieve as a player.
"Do you want to play for England, do you want to win trophies? Some kids aren't lucky enough to have these moments or don't realise those moments when they hit them. I was fortunate I did."We Asked People in 7 Key States About the Republican Health Care Bill. They Don’t Like It.
The GOP’s health care bill is overwhelmingly unpopular across |
hs gathered to hear Modi was spontaneous and enthusiastic. This was quite like in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls when Modi’s fiery speeches taking on Mamata and her party for the Saradha scam struck an instant chord among the people. The Trinamool Congress government in the state was into its third year then and was facing grave charges of misrule and corruption. The Saradha scam had taken the sheen off Mamata’s so-called clean image and the time was just right for cashing in on the growing disenchantment against her.
At their first election rally in Kolkata in 2014, Modi and Rajnath Singh went soft on Mamata and the response from the large crowd gathered at the Brigade Parade grounds was lukewarm. BJP strategists then quickly changed track and Modi, from the next rally onwards, was all fire and brimstone against Mamata. The gains were immediate and visible: the crowds lapped up every word of his and applauded him. Ultimately, it paid rich dividends too: the BJP’s voteshare went up from 6% to nearly 17% and it won two seats in Bengal. It posted impressive performances in some constituencies, relegating the CPI(M) to the third position. The BJP candidate even scored a lead in Mamata’s own south Kolkata Assembly constituency.
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But then, the gains of 2014 were frittered away. State and central BJP leaders who had displayed aggression against Mamata and her partymen went soft on her. The CBI probe in to the Saradha scam lost steam. Despite mounting corruption and misgovernance and a stark deterioration in the law and order situation in the state, little in the form of criticism emanated from BJP leaders.
Allegations of a tacit understanding between the BJP and the Trinamool started surfacing; rumours had it that the BJP, in return for Trinamool’s support for crucial legislation in the Rajya Sabha where the party (the BJP) lacked numbers, would go soft on Mamata and would also lean on the CBI to slacken the pace of the Saradha probe which, if pursued vigorously as was the case in the initial stages of the probe, could, many believe, have netted in more Trinamool leaders and even taken the sleuths to Mamata’s doorstep. But over the past two years, BJP leaders kept mostly mum on Mamata and discounting the perfunctory noises made for appearances’ sake, shied away from aggressively targeting her and her lieutenants over their many acts of omission and commission.
Only a handful of state BJP leaders like actor-turned-politician Roopa Ganguli and the lone party legislator in the Bengal Assembly Shamik Bhattacharya valiantly kept up the heat on Mamata. But without the backing of senior BJP central leaders, who studiously avoided any criticism of the Trinamool and its mercurial chief during their visits to Bengal, the voices of the likes of Ganguli and Bhattacharya could not enthuse party workers. BJP workers and activists in the state were soon disillusioned with the leadership for its failure to take on Mamata and Trinamool leaders when innumerable priceless opportunities to do so presented themselves.
The perception that the BJP had reached a covert understanding with the Trinamaool gained ground, and more so with Mamata, who had breathed fire against Modi in the 2014 polls (she even threatened to tie a rope around Modi’s waist and drag him to prison), refraining from criticising the BJP. Many cartoons and slogans highlighting this alleged understanding started appearing and evoked a good response. In the bargain, BJP workers in the state lost all hope and got disgruntled and confused. The gains of 2014 were thus mindlessly frittered away.
Realising this, perhaps, Prime Minister Narendra Modi reverted to the aggression mode in the three election rallies he addressed in the state on Thursday. The TMC stands for ‘terror, maut and corruption’, he said, and went on lampoon Mamata on the Saradha scam, the Narada expose, the flyover collapse and the many other acts of corruption, misdeeds and misgovernance by Mamata, her colleagues and her government. As in 2014, the response he received was heartening. But it is doubtful if the cheers for Modi will translate into votes for the party. That’s because while the crowds may be cheering at Modi’s broadsides against Mamata, the BJP has little organisational strength in Bengal to leverage this and convert it into votes. This aggression has come too late in the day, or is rather useless. The state unit of the party is moribund and its workers are a disillusioned lot. Infighting is rife in the party. And the BJP has only itself to blame for this.
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Immediately after the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, senior central leaders of the BJP made frequent visits to Bengal and kept up the heat on Mamata and the Trinamool. Party chief Amit Shah started focusing on strengthening the party organisation in the state and set an ambitious goal of inducting one crore members into the party by early 2016 was set. Party workers were kept enthused and a series of agitational programmes against the Trinamool were launched.
But just as things were about to take off for the BJP in Bengal, it appeared that the brakes were slammed and everything went into a limbo. This was too much for the ordinary BJP workers to comprehend and digest. It was as if they had been led up to a blind alley and been forsaken by their leaders. Those who voted for the BJP in 2014 also slowly realised that the party was not serious in bidding for power in the state. The BJP in Bengal became, in popular perception, a party that wasn’t serious about itself.
But this need not have been so. The ground was ripe for the BJP’s rise in Bengal. Disenchantment with the Trinamool had been mounting (and still is), the Left Front was yet to regain its credibility and emerge from the shadows of the resounding drubbing it received in the 2011 Assembly polls and the Congress was hardly a player to reckon with.
The Trinamool’s acts of corruption, arrogance and high-handedness had turned many, especially in urban and semi-urban areas, against the party. All that the BJP needed to do was keep up the aggression against the Trinamool, keep on exposing Mamata and her partymen, hold rallies and other agitational programmes to enforce the party’s credibility among the masses and rev up its membership drive. But it fell desperately short on all these fronts. The void that the BJP left has been filled up, quite undeservingly so, by the Left and the Congress who entered into an unprincipled alliance in order to save themselves from being consigned to the dustbin of history. This alliance, in public perception, now has more credibility than the BJP.
All, however, is not lost for the BJP. If it follows the aggressive path set by Modi and starts working on its organisational structure, it could inflict a setback to the Trinamool in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls and, then, make a serious bid for power in 2021. But to achieve this goal, it has to set targets for itself and jettison its reluctance to keep the heat on Mamata after the elections are over.Seeker Profile Blog Joined April 2005 Where dat snitch at? 31887 Posts Last Edited: 2014-06-20 05:22:17 #2 NA Server
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The Grand Master League
Server: NA Server
Team Name: Clan OverDosed
Leader/Managers (TL ID/b.net ID): Freizya.182 Or PreTenD.626
General Team League Level: Bronze - GM
Method of Contact: Any
Website (if applicable):
Optimal War Times: Can schedule a multitude of times
Channel: Clan OD
Server: EU based but all have NA accounts also
Team Name: Team Infused
Leader/Managers (TL ID/b.net ID): Tidus Mino/TIdus.161
General Team League Level: Master/Grandmaster
Method of Contact: PM Tidus/Skype: Tidus.Mino
Website: Team-Infused.net
Optimal War Times (Please include Time Zones): 4-10 GMT prefered but we play all day most days, so other times are also avaliable
Other: Team Infused
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Team Name: Clan iMMoLatioN
Leader/Managers (TL ID/b.net ID): Vansetsu / iMoLVansetsu.415
General Team League Level: Grandmaster/Master/Diamond
Method of Contact: PM Vansetsu, Clan Channel: iMoL Skype: Vansetsu
Optimal War Times: Generally evenings are usually best
twitter:@vansetsu
Server: NA
Team Name: Cyrex Gaming
Leader/Managers (TL ID/b.net ID): Cyrex Gaming/CGLemon.731
General Team League Level: Masters/GM
Method of Contact: michael@cyrexgaming.com
Website (if applicable): cyrexgaming.com
Optimal War Times: Weekends, 5 PM PT +
Other:
https://twitter.com/TeamCyrex
https://www.facebook.com/cyrexgaming
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Team Name: Impulse Esports
Leader/Managers (TL ID/b.net ID):iMpStix.593
General Team League Level: Master/Grandmaster
Method of Contact: PM iMpStix in battle net or come to channel "impulse" and ask for iMpStix or xDooMxMarine
Website (if applicable):
Optimal War Times (Please include Time Zones): 6-7 cst (although this is just very general)
Other: Feel free to hang around impulse channel at all times
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Team Name: Team.SCA
Leader/Managers (TL ID/b.net ID): Team.SCA/AprilTerran.967
General Team League Level: Grandmaster/Master
Method of Contact: Chat Channel: Team.SCA/Skype: travisyang6
Website:
Optimal War Times: Weekends, 7-8 pm ct
Other: Chat Channel: Team.SCA/Team.SCA/@dotSCA
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Team Name: xGamers
Leader/Managers (TL ID/b.net ID): xGsJigSaW.1260
Public Channel: MyxGamers
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Method of Contact: PM Seeker/msg Clan Channel/Skype: xGamers.mx@gmail.com/Skype: tclarkmx
Website (if applicable):
Optimal War Times (Please include Time Zones): (Generally) 9:00pm EST weekdays any time Weekends.
Other: Channel "xGamers" www.Facebook.com/MyxGamerscom
Server: NA Server
Team Name: Knights of StarCraft
Leader/Manager (TL ID/b.net ID): Erik.TheRed / ErikTheRed.297
General Team League Level: Master/Grandmaster
Method of Contact: PM Erik.TheRed/ Bnet Chat Channel "rutgers" /Skype: ernzoa
Website (if applicable):
Optimal War Times (Please include Time Zones): (Generally) weekdays 8:00pm EST, weekends anytime
Server: NA Server
Team Name: Impulse eSports
Leader/Managers xDoomxRose.811 and xDoomxMarine.358
General Team League Level: Master/Grandmaster (both)
Method of Contact: PM Implulse esports/msg, post on forum on website, contact us on bnet. (any of these would be great,)
Website (if applicable):
Optimal War Times (Please include Time Zones): (Generally) 7:00pm - 10:00pm EST
Other: Clan Channel = Impulse
Server: NA Server
Team Name: isurus Gaming
Leader/Managers: isurusRetro.224 isurusKala.538
General Team League Level: Master/Grandmaster
Method of Contact: Any
Website (if applicable):
Liquipedia: isurusisurus
Optimal War Times: anytime after 7:00pm EST
Channel: isurus
Server: NA Server
Team Name: ABSX
Leader/Managers (TL ID/b.net ID): abSxwaltz.541 abSxasaji.753
General Team League Level: Diamond/Master/Grandmaster
Method of Contact: Pm on bnet or add c1n3m4t1c on skype
Website (if applicable):
Optimal War Times: must start by 4-5 pm mountain time on aweek day and must start from 12pm-7pm on sunday anytime on saturday
Other: n/a
Server: NA Server
Team Name: SCS (Representing the SC2S Community)
Leader/Managers (TL ID/b.net ID): SCSChimera/SCSChimera.373
General Team League Level: Master/Grandmaster
Method of Contact: Skype darkhorsevillain or email cole@starcraft2strategy.com
Clan Channel: SC2S
Website (if applicable):
Optimal War Times (Please include Time Zones): (Generally) 5PM EST
Comment: Site is being re-made
https://twitter.com/#!/SCSChimera
https://twitter.com/#!/SC2SCommunity
http://www.youtube.com/sc2scommunity
http://www.facebook.com/pages/SC2S-Community/234613039969873
Server: NA Server
Team Name: American Korean Starcraft
Leader/Managers (TL ID/b.net ID): aKsJWoo.389/aKsGoky.148
General Team League Level: Master/Grandmaster
Method Of Contact: PM JWoo or Goky on b.net/ Channel "aKs"
Website: No website as of now
Optimal War Times: TBA
Other: We want a friendly atmosphere with ppl who are determined to get better.
Server: NA Server
Team Name: eXe A Team
Leader/Managers (TL ID/b.net ID): Tydrokos 859
General Team League Level: Masters/Grandmasters
Method of Contact: channel dragoon on sc2 or fschwartzsoundtech@gmail.com
Website (if applicable): clan-exe.enjin.com
Optimal War Times (Please include Time Zones): (Generally) Wednesday-Sunday around 8 EST we ask for at least a weeks notice to get people online
Server: NA Server
Team Name: Chronic Facture (A team and a B team)
Leader/Managers (TL ID/b.net ID): CFVaelom.970
General Team League Level: Master/Grandmaster
Method of Contact: PM CFVaelom Clan Channel: CF
Website (if applicable):
Optimal War Times (Please include Time Zones): (Generally) 10:00pm EST
Server: NA/SEA Server
Team Name: Progamer.vn
Leader/Managers: Progamer.vn
General Team League Level: Master/Grandmaster
Method of Contact: minhduc0710 (skype, yahoo messenger)
Website (if applicable):
Liquipedia:
Optimal War Times: anytime
Channel: We will go to your channel to play.
Server: NA
Team Name: Latest And Greatest Gaming (LaG)
Leader/Manager: TL: LovE- B.Net: LaGLovE.812
General Team Level: GM/High Masters
Method of Contact: PM me here or in game.
Website:
Optimal War Times: Weekday Evenings and Weekends (6PM PST // 9PM EST)
Other:
Server: NA Server
Team Name: Soviet Gaming
Leader/Managers: sGAcid, sGGreywolf, sGMicroSyntax
General Team League Level: Masters/GM
Method of Contact: clan USSR ask in chat
Website (if applicable):
Optimal War Times: Anytime we are available.
Other:
@SovietGaming
Server: NA Server
Team Name: Team Viewer Discretion - A
Leader/Managers (TL ID/b.net ID): ThatSweatyNerd/VDmatu.956
General Team League Level: Master/Grandmaster
Method of Contact: PM VDmatu/Skype: mkem411
Website (if applicable):
Optimal War Times (Please include Time Zones): 10 PM EST on fridays or saturdays
Other: Clan channel: team vd, we are an extremely good team, so serious inquiries only please.
Server: NA Server
Team Name: Team Atlas A team
Leaders/Managers: Papabear.345
General Team League Level: High Masters-GM
Website:
Method of Contact: TL PM / email-atlasgamingcommunity@gmail.com
Optimal War Times: 5pm-8pm PST Friday-Sunday
Other: Format 1v1 bo7 all-kill format
Server: NA Server and EU server
Team Name: Menace To Starcraft
Leader/Managers (TL ID/b.net ID): iDaNkS/DaNkS.532
General Team League Level: Master/Grandmaster
Method of Contact: You can message me on my group channel: MTS/Skype: DaNkS1991/or you can just message me on here
Website (if applicable):
Optimal War Times (Please include Time Zones): (Generally) 4:00 pm EST
Other:
Server: NA Server
Team Name: xSiN Gaming
Leader/Managers (TL ID/b.net ID): Bullseye/FXOBullseye.939
General Team League Level: Bronze-Grandmaster
Method of Contact: PM bullseyel / msg in-game:FXOBullseye.939 /Clan Channel: SiN Gaming / Skype: killingwar39
Website (if applicable):
Optimal War Times (Please include Time Zones): (Generally) Weekends
Clan Channel: SiN Gaming
Twitter: @xSiNGaming
Twitch:
Server: NA Server
Team Name: Pulse Esports
Leader/Managers: FosTA.233
General Team League Level: Master/Grandmaster
Method of Contact: PM FosTA on Team Liquid
Website:
Optimal War Times: 15:00 PST - 18:00 EST - 24:00 CEST, during weekdays. For weekends can be earlier.
Other: When asking for a clan war please PM me on Team Liquid and fill this out:
Clan Name:
League:
Server:
Time you wish to play:
Best of:
Server: NA Server
Team Name: Team oGl (Our Gaming legacy)
Leader/Managers ParanoidSCV / ParanoidSCV 934
General Team League Level: Master/Grandmaster
Method of Contact: PM ParanoidSCV / E-mail @ lostmybasket@gmail.com
Website::
Optimal War Times 7:00pm EST Any day
Other: Clan channel is PRO
Server: NA Server
Team Name: IvD Gaming
Leader/Managers (TL ID/b.net ID): yogitime/yogitime.366
General Team League Level: Master/Grandmaster A Team and Plat and Below B Team
Method of Contact: PM: yogitime email:yogi@ivdgaming.com Skype: eobrian.christian
Website (if applicable):
Optimal War Times (Please include Time Zones): (Generally) Mutually Convenient Time
Other: Liquipedia Page: (Wiki)User:Warbio/IvDgaming
Twitter:
Server: NA Server
Team Name: Team 2Pro
Leader/Managers (TL ID/b.net ID): Senex.900
General Team League Level: Masters/GM
Method of Contact: Any
Website (if applicable):
Optimal War Times: Prefer after 6pm pst
Channel: Team2Pro Community
Server: NA Server
Team Name: StraTk Gaming
Leader/Managers: Myaura
General Team League Level: Grandmaster/Master
Method of Contact: PM Myaura on Skype: esg.myaura
Website (if applicable):
Optimal War Times (Please include Time Zones): (Generally) 9:00pm EST
Other: Clan channel/Liquipedia page/Reddit thread/Twitter/etc. @stratkgaming
Stratk wiki:
Server: NA ServerTeam Name: Clan OverDosedLeader/Managers (TL ID/b.net ID): Freizya.182 Or PreTenD.626General Team League Level: Bronze - GMMethod of Contact: AnyWebsite (if applicable): www.overdosed.net Optimal War Times: Can schedule a multitude of timesChannel: Clan ODServer: EU based but all have NA accounts alsoTeam Name: Team InfusedLeader/Managers (TL ID/b.net ID): Tidus Mino/TIdus.161General Team League Level: Master/GrandmasterMethod of Contact: PM Tidus/Skype: Tidus.MinoWebsite: Team-Infused.netOptimal War Times (Please include Time Zones): 4-10 GMT prefered but we play all day most days, so other times are also avaliableOther: Team InfusedServer: NA ServerTeam Name: Clan iMMoLatioNLeader/Managers (TL ID/b.net ID): Vansetsu / iMoLVansetsu.415General Team League Level: Grandmaster/Master/DiamondMethod of Contact: PM Vansetsu, Clan Channel: iMoL Skype: VansetsuOptimal War Times: Generally evenings are usually besttwitter:@vansetsuServer: NATeam Name: Cyrex GamingLeader/Managers (TL ID/b.net ID): Cyrex Gaming/CGLemon.731General Team League Level: Masters/GMMethod of Contact: michael@cyrexgaming.comWebsite (if applicable): cyrexgaming.comOptimal War Times: Weekends, 5 PM PT +Other:Server: NA ServerTeam Name: Impulse EsportsLeader/Managers (TL ID/b.net ID):iMpStix.593General Team League Level: Master/GrandmasterMethod of Contact: PM iMpStix in battle net or come to channel "impulse" and ask for iMpStix or xDooMxMarineWebsite (if applicable): http://impulseesports.com/ Optimal War Times (Please include Time Zones): 6-7 cst (although this is just very general)Other: Feel free to hang around impulse channel at all timesServer: NA ServerTeam Name: Team.SCALeader/Managers (TL ID/b.net ID): Team.SCA/AprilTerran.967General Team League Level: Grandmaster/MasterMethod of Contact: Chat Channel: Team.SCA/Skype: travisyang6Website: http://www.teamsca.info Optimal War Times: Weekends, 7-8 pm ctOther: Chat Channel: Team.SCA/Team.SCA/@dotSCAServer: NA ServerTeam Name: xGamersLeader/Managers (TL ID/b.net ID): xGsJigSaW.1260Public Channel: MyxGamersGeneral Team League Level: Master/GrandmasterMethod of Contact: PM Seeker/msg Clan Channel/Skype: xGamers.mx@gmail.com/Skype: tclarkmxWebsite (if applicable): www.MyxGamers.com Optimal War Times (Please include Time Zones): (Generally) 9:00pm EST weekdays any time Weekends.Other: Channel "xGamers" www.twitter.com/xGsNA Server: NA ServerTeam Name: Knights of StarCraftLeader/Manager (TL ID/b.net ID): Erik.TheRed / ErikTheRed.297General Team League Level: Master/GrandmasterMethod of Contact: PM Erik.TheRed/ Bnet Chat Channel "rutgers" /Skype: ernzoaWebsite (if applicable): http://www.cstarleague.com/league/teams/4 Optimal War Times (Please include Time Zones): (Generally) weekdays 8:00pm EST, weekends anytimeServer: NA ServerTeam Name: Impulse eSportsLeader/Managers xDoomxRose.811 and xDoomxMarine.358General Team League Level: Master/Grandmaster (both)Method of Contact: PM Implulse esports/msg, post on forum on website, contact us on bnet. (any of these would be great,)Website (if applicable): http://www.impulseesports.com Optimal War Times (Please include Time Zones): (Generally) 7:00pm - 10:00pm ESTOther: Clan Channel = ImpulseServer: NA ServerTeam Name: isurus GamingLeader/Managers: isurusRetro.224 isurusKala.538General Team League Level: Master/GrandmasterMethod of Contact: AnyWebsite (if applicable): www.isurusgaming.com Liquipedia: isurusisurusOptimal War Times: anytime after 7:00pm ESTChannel: isurusServer: NA ServerTeam Name: ABSXLeader/Managers (TL ID/b.net ID): abSxwaltz.541 abSxasaji.753General Team League Level: Diamond/Master/GrandmasterMethod of Contact: Pm on bnet or add c1n3m4t1c on skypeWebsite (if applicable): http://absx.webs.com/ Optimal War Times: must start by 4-5 pm mountain time on aweek day and must start from 12pm-7pm on sunday anytime on saturdayOther: n/aServer: NA ServerTeam Name: SCS (Representing the SC2S Community)Leader/Managers (TL ID/b.net ID): SCSChimera/SCSChimera.373General Team League Level: Master/GrandmasterMethod of Contact: Skype darkhorsevillain or email cole@starcraft2strategy.comClan Channel: SC2SWebsite (if applicable): http://www.starcraft2strategy.com Optimal War Times (Please include Time Zones): (Generally) 5PM ESTComment: Site is being re-madeServer: NA ServerTeam Name: American Korean StarcraftLeader/Managers (TL ID/b.net ID): aKsJWoo.389/aKsGoky.148General Team League Level: Master/GrandmasterMethod Of Contact: PM JWoo or Goky on b.net/ Channel "aKs"Website: No website as of nowOptimal War Times: TBAOther: We want a friendly atmosphere with ppl who are determined to get better.Server: NA ServerTeam Name: eXe A TeamLeader/Managers (TL ID/b.net ID): Tydrokos 859General Team League Level: Masters/GrandmastersMethod of Contact: channel dragoon on sc2 or fschwartzsoundtech@gmail.comWebsite (if applicable): clan-exe.enjin.comOptimal War Times (Please include Time Zones): (Generally) Wednesday-Sunday around 8 EST we ask for at least a weeks notice to get people onlineServer: NA ServerTeam Name: Chronic Facture (A team and a B team)Leader/Managers (TL ID/b.net ID): CFVaelom.970General Team League Level: Master/GrandmasterMethod of Contact: PM CFVaelom Clan Channel: CFWebsite (if applicable): www.chronicfacture.com Optimal War Times (Please include Time Zones): (Generally) 10:00pm ESTServer: NA/SEA ServerTeam Name: Progamer.vnLeader/Managers: Progamer.vnGeneral Team League Level: Master/GrandmasterMethod of Contact: minhduc0710 (skype, yahoo messenger)Website (if applicable): www.progamer.vn Liquipedia:Optimal War Times: anytimeChannel: We will go to your channel to play.Server: NATeam Name: Latest And Greatest Gaming (LaG)Leader/Manager: TL: LovE- B.Net: LaGLovE.812General Team Level: GM/High MastersMethod of Contact: PM me here or in game.Website: www.LaGGaming.net Optimal War Times: Weekday Evenings and Weekends (6PM PST // 9PM EST)Other: www.twitter.com/LaG_Sc2 // B.Net Channel "LaG Gaming"Server: NA ServerTeam Name: Soviet GamingLeader/Managers: sGAcid, sGGreywolf, sGMicroSyntaxGeneral Team League Level: Masters/GMMethod of Contact: clan USSR ask in chatWebsite (if applicable): http://sovietgaming.com Optimal War Times: Anytime we are available.Other: http://www.facebook.com/SovietGamingfanpage @SovietGamingServer: NA ServerTeam Name: Team Viewer Discretion - ALeader/Managers (TL ID/b.net ID): ThatSweatyNerd/VDmatu.956General Team League Level: Master/GrandmasterMethod of Contact: PM VDmatu/Skype: mkem411Website (if applicable): http://viewerdiscretionsc.weebly.com Optimal War Times (Please include Time Zones): 10 PM EST on fridays or saturdaysOther: Clan channel: team vd, we are an extremely good team, so serious inquiries only please.Server: NA ServerTeam Name: Team Atlas A teamLeaders/Managers: Papabear.345General Team League Level: High Masters-GMWebsite: www.atlasgaming.net Method of Contact: TL PM / email-atlasgamingcommunity@gmail.comOptimal War Times: 5pm-8pm PST Friday-SundayOther: Format 1v1 bo7 all-kill formatServer: NA Server and EU serverTeam Name: Menace To StarcraftLeader/Managers (TL ID/b.net ID): iDaNkS/DaNkS.532General Team League Level: Master/GrandmasterMethod of Contact: You can message me on my group channel: MTS/Skype: DaNkS1991/or you can just message me on hereWebsite (if applicable): www.menace2starcraft.enjin.com Optimal War Times (Please include Time Zones): (Generally) 4:00 pm ESTOther:Server: NA ServerTeam Name: xSiN GamingLeader/Managers (TL ID/b.net ID): Bullseye/FXOBullseye.939General Team League Level: Bronze-GrandmasterMethod of Contact: PM bullseyel / msg in-game:FXOBullseye.939 /Clan Channel: SiN Gaming / Skype: killingwar39Website (if applicable): http://www.xsingaming.com/Forums/index.php?/page/index.html Optimal War Times (Please include Time Zones): (Generally) WeekendsClan Channel: SiN GamingTwitter: @xSiNGamingTwitch: www.twitch.tv/sin_gaming Server: NA ServerTeam Name: Pulse EsportsLeader/Managers: FosTA.233General Team League Level: Master/GrandmasterMethod of Contact: PM FosTA on Team LiquidWebsite: www.PulseEsports.com, Facebook, @PulseEsportsOptimal War Times: 15:00 PST - 18:00 EST - 24:00 CEST, during weekdays. For weekends can be earlier.Other: When asking for a clan war please PM me on Team Liquid and fill this out:Clan Name:League:Server:Time you wish to play:Best of:Server: NA ServerTeam Name: Team oGl (Our Gaming legacy)Leader/Managers ParanoidSCV / ParanoidSCV 934General Team League Level: Master/GrandmasterMethod of Contact: PM ParanoidSCV / E-mail @ lostmybasket@gmail.comWebsite:: http://ourgaminglegacy.enjin.com/ Optimal War Times 7:00pm EST Any dayOther: Clan channel is PROServer: NA ServerTeam Name: IvD GamingLeader/Managers (TL ID/b.net ID): yogitime/yogitime.366General Team League Level: Master/Grandmaster A Team and Plat and Below B TeamMethod of Contact: PM: yogitime email:yogi@ivdgaming.com Skype: eobrian.christianWebsite (if applicable): http://www.ivdgaming Optimal War Times (Please include Time Zones): (Generally) Mutually Convenient TimeOther: Liquipedia Page: (Wiki)User:Warbio/IvDgamingTwitter: http://www.twitter.com/ivdgaming Server: NA ServerTeam Name: Team 2ProLeader/Managers (TL ID/b.net ID): Senex.900General Team League Level: Masters/GMMethod of Contact: AnyWebsite (if applicable): www.team2pro.com Optimal War Times: Prefer after 6pm pstChannel: Team2Pro CommunityServer: NA ServerTeam Name: StraTk GamingLeader/Managers: MyauraGeneral Team League Level: Grandmaster/MasterMethod of Contact: PM Myaura on Skype: esg.myauraWebsite (if applicable): http://www.stratk.com Optimal War Times (Please include Time Zones): (Generally) 9:00pm ESTOther: Clan channel/Liquipedia page/Reddit thread/Twitter/etc. @stratkgamingStratk wiki: http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/User:Anoteros/StraTk_Gaming
+ Show Spoiler +
The Master League
Server: NA Server
Team Name: StarCraftSV
Leader/Managers (TL ID/b.net ID): Jacopana.590
General Team League Level: Masters/Diamond
Method of Contact: PM Jacopana TL / msg b.net / Channel "SCSV"
Website(if applicable):www.esportsv.com
Optimal War Times: Week Day 20:00 CST (2:00 GMT) or later, Weekend can be earlier
Other:
Mail: starcraftsv@hotmail.com, Channel: SCSV. Our clan is from El Salvador, Central América, we are active players, no BM, twitter: @starcraftsv
TL Thread:
Server: NA Server
Team Name: Clan OverDosed
Leader/Managers (TL ID/b.net ID): Freizya.182 Or PreTenD.626
General Team League Level: Bronze - GM
Method of Contact: Any
Website (if applicable):
Optimal War Times: Can schedule a multitude of times
Channel: Clan OD
Server: NA Server
Team Name: Soviet Gaming
Leader/Managers (TL ID/b.net ID): sGMario.923/sGGreywolf.286/sGAcid.652
General Team League Level: Low - High Master
Method of Contact: DaBoss120995am@yahoo.com/Soviet Website
Website:
Optimal War Times: Weekends!
Other: Clan USSR on battle.net
Server: EU based but all have NA accounts also
Team Name: Team Infused
Leader/Managers (TL ID/b.net ID): Tidus Mino/TIdus.161
General Team League Level: Master/Grandmaster
Method of Contact: PM Tidus/Skype: Tidus.Mino
Website: Team-Infused.net
Optimal War Times (Please include Time Zones): 4-10 GMT prefered but we play all day most days, so other times are also avaliable
Other: Team Infused
Server: NA Server
Team Name: Clan iMMoLatioN
Leader/Managers (TL ID/b.net ID): Vansetsu / iMoLVansetsu.415
General Team League Level: Grandmaster/Master/Diamond
Method of Contact: PM Vansetsu, Clan Channel: iMoL Skype: Vansetsu
Optimal War Times: Generally evenings are usually best
twitter:@vansetsu
Server: NA
Team Name: Cyrex Gaming
Leader/Managers (TL ID/b.net ID): Cyrex Gaming/CGLemon.731
General Team League Level: Masters/GM
Method of Contact: michael@cyrexgaming.com
Website (if applicable): cyrexgaming.com
Optimal War Times: Weekends, 5 PM PT +
Other:
https://twitter.com/TeamCyrex
https://www.facebook.com/cyrexgaming
Server: NA
Team Name: xO Gaming A and B team
Leaders/Managers: xOHoodlum.274
General Team League Level: A team (High Masters - GM) B team (Mid Masters - High Masters)
Method of Contact: Skype is best but In-game and TL are fine
Website:
Optimal Clan War Times: Weekends/Evenings EST
Channel: xo
Media & Contact Info
Facebook:
Twitter:
My Skype: xthaxhoodlum
Server: NA Server
Team Name: Impulse Esports
Leader/Managers (TL ID/b.net ID):iMpStix.593
General Team League Level: Master/Grandmaster
Method of Contact: PM iMpStix in battle net or come to channel "impulse" and ask for iMpStix or xDooMxMarine
Website (if applicable):
Optimal War Times (Please include Time Zones): 6-7 cst (although this is just very general)
Other: Feel free to hang around impulse channel at all times
Server: NA Server
Team Name: xGamers
Leader/Managers (TL ID/b.net ID): xGsJigSaW.1260
Public Channel: MyxGamers
General Team League Level: Master/Grandmaster
Method of Contact: PM Seeker/msg Clan Channel/Skype: xGamers.mx@gmail.com/Skype: tclarkmx
Website (if applicable):
Optimal War Times (Please include Time Zones): (Generally) 9:00pm EST weekdays any time Weekends.
Other: Channel "xGamers" www.Facebook.com/MyxGamerscom
Server: NA Server
Team Name: Knights of StarCraft
Leader/Manager (TL ID/b.net ID): Erik.TheRed / ErikTheRed.297
General Team League Level: Master/Grandmaster
Method of Contact: PM Erik.TheRed/ Bnet Chat Channel "rutgers" /Skype: ernzoa
Website (if applicable):
Optimal War Times (Please include Time Zones): (Generally) weekdays 8:00pm EST, weekends anytime
Server: NA Server
Team Name: Impulse eSports
Leader/Managers xDoomxRose.811 and xDoomxMarine.358
General Team League Level: Master/Grandmaster (both)
Method of Contact: PM Implulse esports/msg, post on forum on website, contact us on bnet. (any of these would be great,)
Website (if |
ad.
Hamas leaders enjoy 24/7 electricity, but the average Gazan citizen receives only 2-3 hours of power per day. In January, Gazans protested against Hamas handling of electricity. One youth even set himself ablaze in protest of Hamas.In a random bar about two years ago, a Google Chrome developer asked me why Torbutton didn't just launch a new, clean Firefox profile/instance to deal with the tremendous number of state separation issues. Simply by virtue of him asking me this question, I realized how much better off Chrome was by implementing Incognito Mode this way and how much simpler it must have been for them overall (though they did not/do not deal with anywhere near as many issues as Torbutton does)...
So I took a deep breath, and explained how the original use model of Torbutton and my initial ignorance at the size of the problem had led me through a series of incremental improvements to address the state isolation issue one item at a time. Since the toggle model was present at the beginning of this vision quest, it was present at the end.
I realized at that same instant that in hindsight, this decision was monumentally stupid, and that I had been working harder, not smarter. However, I thought then that since we had the toggle model built, we might as well keep it: it allowed people to use their standard issue Firefoxes easily and painlessly with Tor.
I now no longer believe even this much. I think we should completely do away with the toggle model, as well as the entire idea of Torbutton as a separate piece of user-facing software, and rely solely on the Tor Browser Bundles, except perhaps with the addition of standalone Tor+Vidalia binaries for use by experts and relay operators.
The Tor Browser Bundles will include Torbutton, but we will no longer recommend that people use Torbutton without Tor Browser. Torbutton will be removed from addons.mozilla.org, and the Torbutton download page will clearly state that it is for experts only. If serious unfixed security issues begin to accumulate against the toggle model, we will stop providing Torbutton xpis at all.
I believe this shift must be done for a few reasons: some usability, some technical. Since I feel the usability issues trump the technical ones, I'll discuss them first.
Unfortunately, the Tor Project doesn't really have funding to conduct official usability studies to help us make the best choice, but I think that even without them, it is pretty clear that this migration is what we must do to improve the status quo.
I think the average user is horribly confused by both the toggle model and the need to install additional software into Firefox (or conversely, the need to *also* install Tor software onto their computers after they install Torbutton). I also think that the average user is not likely to use this software safely. They are likely to log in to sites over Tor that they shouldn't, forget which tor mode they are in, and forget which mode certain tabs were opened under. These are all nightmare situations for anonymity and privacy.
On the technical side, several factors are forcing us in the direction of a short-term fork of Firefox. The over-arching issue is that the set of bugfixes required to maintain the toggle model is a superset of those required to maintain the browser model. Trac report #39 lists the bugs we must fix for the browser model, where as to maintain the toggle model, we must fix bugs from trac report #14 in addition to the bugs in report #39.
A similar issue exists with bugs that must be fixed in Firefox. The Firefox API bugs that need to be addressed to properly support the toggle model include rather esoteric and complicated issues that few groups other than Tor will find useful.
This means more resistance from Mozilla to get the toggle mode bugs fixed or even merged, less likelihood the fixes will be used elsewhere, and more danger they will succumb to bitrot. As a result, the lag time between fix and deployment for low-priority Firefox bugs can be as long as 3 years. See Bug 280661 for an example.
The Tor Browser bugs on the other hand are more directly usable by Firefox in its own Private Browsing Mode, which makes them more likely to merge quicker, and be maintained long-term. Also, because we are releasing our own Firefox-based browser, we will also have more control over experimenting with them and deploying these fixes to our users rapidly, as opposed to waiting for the next major Firefox release.
So, we can either invest effort in improving the UI of Torbutton to better educate users to understand our particular rabbit-hole tunnel-vision of design choices, and also solving crazier Firefox bugs; or we can reconsider our user model and try to simplify our software.
We don't have the manpower (ie: enough me) to do both. This means we should go with the simpler, easier option.
We do face a small number of barriers and downsides associated with this plan. We are collecting the issues we need to address ASAP as child tickets of this bug:
https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/2880
Overall, the downsides seem to mostly apply to expert users and how they will adapt the custom Tor setups they have built. We don't anticipate a lot of long term issues with this group, as most of the configuration options of Torbutton will remain available, and users should still be able to install custom addons and configure their Tor Browser profile however they need (even to the point of running it side-by-side to a system tor instance that is used for non-web applications).
Additional discussion about this issue has occurred on the tor-talk mailinglist.
Hopefully this announcement doesn't ruin your day!Disclosure: This box was paid for by me. There are no affiliate links in this post
I’ve been eyeing up this box for the past few months. I decided to purchase it before they sold out of it in the shop.
Subscription: MyIrelandBox – Sheep Box – Sold out.
Cost: $45.00 plus $10.50 shipping for a single box or monthly subscription.
What to Expect: I already knew what was in the box from reading a review. A monthly subscription box could contain accessories, stationary, home good, and/or jewelry. It may be one large item or 2-4 small items in the box.
Note: The December Christmas MyIrelandBox is on sale now. The link will take you to a one time purchase. You can also start your subscription with the December box. I saw on the home page that it is also labeled as the Festive December box. The box ships from Ireland.
MyIrelandBox normally has an information card. My box did not. I do not know if it is because they had to make a substitution or if it was because it was a single box purchase.
“Lambs Tails” from a Silk Painting By June McIntyre Postcard: The postcard is adorable! I love it. June McIntyre, the artist, paints her expressions of her surroundings.
Lambs Tails are adorable!
Little Lamb is trying to recreate the postcard. Did he succeed?
Let us know in the comments!
Ursula Celano Sheep Notebook: I’m trying to remember if it was in the description of the single-purchase box that the tea towel is no longer available. Check out Brandy’s Review at Hello Subscription to see the sheep tea towel. The funny thing is that she reviewed the box a day after I purchased the box! The sheep were sketched while visiting Achill a few years ago.
The notebook is 96 pages.
Kilcoe Studios Native Irish Wildflowers Greeting Cards: I also received 6 Blank Greeting Cards! The cards are not part of the July sheep box. I do not know if they were included because the notebook cost less than the tea or if it was a gift for subscribing. I also subscribed for three months. The subscription will start in November.
I love flowers and will be using the greeting cards. I love receiving stationary.
White Merino Natural Felt Sheep: The sheep are made by the Wool Felt Shop. They make cats too!
I purchased this box mainly for the sheep. Our family has an inside joke about sheep.
The boys and I are going to give the sheep and the notebook to daddy for his birthday. He will love it!
We will be keeping it away from Link.
Verdict: I’m glad that I ordered the sheep box. I’m pleased with the items and am looking forward to my November box.
What do you think of the July 2015 MyIrelandBox? Did Little Lamb succeed in his reenactment of the postcard? Share below and anything else on your mind!
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PinterestWe stumbled upon Mundane Matters on Instagram and discovered a whole new visual wonderland. Mundane Matters makes things using everyday objects. Although mostly using food (we’ve been seeing a lot of beautiful creations using food these days), there is also something that is very unique, wicked we would say, in Mundane Matters’ works.
Talking to Mundane Matters, we’ve discovered a much more interesting fact about her works. All these works have been created spontaneously, mostly on a daily basis. Not one image is planned and she just let her feeling guide her through to the end results. Pretty amazing we find. We asked if she would be scared of losing her creativity one day. Quite surprisingly, yes was her answer. But she said it was also the fear of losing that keeps her pushing herself.
What does Mundane Matters exist for? Simply just to put a smile on people’s face, to share the joy of a new discovery everyday.
More info: InstagramMEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Panama on Tuesday ordered government offices and private businesses to slash their power consumption and temporarily closed schools in response to a drought that has sapped the country’s hydroelectric energy supply.
Opening hours for government offices will be reduced, while supermarkets, bars, cinemas, restaurants, casinos and other night spots would have to close between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. from Monday to Thursday, according to a statement from the president’s office.
Private businesses in the tropical Central American nation will also be forced to cut air-conditioning use by four hours a day, beginning Wednesday. It’s unclear how long the rationing will last, though government officials say they would reconsider on Sunday how soon they could re-open schools.
Panama, one of Latin America’s fastest-growing economies, uses hydroelectric power to generate 60 percent of its electricity.
But reservoirs are now low after months without rain.
The Panama Canal, which transports about five percent of world trade, is unaffected by the power rationing because it produces its own energy, a spokeswoman said.
The drought has killed hundreds of cattle, damaged crops, and caused some $200 million in losses in Panama. The government on Tuesday declared a drought emergency in four provinces, representing about a third of the nation’s territory.WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Risks are rising that a moribund job market and potentially steep drop in inflation could push the United States into a downward spiral of falling wages and prices.
U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing employee Lisimba Williams flips through a stack of newly printed bills at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing in Washington October 23, 2006. REUTERS/Jim Young
That nightmare scenario of deflation might seem remote considering a recent rebound in growth, and the Federal Reserve would almost certainly try to head it off, probably well before prices started to fall.
But some investors and economists say the risk is real.
Inflation is expected to more than halve over the next year as a spike in prices for goods like oil and grains unwinds. Unemployment, meanwhile, will likely hold at nearly double its pre-recession level well into next year, keeping incomes under pressure.
If forecasts are correct, that could present a dangerous combination the Fed might not allow to brew for very long.
“You run the models and that all points to deflation,” said Joshua Dennerlein, an economist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch in New York. “Without some kind of monetary policy help you would definitely get deflation.”
Already, many forecasts for price increases are lower than they were a year ago when the Fed announced it would pump $600 billion into the banking system to boost growth and counter fears of deflation, which were growing at the time.
The inflation rate, which hit a three-year high of 3.9 percent in September, could fall to 1.3 percent by October 2012, according to a measure of expectations calculated by the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.
That would leave the rate below the U.S. central bank’s 1.7 percent to 2 percent comfort zone.
FOUNDATION FOR ACTION
With this year’s inflation surge as a backdrop, the Fed is not expected to make any move at its policy meeting on Tuesday and Wednesday.
But looking to mid-2012, when the central bank’s current stimulus program known as “Operation Twist” is due to expire, a high jobless rate and slowing inflation could look worrisome, especially if inflation expectations decline further.
“That would provide more of a foundation for action both to try to reduce the probability of slipping into deflation and to try to provide some more support for economic growth,” said Randall Kroszner, an economist at the University of Chicago who served on the Fed’s board until 2009.
When Kroszner was a policymaker, deflation fears were perhaps their highest since the Great Depression, the last time U.S. prices and incomes sank in a vicious, self-feeding cycle.
To counter inflation, central banks can always raise interest rates. But the Fed’s normal tool kit for countering falling prices is limited since it has already cut short-term borrowing costs nearly to zero.
The key would be to find a way to ensure a deflationary psychology does not take hold. If consumers and businesses put off purchases because they could be cheaper down the road, that could undercut the economy and push prices down further.
While growth likely accelerated to around a 2.5 percent annual pace in the third quarter, nearly double the second-quarter rate, several Fed officials have continued to talk about steps they could take to spur a stronger recovery.
Some of the third quarter’s relative strength reflects a one-time bounceback from shocks caused by a spike in oil prices and an earthquake in Japan that disrupted manufacturing.
And dark clouds remain. Economists say a worsening of Europe’s debt crisis could easily send the United States back into recession, further increasing deflation risks.
MONEY PRINTING
Already, nearly one fifth of Americans believe their family incomes will fall during the next six months, the highest level of wage pessimism since October 2009, according to data released on Tuesday by the Conference Board.
At the same time, consumer expectations for long-term inflation, as measured by a Thomson-Reuters/University of Michigan survey, fell this month to the lowest level since the Fed was readying a $600 billion bond-buying plan a year ago.
Growth in wages has slowed markedly since the recession and they could eventually start falling if the unemployment rate remains high, said Paul Ashworth, and economist at Capital Economics in Toronto. A Reuters poll of economists expects the jobless rate to edge down to just 9 percent in the second quarter of 2012 from 9.1 percent now.
Some analysts think the Fed’s extraordinary actions to help the economy — it has already pumped $2.3 trillion into the banking system — make it nearly impossible for a sustained deflation to take hold.
While much of that money has not seeped into the wider economy because of weak demand and tighter lending standards, eventually it will, greasing the gears of growth and fueling inflation, said Richard Burdekin, an economist at Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, California.
“There is a legitimate concern about deflation,” he said. “But to have a deflation when you have the sort of money growth we’re seeing would be unprecedented.”
Yet investors who believe most ardently that deflation is coming see evidence in the declines in the values of a number of asset classes. U.S. housing prices have fallen about a third since their pre-recession peak, while the Standard & Poor’s stock index is down about a fifth. The Reuters-Jefferies CRB commodities index has also dropped about a third since its 2008 peak, and nearly 15 percent since April of this year.
“When you have deflation in all these other areas, it’s kind of difficult to see how goods and services are going to resist the trend,” said Gary Shilling, who formerly worked on the staff of the San Francisco Fed and as an economist at several Wall Street firms.Ability of speakers of two language varieties to understand the other
In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. It is sometimes used as an important criterion for distinguishing languages from dialects, although sociolinguistic factors are often also used.
Intelligibility between languages can be asymmetric, with speakers of one understanding more of the other than speakers of the other understanding the first. When it is relatively symmetric, it is characterized as "mutual". It exists in differing degrees among many related or geographically proximate languages of the world, often in the context of a dialect continuum.
Linguistic distance is the name for the concept of calculating a measurement for how different languages are from one another. The higher the linguistic distance, the lower the mutual intelligibility. One common metric used is the Levenshtein distance.
Intelligibility [ edit ]
For individuals to achieve moderate proficiency or understanding in a language (called L2) other than their first language (L1) typically requires considerable time and effort through study and/or practical application[1]. Advanced speakers of a second language typically aim for intelligibility, especially in situations where they work in their second language and the necessity of being understood is high[2]. However, many groups of languages are partly mutually intelligible, i.e. most speakers of one language find it relatively easy to achieve some degree of understanding in the related language(s). Often the languages are genetically related, and they are likely to be similar to each other in grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, or other features.
Intelligibility among languages can vary between individuals or groups within a language population according to their knowledge of various registers and vocabulary in their own language, their exposure to additional related languages, their interest in or familiarity with other cultures, the domain of discussion, psycho-cognitive traits, the mode of language used (written vs. oral), and other factors.
Mutually intelligible languages or varieties of one language [ edit ]
There is no formal distinction between two distinct languages and two varieties of a single language, but some linguists use mutual intelligibility as one of the primary factors in deciding between the two cases.[3][4]
Some linguists[5] claim that mutual intelligibility is, ideally at least, the primary criterion separating languages from dialects. On the other hand, speakers of closely related languages can often communicate with each other; thus there are varying degrees of mutual intelligibility, and often other criteria are also used. As an example, in the case of a linear dialect continuum that shades gradually between varieties, where speakers near the center can understand the varieties at both ends, but speakers at one end cannot understand the speakers at the other end, the entire chain is often considered a single language. If the central varieties then die out and only the varieties at both ends survive, they may then be reclassified as two languages, even though no actual language change has occurred.
In addition, political and social conventions often override considerations of mutual intelligibility. For example, the varieties of Chinese are often considered a single language even though there is usually no mutual intelligibility between geographically separated varieties. Another similar example would be varieties of Arabic. In contrast, there is often significant intelligibility between different Scandinavian languages, but as each of them has its own standard form, they are classified as separate languages.[6] There is also significant intelligibility between Thai languages of different regions of Thailand.
To deal with the conflict in cases such as Arabic, Chinese and German, the term Dachsprache (a sociolinguistic "umbrella language") is sometimes seen: Chinese and German are languages in the sociolinguistic sense even though some speakers cannot understand each other without recourse to a standard or prestige form.
Asymmetric intelligibility [ edit ]
Asymmetric intelligibility refers to two languages that are considered partially mutually intelligible, but where one group of speakers has more difficulty understanding the other language than the other way around. There can be various reasons for this. If, for example, one language is related to another but has simplified its grammar, the speakers of the original language may understand the simplified language, but less vice versa. For example, Dutch speakers tend to find it easier to understand Afrikaans than vice versa as a result of Afrikaans's simplified grammar.[7]
Perhaps the most common reason for apparent asymmetric intelligibility is that speakers of one variety have more exposure to the other than vice versa. For example, speakers of Scottish English have frequent exposure to standard American English through movies and TV programs, whereas speakers of American English have little exposure to Scottish English; hence, American English speakers often find it difficult to understand Scottish English or, especially, Scots (which differs significantly from standard Scottish English), whereas Scots tend to have few problems understanding standard American English.
Northern Germanic languages spoken in Scandinavia form a dialect continuum where two furthermost dialects have almost no mutual intelligibility. As such, spoken Danish and Swedish normally have low mutual intelligibility,[7] but Swedes in the Öresund region (including Malmö and Helsingborg), across a strait from the Danish capital Copenhagen, understand Danish somewhat better, largely due to the proximity of the region to Danish-speaking areas (see Mutual intelligibility in North Germanic languages). While Norway was under Danish rule, the Bokmål written standard of Norwegian originates from Dano-Norwegian, a koiné language that evolved among the urban elite in Norwegian cities during the later years of the union. Additionally, Norwegian assimilated a considerable amount of Danish vocabulary as well as traditional Danish expressions.[7] As a consequence, spoken mutual intelligibility is not reciprocal.[7]
Similarly, in Germany and Italy, standard German or Italian speakers may have great difficulty understanding the "dialects" from regions other than their own, but virtually all "dialect" speakers learn the standard languages in school and from the media.
List of mutually intelligible languages [ edit ]
Below is an incomplete list of fully and partially mutually intelligible varieties sometimes considered languages.
Written and spoken forms [ edit ]
Spoken forms mainly [ edit ]
Written forms mainly [ edit ]
Icelandic : Faroese [54]
: Faroese French : With some Romance languages. [55]
: With some Romance languages. German: Dutch. Standard Dutch and Standard German show a limited degree of mutual intelligibility when written. One study concluded that when concerning written language, Dutch speakers could translate 50.2% of the provided German words correctly, while the German test subjects were able to translate 41.9% of the Dutch equivalents correctly. In terms of orthography, 22% of the vocabulary of Dutch and German is identical or near identical (including most commonly used vocabulary). The Levenshtein distance between written Dutch and German is 50.4% as opposed to 61.7% between English and Dutch.[56][57] The spoken languages are much more difficult to understand for both, with studies showing Dutch speakers having slightly less difficulty in understanding German speakers than vice versa, though it remains unclear whether this asymmetry has to do with prior knowledge of the language (Dutch people being more exposed to German than vice versa), better knowledge of another related language (English) or any other non-linguistic reasons.[56][58]
List of mutually intelligible varieties [ edit ]
Dialects or registers of one language sometimes considered separate languages [ edit ]
Dialect continua [ edit ]
Romance [ edit ]
Because of the difficulty of imposing boundaries on a continuum, various counts of the Romance languages are given; in The Linguasphere register of the world’s languages and speech communities David Dalby lists 23 based on mutual intelligibility:[76]
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]Andy Rubin's Essential hasn't had the greatest start, what with executives jumping ship and shipments being delayed so early on, but things may finally be looking up. The startup's flagship product, the PH-1 smartphone, has just hit Best Buy's website with listings for both the Sprint and unlocked models.
As a recap, the cleverly-named PH-1 (which translates to PH-ONE, or "phone"), sports a titanium frame and ceramic back, a 5.7" 1440p IPS display, a Snapdragon 835, 4GB of RAM, 128GB of storage with no microSD expansion, dual 13MP rear-facing cameras, an 8MP selfie cam, and a rather small 3040mAh battery. Android 7.1 Nougat comes in tow.
The PH-1 comes in two colors - Black Moon and Pure White - on both the unlocked and Sprint variants. However, in a strange twist of events, the unlocked model costs $699.99, compared to the Sprint model's $749.99. So unless you're looking to finance the device through Sprint, you'd be much better off with the unlocked configuration. You'll also get a free dinky little Insignia stick-on stand with some Best Buy Mobile branding with your purchase, for what it's worth. That'll probably get thrown into the trash instantly.
Unfortunately, there's still no word on when the phone will get to customers aside from a grayed-out "coming soon" button, but you can choose to be notified of when it does come in stock for the unlocked model. Strangely enough, that "notify me" button is nonexistent on the Sprint listing. Check the source links to view each PH-1 listing for yourself.
Source:
Best Buy (unlocked,
Black Moon),
(unlocked,
Pure White),
(Sprint,
Black Moon),
(Sprint,
Pure White)FOR MORE than two months, the U.S. military has held an American citizen in detention in Iraq. Officials allege that the man fought alongside the Islamic State in Syria — but other than that, the Pentagon has provided little information about him.
The man reportedly surrendered to the Syrian Democratic Forces on Sept. 12 and was transferred to U.S. custody soon afterward. The Pentagon then fell silent on the matter for weeks, though it announced in October that the International Committee of the Red Cross had met with the detainee on Sept. 29. Now, reporting suggests that this silence may be a result of debate within the government as to how to handle the case.
According to the New York Times and The Post, officials first interrogated the citizen without advising him of his rights, then restarted the questioning with a new team of interrogators after reading him the Miranda warning — a process that allows the government to gather information to prevent terrorist attacks before taking on the separate work of building a criminal case. Yet the citizen has said nothing since being advised of his right to remain silent. And without his confession, the Justice Department is reportedly worried that the evidence against him would not be admissible in court if he were to return to the United States for a criminal trial.
It's not clear if the government is considering transferring the detainee to Iraqi custody — a dicey proposition, given the possibility that he could be tortured. Alternately, because the man reportedly has citizenship in a second country, the Pentagon might reach a deal to return him to that government. But if the United States chooses to keep him in military detention, it risks a bruising legal fight. While the government has previously detained American citizens over the course of military efforts against terrorism, the legal authorization in question has never been tested in court as it applies to the Islamic State.
The Post writes that the man requested a lawyer, but it's not clear whether he has been allowed to meet with one. In the meantime, the American Civil Liberties Union has filed legal documents to ensure that he is granted his constitutional right to contest his detention in court. The Pentagon now argues that the ACLU can't represent the detainee without his approval or that of his family.
To be sure, there are good reasons that courts usually don't allow people to file lawsuits without having a stake in the matter. But it can't be the case that the government is effectively allowed to block the courts from reviewing a person's detention by keeping the prisoner anonymous and incommunicado.
While the government may have legitimate reasons not to identify the man or swiftly bring him to the United States for trial, at the very least it must provide him with legal counsel and access to the justice system if he wishes it. And it is past time that the Pentagon makes public basic information about his case in the spirit of accountability and transparency.Art
Hallmark Launches The Sikh Collection
NEWS REPORT
Hallmark has launched 'The Sikh Collection' of 25 pure Swiss silver ingots (.999) layered in 24-carat gold of Sikh heritage stamps.
To preserve the value for the collectors, the 'premium edition' with 25 ingots has only 3,700 complete sets each.
The limited collection celebrates the rich cultural and spiritual legacy of the Sikhs.
All the ingots are minted in solid silver (2.2mm thick) and layered with pure 24 carat gold.
“The 'Sikh Collection' is unquestionably one of the finest collections of engraved silver ingots that have ever been produced, unrivalled anywhere in the world. It has taken more than 40 months of intensive artistic endeavor, fine sculpture and skilled engraving to create the 25 master dies ready for minting," said R.A. Wainwright, Chairman of the Hallmark Group.
For more info, please CLICK here.
February 25, 2014
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read other articles in ArtOne of the greatest problems in stock Android since the debut of Lollipop last year has been the volume slider - putting aside Lollipop's initially confusing volume modes, the slider unceremoniously pops into place when the user hits the volume keys on their device. Of course I'm kidding, but nevertheless it looks like Google has enhanced the volume controls in the latest Marshmallow dev preview with some motion design love.
Now, when users hit a volume key, the panel slides into place from off canvas. The slider's current position is highlighted with its own translucent halo (which may or may not really be necessary). And perhaps best of all, the "expand" icon actually has a fully realized transition from up to down. The two ends of the shape slide out and then come back together in the opposite configuration. This is a small touch, but it seems that between this, the app drawer, and other tweaks like the way popup menus animate out, a major theme of Android's M release is finishing up what L started.
Delightful indeed, Google.
Thanks, Salman Ahmad!The Washington Times reports that a New Jersey school in the Vernon Schools system suspended a 13-year-old boy last Thursday. His "crime" -- twirling a pencil in his fingers.
Another kid behind him yelled "He's making gun motions, send him to juvie!" According to AWR Hawkins, that kid had been bullying Ethan Chaplin, the kid who was twirling the pencil.
And the idiots in charge of the school took the bullying to an entire new level.
The school suspended him. It ordered him to undergo both a psychological and a physiological examination. The boy's father says his seventh-grader son was stripped and had to give blood samples and urine samples for drug testing. He passed out during the examination. Four hours after that, a social worker spoke with the boy for all of five minutes and cleared him of doing anything wrong.
When he went back to school, the principal reportedly followed him around all day.
That boy was abused by his own school. The authorities over him terrorized him. They bullied him. All just for twirling a pencil in his hand.
As has become typical in these cases, Superintendent Charles Maranzano defends the indefensible actions of those who work for him:
“We never know what’s percolating in the minds of children,” he told the news station. “And when they demonstrate behaviors that raise red flags, we must do our duty.”
Twirling a pencil is about a billion miles away from going on a murder spree.
It's time to go Al Armendariaz on these people and make examples of them to deter this kind of abusive behavior. Our government is already doing that to citizens and has been for years. It's time to turn the tables. The super needs to be sued personally, as does every other teacher and official involved. They're not fit to be around children.Firefox: It's easy to accumulate multiple profiles on various services. If it's always annoyed you to have to perform browser-acrobatics to use your two Gmail accounts or other services, check out Multifox and never be hassled by multiple logins again.
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Multifox adds a simple function to Firefox. When you want to log into a service with more than one user name simultaneously you right click on the bookmark for that service or open the File menu and select "Open in New Identity Profile".
Certainly a savvy Firefox user could jump in and say "But Firefox already supports multiple profiles!", and it does. Multifox is much easier than managing multiple profiles natively in Firefox because it does so without messing around in the Profile Manager and without having to manually create a new profile for each new additional service. If you need to, on the fly, test out five instances of a service Multifox will help you create five distinct profiles in five clicks.
Each profile is assigned a number—the screenshot above shows us logged into a secondary Gmail account—and is opened in a new window. If Firefox crashes, all the extra profiles generated by Multifox will be restored when you restore the original instance of Firefox.
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Multifox is free and works wherever Firefox does. Have your own tip or trick of managing multiple logins? Let's hear about it in the comments.
Multifox [via Download Squad]Texture.ninja, a site with over 4000 high resolution textures and reference images, is now free. Initially the project was created as a premium subscription service, but the developer realized he wants to provide a useful service for as many people as possible.
The hosting costs add up to ~$50/month. Any funds past that mark will allow me to add more textures. I already have a large backlog of textures, reference photos and hdris, but freelancing, to pay the bills, takes up most of my time right now. Joost
He has also disabled the content delivery network to minimize costs. This might lead to slower connection speeds in some parts of the world. If the creator gets enough donations he’ll enable this again.
Joost has decided to lock certain sections of the website for premium members only to get more donations. The amount of premium content depends on the success of the Patreon campaign. Please support him if you find this project useful.A jug of used needles at a needle exchange in Camden, N.J. (Mel Evans/AP)
The President's Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis issued a preliminary report on Monday stating that its “first and most urgent recommendation” is for the president to “declare a national emergency under either the Public Health Service Act or the Stafford Act.”
“With approximately 142 Americans dying every day,” the report notes, “America is enduring a death toll equal to September 11th every three weeks.”
The commission, led by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, states that the goals of such a declaration would be to “force Congress to focus on funding” and to “awaken every American to this simple fact: if this scourge has not found you or your family yet, without bold action by everyone, it soon will.”
In 2015, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention figures, heroin deaths alone surpassed gun homicides for the first time. More than 33,000 people died of opioid overdose, with another 20,000 dying from other drugs. A recent federal study found that prescription painkillers are now more widely used than tobacco.
Prescription overdose deaths began to rise in the mid-2000, following aggressive marketing and widespread prescribing of the drugs starting in the late 1990s. In response, state and federal authorities began cracking down on prescription opiate availability, introducing “abuse-deterrent” formulations, tighter prescribing guidelines and operations targeting “pill mills” that made the drugs widely available.
Dr. Andrew Kolodny, Co-Director of Opioid Policy Research at The Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University discusses strategies for controlling America's addiction problem at the state and federal level, including better public health surveillance. (Washington Post Live)
But in response to these interventions, many painkiller abusers appear to have switched to illicit street drugs. As prescription painkiller deaths started to fall, heroin overdoses increased dramatically. The latest development has been the emergence of powerful synthetic opiates like fentanyl, which are sometimes mixed with heroin with fatal consequences for unsuspecting users.
As more and more parents are lost to opioid addiction, the foster care system is struggling to keep up. But a unique solution may keep one drug-affected family in Maine together. (Whitney Shefte/The Washington Post)
In his inaugural address, President Trump cited “drugs that have stolen too many lives and robbed our country of so much unrealized potential,” vowing that “this American carnage stops right here and stops right now.” Trump established the opioid commission to study the issue in March, with a mandate to “study ways to combat and treat the scourge of drug abuse, addiction, and the opioid crisis.”
In addition to declaring a national emergency, the commission's first report includes a number of recommendations that public health experts and drug policy reformers have been advocating for years. They include:
Expanding capacity for drug treatment under Medicaid;
Increasing the use of medication-assisted treatments, like buprenorphine and suboxone, for opioid disorders;
Encouraging the development of non-opioid pain relievers;
Mandating that every local law enforcement officer in the nation carry naloxone, the drug that rapidly reverses opiate overdose;
Broadening “good Samaritan” laws that shield individuals from prosecution when they report a drug overdose to first responders or law enforcement officials.
Notably absent from the report are a number of tough-on-crime measures that Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions have repeatedly offered up as solutions to the opioid crisis, including building a wall on the Mexican border, expanding the use of mandatory minimum sentencing for drug crimes, and seizing more cash and property from individuals suspected of drug crimes.
“The interim report is mostly appropriately focused around dealing with the opioid crisis as the health issue that it is |
compression and especially decompression speeds (KIP-110)
Avoid expiring committed offsets for active consumer group (KIP-211)
Provide Intuitive User Timeouts in The Producer (KIP-91)
Kafka's replication protocol now supports improved fencing of zombies. Previously, under certain rare conditions, if a broker became partitioned from Zookeeper but not the rest of the cluster, then the logs of replicated partitions could diverge and cause data loss in the worst case (KIP-320).
Streams API improvements (KIP-319, KIP-321, KIP-330, KIP-353, KIP-356)
Admin script and admin client API improvements to simplify admin operation (KIP-231, KIP-308, KIP-322, KIP-324, KIP-338, KIP-340)
DNS handling improvements (KIP-235, KIP-302)
For more information, please read the detailed Release Notes.
Released November 9, 2018
Release Notes
Source download: kafka-2.0.1-src.tgz (asc, sha512)
Binary downloads: Scala 2.11 - kafka_2.11-2.0.1.tgz (asc, sha512) Scala 2.12 - kafka_2.12-2.0.1.tgz (asc, sha512) We build for multiple versions of Scala. This only matters if you are using Scala and you want a version built for the same Scala version you use. Otherwise any version should work (2.12 is recommended).
We build for multiple versions of Scala. This only matters if you are using Scala and you want a version built for the same Scala version you use. Otherwise any version should work (2.12 is recommended).
Released July 30, 2018
Release Notes
Source download: kafka-2.0.0-src.tgz (asc, sha512)
Binary downloads: Scala 2.11 - kafka_2.11-2.0.0.tgz (asc, sha512) Scala 2.12 - kafka_2.12-2.0.0.tgz (asc, sha512) We build for multiple versions of Scala. This only matters if you are using Scala and you want a version built for the same Scala version you use. Otherwise any version should work (2.11 is recommended).
We build for multiple versions of Scala. This only matters if you are using Scala and you want a version built for the same Scala version you use. Otherwise any version should work (2.11 is recommended).
Kafka 2.0.0 includes a number of significant new features. Here is a summary of some notable changes:
KIP-290 adds support for prefixed ACLs, simplifying access control management in large secure deployments. Bulk access to topics, consumer groups or transactional ids with a prefix can now be granted using a single rule. Access control for topic creation has also been improved to enable access to be granted to create specific topics or topics with a prefix.
KIP-255 adds a framework for authenticating to Kafka brokers using OAuth2 bearer tokens. The SASL/OAUTHBEARER implementation is customizable using callbacks for token retrieval and validation.
Host name verification is now enabled by default for SSL connections to ensure that the default SSL configuration is not susceptible to man-in-the-middle attacks. You can disable this verification if required.
You can now dynamically update SSL truststores without broker restart. You can also configure security for broker listeners in ZooKeeper before starting brokers, including SSL keystore and truststore passwords and JAAS configuration for SASL. With this new feature, you can store sensitive password configs in encrypted form in ZooKeeper rather than in cleartext in the broker properties file.
The replication protocol has been improved to avoid log divergence between leader and follower during fast leader failover. We have also improved resilience of brokers by reducing the memory footprint of message down-conversions. By using message chunking, both memory usage and memory reference time have been reduced to avoid OutOfMemory errors in brokers.
Kafka clients are now notified of throttling before any throttling is applied when quotas are enabled. This enables clients to distinguish between network errors and large throttle times when quotas are exceeded.
We have added a configuration option for Kafka consumer to avoid indefinite blocking in the consumer.
We have dropped support for Java 7 and removed the previously deprecated Scala producer and consumer.
Kafka Connect includes a number of improvements and features. KIP-298 enables you to control how errors in connectors, transformations and converters are handled by enabling automatic retries and controlling the number of errors that are tolerated before the connector is stopped. More contextual information can be included in the logs to help diagnose problems and problematic messages consumed by sink connectors can be sent to a dead letter queue rather than forcing the connector to stop.
KIP-297 adds a new extension point to move secrets out of connector configurations and integrate with any external key management system. The placeholders in connector configurations are only resolved before sending the configuration to the connector, ensuring that secrets are stored and managed securely in your preferred key management system and not exposed over the REST APIs or in log files.
We have added a thin Scala wrapper API for our Kafka Streams DSL, which provides better type inference and better type safety during compile time. Scala users can have less boilerplate in their code, notably regarding Serdes with new implicit Serdes.
Message headers are now supported in the Kafka Streams Processor API, allowing users to add and manipulate headers read from the source topics and propagate them to the sink topics.
Windowed aggregations performance in Kafka Streams has been largely improved (sometimes by an order of magnitude) thanks to the new single-key-fetch API.
We have further improved unit testibility of Kafka Streams with the kafka-streams-testutil artifact.
For more information, please read the detailed Release Notes.
Released July 19, 2018
Release Notes
Source download: kafka-1.1.1-src.tgz (asc, sha512)
Binary downloads: Scala 2.11 - kafka_2.11-1.1.1.tgz (asc, sha512) Scala 2.12 - kafka_2.12-1.1.1.tgz (asc, sha512) We build for multiple versions of Scala. This only matters if you are using Scala and you want a version built for the same Scala version you use. Otherwise any version should work (2.11 is recommended).
We build for multiple versions of Scala. This only matters if you are using Scala and you want a version built for the same Scala version you use. Otherwise any version should work (2.11 is recommended).
Released March 28, 2018
Release Notes
Source download: kafka-1.1.0-src.tgz (asc, sha512)
Binary downloads: Scala 2.11 - kafka_2.11-1.1.0.tgz (asc, sha512) Scala 2.12 - kafka_2.12-1.1.0.tgz (asc, sha512) We build for multiple versions of Scala. This only matters if you are using Scala and you want a version built for the same Scala version you use. Otherwise any version should work (2.11 is recommended).
We build for multiple versions of Scala. This only matters if you are using Scala and you want a version built for the same Scala version you use. Otherwise any version should work (2.11 is recommended).
Kafka 1.1.0 includes a number of significant new features. Here is a summary of some notable changes:
Kafka 1.1.0 includes significant improvements to the Kafka Controller that speed up controlled shutdown. ZooKeeper session expiration edge cases have also been fixed as part of this effort.
Controller improvements also enable more partitions to be supported on a single cluster. KIP-227 introduced incremental fetch requests, providing more efficient replication when the number of partitions is large.
KIP-113 added support for replica movement between log directories to enable data balancing with JBOD.
Some of the broker configuration options like SSL keystores can now be updated dynamically without restarting the broker. See KIP-226 for details and the full list of dynamic configs.
Delegation token based authentication (KIP-48) has been added to Kafka brokers to support large number of clients without overloading Kerberos KDCs or other authentication servers.
Several new features have been added to Kafka Connect, including header support (KIP-145), SSL and Kafka cluster identifiers in the Connect REST interface (KIP-208 and KIP-238), validation of connector names (KIP-212) and support for topic regex in sink connectors (KIP-215). Additionally, the default maximum heap size for Connect workers was increased to 2GB.
Several improvements have been added to the Kafka Streams API, including reducing repartition topic partitions footprint, customizable error handling for produce failures and enhanced resilience to broker unavailability. See KIPs 205, 210, 220, 224 and 239 for details.
For more information, please read the detailed Release Notes.
Released July 8th, 2018
Release Notes
Source download: kafka-1.0.2-src.tgz (asc, sha512)
Binary downloads: Scala 2.11 - kafka_2.11-1.0.2.tgz (asc, sha512) Scala 2.12 - kafka_2.12-1.0.2.tgz (asc, sha512) We build for multiple versions of Scala. This only matters if you are using Scala and you want a version built for the same Scala version you use. Otherwise any version should work (2.11 is recommended).
We build for multiple versions of Scala. This only matters if you are using Scala and you want a version built for the same Scala version you use. Otherwise any version should work (2.11 is recommended).
Released March 5, 2018
Release Notes
Source download: kafka-1.0.1-src.tgz (asc, sha512)
Binary downloads: Scala 2.11 - kafka_2.11-1.0.1.tgz (asc, sha512) Scala 2.12 - kafka_2.12-1.0.1.tgz (asc, sha512) We build for multiple versions of Scala. This only matters if you are using Scala and you want a version built for the same Scala version you use. Otherwise any version should work (2.11 is recommended).
We build for multiple versions of Scala. This only matters if you are using Scala and you want a version built for the same Scala version you use. Otherwise any version should work (2.11 is recommended).
Released November 1, 2017
Source download: kafka-1.0.0-src.tgz (asc, sha512)
Binary downloads: Scala 2.11 - kafka_2.11-1.0.0.tgz (asc, sha512) Scala 2.12 - kafka_2.12-1.0.0.tgz (asc, sha512) We build for multiple versions of Scala. This only matters if you are using Scala and you want a version built for the same Scala version you use. Otherwise any version should work (2.11 is recommended).
We build for multiple versions of Scala. This only matters if you are using Scala and you want a version built for the same Scala version you use. Otherwise any version should work (2.11 is recommended).
Kafka 1.0.0 is no mere bump of the version number. The Apache Kafka Project Management Committee has packed a number of valuable enhancements into the release. Here is a summary of a few of them:
Since its introduction in version 0.10, the Streams API has become hugely popular among Kafka users, including the likes of Pinterest, Rabobank, Zalando, and The New York Times. In 1.0, the the API continues to evolve at a healthy pace. To begin with, the builder API has been improved (KIP-120). A new API has been added to expose the state of active tasks at runtime (KIP-130). The new cogroup API makes it much easier to deal with partitioned aggregates with fewer StateStores and fewer moving parts in your code (KIP-150). Debuggability gets easier with enhancements to the print() and writeAsText() methods (KIP-160). And if that’s not enough, check out KIP-138 and KIP-161 too. For more on streams, check out the Apache Kafka Streams documentation, including some helpful new tutorial videos.
Operating Kafka at scale requires that the system remain observable, and to make that easier, we’ve made a number of improvements to metrics. These are too many to summarize without becoming tedious, but Connect metrics have been significantly improved (KIP-196), a litany of new health check metrics are now exposed (KIP-188), and we now have a global topic and partition count (KIP-168). Check out KIP-164 and KIP-187 for even more.
We now support Java 9, leading, among other things, to significantly faster TLS and CRC32C implementations. Over-the-wire encryption will be faster now, which will keep Kafka fast and compute costs low when encryption is enabled.
In keeping with the security theme, KIP-152 cleans up the error handling on Simple Authentication Security Layer (SASL) authentication attempts. Previously, some authentication error conditions were indistinguishable from broker failures and were not logged in a clear way. This is cleaner now.
Kafka can now tolerate disk failures better. Historically, JBOD storage configurations have not been recommended, but the architecture has nevertheless been tempting: after all, why not rely on Kafka’s own replication mechanism to protect against storage failure rather than using RAID? With KIP-112, Kafka now handles disk failure more gracefully. A single disk failure in a JBOD broker will not bring the entire broker down; rather, the broker will continue serving any log files that remain on functioning disks.
Since release 0.11.0, the idempotent producer (which is the producer used in the presence of a transaction, which of course is the producer we use for exactly-once processing) required max.in.flight.requests.per.connection to be equal to one. As anyone who has written or tested a wire protocol can attest, this put an upper bound on throughput. Thanks to KAFKA-5949, this can now be as large as five, relaxing the throughput constraint quite a bit.
For more information, please read the detailed Release Notes.
Released July 2ed, 2018
Release Notes
Source download: kafka-0.11.0.3-src.tgz (asc, sha512)
Binary downloads: Scala 2.11 - kafka_2.11-0.11.0.3.tgz (asc, sha512) Scala 2.12 - kafka_2.12-0.11.0.3.tgz (asc, sha512) We build for multiple versions of Scala. This only matters if you are using Scala and you want a version built for the same Scala version you use. Otherwise any version should work (2.11 is recommended).
We build for multiple versions of Scala. This only matters if you are using Scala and you want a version built for the same Scala version you use. Otherwise any version should work (2.11 is recommended).
Released November 17, 2017
Release Notes
Source download: kafka-0.11.0.2-src.tgz (asc, sha512)
Binary downloads: Scala 2.11 - kafka_2.11-0.11.0.2.tgz (asc, sha512) Scala 2.12 - kafka_2.12-0.11.0.2.tgz (asc, sha512) We build for multiple versions of Scala. This only matters if you are using Scala and you want a version built for the same Scala version you use. Otherwise any version should work (2.11 is recommended).
We build for multiple versions of Scala. This only matters if you are using Scala and you want a version built for the same Scala version you use. Otherwise any version should work (2.11 is recommended).
Released September 13, 2017
Release Notes
Source download: kafka-0.11.0.1-src.tgz (asc, md5)
Binary downloads: Scala 2.11 - kafka_2.11-0.11.0.1.tgz (asc, md5) Scala 2.12 - kafka_2.12-0.11.0.1.tgz (asc, md5) We build for multiple versions of Scala. This only matters if you are using Scala and you want a version built for the same Scala version you use. Otherwise any version should work (2.11 is recommended).
We build for multiple versions of Scala. This only matters if you are using Scala and you want a version built for the same Scala version you use. Otherwise any version should work (2.11 is recommended).
Released June 28, 2017
Release Notes
Source download: kafka-0.11.0.0-src.tgz (asc, md5)
Binary downloads: Scala 2.11 - kafka_2.11-0.11.0.0.tgz (asc, md5) Scala 2.12 - kafka_2.12-0.11.0.0.tgz (asc, md5) We build for multiple versions of Scala. This only matters if you are using Scala and you want a version built for the same Scala version you use. Otherwise any version should work (2.11 is recommended).
We build for multiple versions of Scala. This only matters if you are using Scala and you want a version built for the same Scala version you use. Otherwise any version should work (2.11 is recommended).
Released July 2nd, 2018
Release Notes
Source download: kafka-0.10.2.2-src.tgz (asc, md5)
Binary downloads: Scala 2.10 - kafka_2.10-0.10.2.2.tgz (asc, md5) Scala 2.11 - kafka_2.11-0.10.2.2.tgz (asc, md5) Scala 2.12 - kafka_2.12-0.10.2.2.tgz (asc, md5) We add 2.12 to the supported Scala version. These different versions only matter if you are using Scala and you want a version built for the same Scala version you use. Otherwise any version should work (2.11 is recommended).
We add 2.12 to the supported Scala version. These different versions only matter if you are using Scala and you want a version built for the same Scala version you use. Otherwise any version should work (2.11 is recommended).
Released April 26, 2017
Release Notes
Source download: kafka-0.10.2.1-src.tgz (asc, md5)
Binary downloads: Scala 2.10 - kafka_2.10-0.10.2.1.tgz (asc, md5) Scala 2.11 - kafka_2.11-0.10.2.1.tgz (asc, md5) Scala 2.12 - kafka_2.12-0.10.2.1.tgz (asc, md5) We add 2.12 to the supported Scala version. These different versions only matter if you are using Scala and you want a version built for the same Scala version you use. Otherwise any version should work (2.11 is recommended).
We add 2.12 to the supported Scala version. These different versions only matter if you are using Scala and you want a version built for the same Scala version you use. Otherwise any version should work (2.11 is recommended).
Released February 21, 2017
Release Notes
Source download: kafka-0.10.2.0-src.tgz (asc, md5)
Binary downloads: Scala 2.10 - kafka_2.10-0.10.2.0.tgz (asc, md5) Scala 2.11 - kafka_2.11-0.10.2.0.tgz (asc, md5) Scala 2.12 - kafka_2.12-0.10.2.0.tgz (asc, md5) We add 2.12 to the supported Scala version. These different versions only matter if you are using Scala and you want a version built for the same Scala version you use. Otherwise any version should work (2.11 is recommended).
We add 2.12 to the supported Scala version. These different versions only matter if you are using Scala and you want a version built for the same Scala version you use. Otherwise any version should work (2.11 is recommended).
Released December 20, 2016
Release Notes
Source download: kafka-0.10.1.1-src.tgz (asc, md5)
Binary downloads: Scala 2.10 - kafka_2.10-0.10.1.1.tgz (asc, md5) Scala 2.11 - kafka_2.11-0.10.1.1.tgz (asc, md5) Scala 2.12 (pre-alpha) - kafka_2.12-0.10.1.1.tgz (asc, md5) We build for multiple versions of Scala, and include 2.12 as a pre-alpha before the next major release. This only matters if you are using Scala and you want a version built for the same Scala version you use. Otherwise any version should work (2.11 is recommended).
We build for multiple versions of Scala, and include 2.12 as a pre-alpha before the next major release. This only matters if you are using Scala and you want a version built for the same Scala version you use. Otherwise any version should work (2.11 is recommended).
Released October 20, 2016
Release Notes
Source download: kafka-0.10.1.0-src.tgz (asc, md5)
Binary downloads: Scala 2.10 - kafka_2.10-0.10.1.0.tgz (asc, md5) Scala 2.11 - kafka_2.11-0.10.1.0.tgz (asc, md5) We build for multiple versions of Scala. This only matters if you are using Scala and you want a version built for the same Scala version you use. Otherwise any version should work (2.11 is recommended).
We build for multiple versions of Scala. This only matters if you are using Scala and you want a version built for the same Scala version you use. Otherwise any version should work (2.11 is recommended).
Released August 10, 2016
Release Notes
Source download: kafka-0.10.0.1-src.tgz (asc, md5)
Binary downloads: Scala 2.10 - kafka_2.10-0.10.0.1.tgz (asc, md5) Scala 2.11 - kafka_2.11-0.10.0.1.tgz (asc, md5) We build for multiple versions of Scala. This only matters if you are using Scala and you want a version built for the same Scala version you use. Otherwise any version should work (2.11 is recommended).
We build for multiple versions of Scala. This only matters if you are using Scala and you want a version built for the same Scala version you use. Otherwise any version should work (2.11 is recommended).
Released May 22, 2016
Release Notes
Source download: kafka-0.10.0.0-src.tgz (asc, md5)
Binary downloads: Scala 2.10 - kafka_2.10-0.10.0.0.tgz (asc, md5) Scala 2.11 - kafka_2.11-0.10.0.0.tgz (asc, md5) We build for multiple versions of Scala. This only matters if you are using Scala and you want a version built for the same Scala version you use. Otherwise any version should work (2.11 is recommended).
We build for multiple versions of Scala. This only matters if you are using Scala and you want a version built for the same Scala version you use. Otherwise any version should work (2.11 is recommended).
Released February 19, 2016
Release Notes
Source download: kafka-0.9.0.1-src.tgz (asc, md5)
Binary downloads: Scala 2.10 - kafka_2.10-0.9.0.1.tgz (asc, md5) Scala 2.11 - kafka_2.11-0.9.0.1.tgz (asc, md5) We build for multiple versions of Scala. This only matters if you are using Scala and you want a version built for the same Scala version you use. Otherwise any version should work (2.11 is recommended).
We build for multiple versions of Scala. This only matters if you are using Scala and you want a version built for the same Scala version you use. Otherwise any version should work (2.11 is recommended).
Released November 23, 2015
Release Notes
Source download: kafka-0.9.0.0-src.tgz (asc, md5)
Binary downloads: Scala 2.10 - kafka_2.10-0.9.0.0.tgz (asc, md5) Scala 2.11 - kafka_2.11-0.9.0.0.tgz (asc, md5) We build for multiple versions of Scala. This only matters if you are using Scala and you want a version built for the same Scala version you use. Otherwise any version should work (2.11 is recommended).
We build for multiple versions of Scala. This only matters if you are using Scala and you want a version built for the same Scala version you use. Otherwise any version should work (2.11 is recommended).
Released October 2, 2015
Release Notes
Source download: kafka-0.8.2.2-src.tgz (asc, md5)
Binary downloads: Scala 2.9.1 - kafka_2.9.1-0.8.2.2.tgz (asc, md5) Scala 2.9.2 - kafka_2.9.2-0.8.2.2.tgz (asc, md5) Scala 2.10 - kafka_2.10-0.8.2.2.tgz (asc, md5) Scala 2.11 - kafka_2.11-0.8.2.2.tgz (asc, md5) We build for multiple versions of Scala. This only matters if you are using Scala and you want a version built for the same Scala version you use. Otherwise any version should work (2.10 is recommended).
We build for multiple versions of Scala. This only matters if you are using Scala and you want a version built for the same Scala version you use. Otherwise any version should work (2.10 is recommended).
Released March 11, 2015
Release Notes
Source download: kafka-0.8.2.1-src.tgz (asc, md5)
Binary downloads: Scala 2.9.1 - kafka_2.9.1-0.8.2.1.tgz (asc, md5) Scala 2.9.2 - kafka_2.9.2-0.8.2.1.tgz (asc, md5) Scala 2.10 - kafka_2.10-0.8.2.1.tgz (asc, md5) Scala 2.11 - kafka_2.11-0.8.2.1.tgz (asc, md5) We build for multiple versions of Scala. This only matters if you are using Scala and you want a version built for the same Scala version you use. Otherwise any version should work (2.10 is recommended).
We build for multiple versions of Scala. This only matters if you are using Scala and you want a version built for the same Scala version you use. Otherwise any version should work (2.10 is recommended).
Released February 2, 2015
Release Notes
Source download: kafka-0.8.2.0-src.tgz (asc, md5)
Binary downloads: Scala 2.9.1 - kafka_2.9.1-0.8.2.0.tgz (asc, md5) Scala 2.9.2 - kafka_2.9.2-0.8.2.0.tgz (asc, md5) Scala 2.10 - kafka_2.10-0.8.2.0.tgz (asc, md5) Scala 2.11 - kafka_2.11-0.8.2.0.tgz (asc, md5) We build for multiple versions of Scala. This only matters if you are using Scala and you want a version built for the same Scala version you use. Otherwise any version should work (2.10 is recommended).
We build for multiple versions of Scala. This only matters if you are using Scala and you want a version built for the same Scala version you use. Otherwise any version should work (2.10 is recommended).
Released October 28, 2014
Release Notes
Source download: kafka-0.8.2-beta-src.tgz (asc, md5)
Binary downloads: Scala 2.9.1 - kafka_2.9.1-0.8.2-beta.tgz (asc, md5) Scala 2.9.2 - kafka_2.9.2-0.8.2-beta.tgz (asc, md5) Scala 2.10 - kafka_2.10-0.8.2-beta.tgz (asc, md5) Scala 2.11 - kafka_2.11-0.8.2-beta.tgz (asc, md5) We build for multiple versions of Scala. This only matters if you are using Scala and you want a version built for the same Scala version you use. Otherwise any version should work (2.10 is recommended).
We build for multiple versions of Scala. This only matters if you are using Scala and you want a version built for the same Scala version you use. Otherwise any version should work (2.10 is recommended).
0.8.1.1 Release
Released April 29, 2014
Release Notes
Source download: kafka-0.8.1.1-src.tgz (asc, md5)
Binary downloads: Scala 2.8.0 - kafka_2.8.0-0.8.1.1.tgz (asc, md5) Scala 2.9.1 - kafka_2.9.1-0.8.1.1.tgz (asc, md5) Scala 2.9.2 - kafka_2.9.2-0.8.1.1.tgz (asc, md5) Scala 2.10 - kafka_2.10-0.8.1.1.tgz (asc, md5) We build for multiple versions of Scala. This only matters if you are using Scala and you want a version built for the same Scala version you use. Otherwise any version should work (2.9.2 is recommended).
We build for multiple versions of Scala. This only matters if you are using Scala and you want a version built for the same Scala version you use. Otherwise any version should work (2.9.2 is recommended).
0.8.1 Release
Released March 12, 2014
Release Notes
Source download: kafka-0.8.1-src.tgz (asc, md5)
Binary downloads: Scala 2.8.0 - kafka_2.8.0-0.8.1.tgz (asc, md5) Scala 2.8.2 - kafka_2.8.2-0.8.1.tgz (asc, md5) Scala 2.9.1 - kafka_2.9.1-0.8.1.tgz (asc, md5) Scala 2.9.2 - kafka_2.9.2-0.8.1.tgz (asc, md5) Scala 2.10 - kafka_2.10-0.8.1.tgz (asc, md5) We build for multiple versions of Scala. This only matters if you are using Scala and you want a version built for the same Scala version you use. Otherwise any version should work (2.9.2 is recommended).
We build for multiple versions of Scala. This only matters if you are using Scala and you want a version built for the same Scala version you use. Otherwise any version should work (2.9.2 is recommended).
0.8.0 Release
0.8.0 Beta1 Release
0.7.2 Release
0.7.1 Release
0.7.0 Release
You can download releases previous to 0.7.0-incubating here.Sunday’s Olympic gold medal hockey game was ratings gold for both CTV and NBC. According to BBM Canada overnight ratings, an average of 16.6 million people watched Team Canada defeat the U.S. 3-2 in overtime on the CTV-Rogers consortium’s eight channels. That average sets an all-time record for viewing in Canada.
Vancouver's Granville Street packed with fans after Canada's gold medal victory in men's hockey at the 2010 Vacouver Olympics. (Feb. 28, 2010) ( RANDY RISLING / TORONTO STAR )
The game was actually viewed by more people south of the border, with NBC reporting an average audience of 27.6 million – the largest for hockey since the U.S. defeated Finland for gold at the 1980 Lake Placid Olympics. “These are staggering numbers,” said consortium president Keith Pelley. “It was a great privilege for all of us at the consortium to be involved in such a historical event.” The consortium reports that 26.5 million Canadians watched some part of the game, meaning 80 per cent of the country tuned in at some point.
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Two-thirds of the country, or 22 million people, were watching when Sidney Crosby scored the winning goal. While the Canadian ratings system changed in August and has been tracking higher audiences on average, Sunday’s game does compare with the previous landmark sports event in terms of audience share. CTV estimated that an average of 13.3 million people watched the final game of the 1972 Summit Series between Canada and the Soviets, calculated by a ratings system based on viewer diaries. It also estimated that 18 million people watched some of the game, 82.5 per cent of the population at the time. The most-watched sports event under the metered system used until last year was 10.3 million for the 2002 Olympic hockey final between Canada and the U.S. But that system did not measure viewing outside the home, such as in bars and on giant outdoor screens. Sunday’s game was carried on nine consortium channels in eight languages, whereas the 2002 game was only on CBC and French-language SRC.
The final was the third most-watched hockey game in American history, with the 1980 “Miracle on Ice” match between the U.S. and Soviets tops at 34.2 million. The subsequent gold medal game against Finland was watched by 32.8 million. Though the game’s audience paled in comparison with the Super Bowl’s 106.5 million, it ranked ahead of the Grammy Awards (25.9 million) and Rose Bowl (24 million.)
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The game and the closing ceremonies, which attracted an average audience of 14.3 million viewers, capped a phenomenal ratings story for the consortium. Its coverage averaged 5.8 million viewers over 17 days, 66 per cent higher than the comparable Salt Lake City Olympics. During the Olympics, CTV won every timeslot in prime time every day, for total viewers and the prime advertising demographics. TSN tripled its full-day audience to become the second most-watched network in Canada during the Games, with Rogers Sportsnet third. The Olympics also delivered the five biggest audiences in Canadian history. Three of those were Team Canada hockey games while the opening and closing ceremonies comprised the other two. The Games were the second most-watched Winter Olympics in U.S. history, with only the 1994 Lillehammer Games drawing more viewers. They even outdrew the 2002 Salt Lake City Games.From all indications, there was an awful lot of drama behind the scenes of the "Transformers" movies, and as it turns out, it was an interview about the trouble, not the issues themselves, that got Megan Fox fired from the series.
Michael Bay broke his silence for the first time about why Fox was replaced after two films as Shia LaBeouf's lady co-star, saying that it was her unfortunate dictatorial comparison that did her in.
"You know the Hitler thing. Steven (Spielberg) said, fire her right now," Bay told GQ Magazine. Spielberg is the executive producer on the films, and the Hitler thing refers to comments she made to Wonderland Magazine in 2009.
"He's like Napoleon and he wants to create this insane, infamous mad-man reputation," Fox told the magazine. "He wants to be like Hitler on his sets, and he is. So he's a nightmare to work for but when you get him away from set, and he's not in director mode, I kind of really enjoy his personality because he's so awkward, so hopelessly awkward. He has no social skills at all. And it's endearing to watch him."
For his part, Bay said he wasn't offended -- it seemed he was more bemused.
"I wasn't hurt, because I know that's just Megan. Megan loves to get a response," Bay said. "And she does it in kind of the wrong way. I'm sorry, Megan. I'm sorry I made you work twelve hours. I'm sorry that I'm making you show up on time. Movies are not always warm and fuzzy."
Following her dumping from the film, Fox claimed that it was her idea to leave, with her rep telling People Magazine, ""It was her decision not to return. She wishes the franchise the best."
LaBeouf, never one shy to share his opinions, recently gave some insight to some of the disagreements that Fox and Bay had on set.
"Megan developed this Spice Girl strength, this woman-empowerment [stuff] that made her feel awkward about her involvement with Michael, who some people think is a very lascivious filmmaker, the way he films women," LaBeouf told the Los Angeles Times. "Mike films women in a way that appeals to a 16-year-old sexuality. It |
at night, and suspended during the questioning. “[The organizations] are so patient-focused,” said Gafkay, “that they ignore the civil rights of their own employees.”
Not just nurses
At particular risk is the nurse-patient relationship, which Ruchti believes is regularly informed by racism. In providing what Ruchti called “professional intimate care,” nurses are already at risk of being seen more as hired help than as health care professionals. And racist beliefs can exacerbate that misconception. “There are lots of examples of nurses of color being mislabeled as housekeepers by patients even when they are obviously doing nurse work — symbolically demoting them, if you will.” But it’s not just nurses. Dr. Meghan Lane-Fall treats cardiovascular patients in the surgical care unit at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. “All of the things that are taught in medicine about being a care provider are to really not think about yourself or your characteristics,” Lane-Fall said. “Your gender and ethnicity are, in theory, erased when you walk through the doors of the hospital.” But in reality, as an African-American woman, Lane-Fall is often subjected to racially based judgments. “I can be walking the hallway wearing a white coat,” she said, “and someone will think I’m the janitor, and I’ll think, ‘Is that because I’m black?’” Lane-Fall recently wrote about an experience caring for a coma patient. On the third day during which the man was under her care, she happened to be in a room when the nurses were changing his gown. Spread across his chest was a tattoo: 3- to 4-inch-high lettering spelling out the words “White Power.” At that moment, Lane-Fall recalled how she had felt nothing but coldness from the tattooed man’s family; until now, she had thought nothing of it. Now it seemed sinister. She thought: “Oh, you’re not just this nameless, faceless person taking care of a patient; you’re a black woman who has all these other characteristics that affect the way patients see you.”
Race concordance
On the flip side, Ruchti said nurses of color she spoke with told her that patients of color sought them out on purpose. And in fact, research suggests that your health outcomes can improve if you and your physician have what’s called in the literature “race concordance.” A Johns Hopkins study published in 2002, for example, found that, when given the choice, patients would choose doctors of their own race. And, when treated by same-race physicians, the patients reported higher satisfaction. The results cut across all races and ethnicities. The study, led by Thomas LaVeist, was one of the first of its kind. But others soon followed. A 2005 study published in the Annals of Family Medicine found that many African-Americans and Latinos believed strongly that the health care system was racist — and that they preferred to have same-race doctors as a result. And more recently, a 2010 study published in the Journal of the National Medical Association confirmed the previous findings: Black patients were more likely to feel that white doctors were giving them subpar care compared with black doctors and, therefore, preferred same-race health care providers. Some will even argue that choosing a doctor of the same skin color is no different from choosing a doctor of the same gender. Many women don’t feel comfortable talking to a man about gynecological issues; is it that much of a stretch to imagine an African-American man feeling he can be more open and honest about his lifestyle and behavior with an African-American doctor?
All things being equal, if you offered me a black provider I’d probably choose that. Dr. Meghan Lane-Fall
Preferences like these aren’t driven by ignorance. Lane-Fall got her undergraduate degree in molecular and cell biology from the University of California, Berkeley, her master’s in health policy from the University of Pennsylvania and her M.D. from Yale. She’s about as well educated as a human being could ever be. And yet, “all things being equal, if you offered me a black provider I’d probably choose that,” she said, adding that she’d assume someone from a similar background would know more about her. Because of these complexities, the legal issues here are legion. The 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination based on race, gender, national origin or religion in public accommodations and in any place that receives public funding. On the face of it, this would appear to mean that a patient could not make race-based requests for nurses and doctors. After all, pretty much every health care institution receives some federal funding, whether directly or in the form of public health insurance reimbursements. But, as Paul-Emile argues, those provisions of the Civil Rights Act are actually meant to preclude institutions from “prohibiting individuals from enjoying the benefits that the institution provides” — and by accommodating a patient’s preference, “you are actually allowing that patient to enjoy the benefits” provided by a federally funded hospital. And, in fact, that is what is happening in the real world. A 2010 study, for example, showed that patients across the board will often make race-based requests with regard to their health care provider — and that providers will often accede to these preferences. In that same study, Dr. Herbert Rakatansky, the former chair of the American Medical Association’s Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs, is quoted as saying, “In a life-threatening situation, you would have to abide by a patient’s request.” In other words, there may be both a legal and an ethical imperative to accommodate racial preference in the hospital.
The positive preferenceWhen ancient Eygptian pharaoh Akhenaten ordered the construction of the new city of Amarna dedicated to the sun god Aten, more than 20,000 people moved there to do the back-breaking work. The work was so strenuous that it resulted in numerous broken bones, including many fractured spinal bones, says a new study by archaeologists who examined skeletal remains from a commoners’ cemetery at Amarna.
“Adult trauma levels at Amarna were also extremely high, with 67.4 per cent (64/95) of adults exhibiting at least one healed, or healing, fracture. This is again consistent with a population working at hard and somewhat dangerous jobs,” says a paper in the journal Antiquity by Barry Kemp, Anna Stevens, Gretchen R. Dabbs, Melissa Zabecki and Jerome C. Rose.
The team only examined skeletons with more than 50 percent of the bones remaining and found that in addition to probably work-related fractures and degenerative joint disease, they also had smaller-than-average stature suggesting lifelong malnutrition and other hardships.
The same team announced earlier this fall that five men with wounds to their shoulder blades, exhumed from the same cemetery, may have been punished by being stabbed there for unknown crimes. A wall carving from ancient Egypt spells out the stabbing punishment for stealing animal hides. What these men did wrong or who they were is unknown.
Amarna was built around 1330 BC as a place where Aten alone could be worshiped. Other gods were worshiped in other cities, but no other god ever had been or was meant to be worshiped at Amarna, 350 kilometers (217 miles) south of Cairo, the paper says. The authors of the paper have been analyzing and researching the South Tombs Cemetery in Amarna since 2005.
“The site [of Amarna] reveals something of Akhenaten’s intentions, for it was his wish to purify the cult of the sun (the Aten) by creating a place for worship that was uncontaminated by previous associations, human or divine,” the paper states. “Amarna also became home, almost incidentally, to a population of perhaps 20–30000 people—officials, soldiers, people involved in manufacture and even more whose place in life was to serve others—who followed the royal court to this new city and set about re-establishing their lives and livelihoods.”
Akhenaten, Nefertiti and their children bask in the rays of the sun, Aten, a god that Akhenaten raised above all others. (Photo by Andreas Praefcke/ Wikimedia Commons )
The authors say the city of Amarna was built quickly, in part because of introduction of a standardized limestone building block measure 52.5 by 25 centimeters (20.7 by 9.85 inches). The weight of this block was about 70 kilograms or 154 pounds. The workers carried the blocks production-line style, handing stones down the line to the next person in line. The authors speculate that these heavy blocks caused many of the bad injuries, including degenerative joint disease and fractures, in the Amarna workers.
The burials in the South Tombs Cemetery were simple, unlike the elaborate tombs of the rich of ancient Egypt. People wrapped their dead in shrouds of linen. Burial containers were rigid mats made of plant material that sometimes had ropes attached for easier carrying from the city to the densely packed cemetery.
Most of the graves were marked with low cairns of limestone builders, some with memorial steles or gravestones. A few of the graves had small limestone pyramids. Because of erosion and looting very little remains of these surface grave markers, the paper says.
Most of the interments excavated thus far have been disturbed by grave robbers, who tended to rummage through the upper part of the body, probably looking for jewelry, but left much of the bone within the grave. It is usually still possible, nonetheless, to gain a good overall understanding of the nature of each burial, and to reconstruct the skeletons to a substantial degree.
“Grave goods, or items that might have been left beside the grave as offerings during or after burial, are rare.” The team found pottery vessels, most of them fragmentary, which they assumed were used to contain food and beverage; amulets and jewelry among the wrappings or on the body; and cosmetic items, including mirrors, kohl tubes and travertine vessels.
Some of the simple grave markers and steles at Amarna commoners’ cemetery; note the pyramidal shape of the bottom two. (Antiquity photos)
Analysis of the skeletons tells a sad tale of the life of the people there. Some of the skeletons showed signs of early childhood hunger, anemia and scurvy. As far as workload injuries, the team found severe degenerative joint disease in at least one limb in nearly 60 percent of the skeletons.
“The spine also exhibited high frequencies of DJD development (56.7 per cent presence; 35.6 percent severe), with the most common severe manifestation being observed in the lumbar region,” the authors wrote. In other words, the lower back was badly injured from the labor.
Featured image: An undisturbed skeleton of a man in the extended, supine posture typical at the cemetery; and the burial of a man with a common pattern of disturbance in which the upper torso has been jumbled by robbers and the skull removed. (Antiquity photo)
By: Mark MillerGet the biggest celebs stories by email Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email
Benedict Cumberbatch was up for Best Actor at the Oscars - but he arrived looking a winner already with his new wife on his arm.
Sophie Hunter may be around five months pregnant but she didn't shy away from the most glamorous of dresses, held together down one side with ties Liz Hurley style.
She looked red hot - so it was little wonder the Sherlock star only had eyes for her.
And Benedict may not have taken home the Oscar, losing out to Eddie Redmayne for his performance in The Theory of Everything, but we suspect he will still have enjoyed a night to remember as the pair seemed to float down the red carpet in newly wedded bliss.
Just look at the evidence...
I can't look into your eyes without thinking how much I love you
(Image: Steve Granitz/WireImage)
I don't care if everyone's looking at us
(Image: Steve Granitz/WireImage)
I just want to sweep you into my arms
(Image: Christopher Polk/Getty Images)
Having our pictures taken this much is like our wedding photographer all over again
(Image: Jason Merritt/Getty Images)
I'm trying not to think about how hot you look in that dress
(Image: Jason Merritt/Getty Images)
Yes, this is me stroking the sexiest baby bump at the Oscars
(Image: Christopher Polk/Getty Images)
You know you love it when I do my 'Allo 'Allo impression
(Image: Christopher Polk/Getty Images)
Mwah. Love you
(Image: Jim Smeal/BEI/REX)
And that dress. Just. Wow.
(Image: Lester Cohen/WireImage)
There's a Cumberbaby in there - and it's amazing
(Image: Getty)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
Former Prime Minister Sir Edward Heath raped a 12-year-old boy after picking up the youngster when he ran away from home, it has been sensationally claimed.
The alleged victim, now 64, says the sexual assault took place in an exclusive Mayfair flat in 1961 when Heath was a Tory MP.
Detectives from Scotland Yard’s sexual exploitation unit have been informed of the claims from the man, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, and plan to interview him.
The Mirror can reveal for the first time specific details the alleged victim has made in statements to his legal team which are due to be passed to police.
The man reported the attack two months after the incident but says he was “fobbed off” by social workers.
(Image: PA)
It was not until four years later, in 1965, when he recognised Heath’s photo in a newspaper that he claims he finally knew the identity of his abuser, breaking down in tears in front of his mother, saying: “The man in this picture raped me, mum”.
The man, who worked as a rent boy throughout his adolescence and was in his later life convicted of child sex crimes, claims he kept his secret bottled up until this year.
In a letter to his solicitor, in which he tells how he was picked up in car, saying: “I think it was about August 1961 when I ran away again....I decided to hitch a lift.
“I stuck my thumb out as I walked....when a car pull up and the window was lowered and the driver asked me where I was going. I told him the West End (of London) and he told me to get in the car.”
(Image: PA)
During the journey he started a conversation with a man who he later identified as Heath.
Describing the event, he says: “He was asking me why I was on my own and I told him I wanted to have time on my own and that I came to London on my own a lot and my mum wasn’t worried.
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“He asked me if I had somewhere to stay to which I replied in the negative. He said if I wanted to I could stay at his place for the night.
"I was grateful and accepted but knew that he hadn’t asked out of generosity and that I would have to pay, probably with my body but it didn’t bother me, as I had been using my body for over five years now and it was almost second nature.”
Lifelong bachelor Heath was a champion yachtsman and world class musician.
(Image: Rex)
After describing being taken to “a very posh place” that the man called “my home”, the alleged victim adds in his letter: “I went into the living room where I had a cup of tea and a sandwich he had made.
"I noticed photos of yachts on the wall but one thing that intrigued me was a silver stick in an open box on a sideboard.
“I asked him what it was and he told me it was a conductor’s baton. It made him laugh when I said I had never seen a bus conductor with a baton. He explained it was an orchestra’s conductor’s baton.”
The man claims he was abused throughout his childhood by his father who sold him for sex to his paedophile friends on a Kent council estate.
The location he claims was picked up, along the A2 road in north Kent, is believed to be less than two miles away from where the Tory politician was allegedly warned by police in the 1950s to cease cruising for gay sex.
The area is also around two miles from the Old Bexley and Sidcup constituency Heath served for 51 years before he retired from politics in 2001.
The man adds: “I don’t know how the conversation got round to sex. After having a shower he said that he only had one bedroom and that if I was OK with that I could share his bed.
“We spent the night masturbating each other.....I don’t know what time we eventually slept.”
The man has told his legal team Heath also had full penetrative sex with him that night.
He continues in the note: “I woke the next morning....I got up and got dressed and went into the living room.
(Image: PA)
"There was a sandwich on the table....he said he had a morning appointment and that it was time to leave....he let me out the front door and told me the way to the West End.”
He goes on to detail how in 1965, when the man was 15-years-old, he saw a picture alongside a newspaper article with Heath standing next to Margaret Thatcher.
Addressing the female Tory PM by her maiden name Roberts, he writes: “In the picture was Margaret Roberts (who became Margaret Thatcher), Edward Heath.....and a lady (somthing) (I think Smith).
"I realised at once that the man in the photo was the man who had given me the lift and had sex with me in an apartment in Park Lane.
(Image: Daily Record)
“I learned that he was MP for Bexley. This answered a lot of questions as to why no-one believed me about the London saga. I got called a liar and a fantasist.”
Heath was Conservative Prime Minister Heath between 1970 and 1974 and leader of Party from 1965 to 1975 when he lost the leadership to Margaret Thatcher. He died in 2005 at the age of 89.
Scotland Yard have declined to confirm whether or not they were due to interview the alleged victim.
Labour MP and child abuse campaigner Simon Danczuk said: “These are very serious allegations and they need to be investigated as a matter of urgency.”Veganism is a social justice movement
Veganism is much more than what one chooses to eat or not eat, chooses not to wear, chooses to forego for entertainment and chooses to purchase in terms of cosmetics and household items. Veganism at its core is about justice. Veganism is a social justice movement that places an animal’s right to be left to his or her own devices as the center of justice.
As such, advocating for veganism is much bigger than convincing individuals to become vegan – not that this work isn’t deeply important. It’s about fighting against the industries that profit from the use of animals. It’s about fighting against the governments that protect the rights of those industries to use and abuse animals. Ultimately, it is about reaching a public that allows and perpetuates the abuse of animals, and educating them about speciesism.
Speciesism is the core belief in the inherent supremacy of humans. It is what justifies the confinement, torture, and murder of billions of animals for food, clothing, entertainment and research. The idea that human beings are the center of the universe and that animals are a sub-species is unethical. History has shown us what happens when one race or country, for example, sees themselves as superior. Genocide happens.
What has been happening since human beings began to breed, raise, and kill animals has been a continual genocide. This genocide has been going on for thousands of years without a pause. In fact it is increasing with human population growth and industrialization.
So veganism is a social justice issue that requires active efforts to eliminate speciesism. Justice and equality are not going to come to animals by manipulating people through health claims, environmental reports, personal spirituality, or other promises about how going vegan will help that individual. Justice is not about self-serving acts. Justice is about the greater good, in this case, the rights of animals.
When someone makes a dietary choice for their own self interest, animals lose. How do animals lose? Diets and health choices change like the direction of the wind. I am avoiding gluten for dietary reasons. If I get tempted, or have a glass or two of wine, I may cheat on my dietary choice and eat some gluten. But no matter how much wine I drink, I will not cheat on veganism. Why? Because veganism is an ethical choice that is outside of my personal interests. I am vegan for animals.
CommentsDangerous Dogs Act 1991 An American Pit Bull Terrier on a lead and wearing a muzzle Summary Makes it illegal to own any Specially Controlled Dogs without specific exemption from a court
The Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 (c. 65) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that was introduced in response to various incidents of serious injury or death resulting from attacks by aggressive and uncontrolled dogs, particularly on children.[1] It has attracted criticism as an example of poorly-drafted legislation hastily enacted in response to a short-lived media storm.[2][3][4]
The effect of the act [ edit ]
Under the 1991 act, introduced by MP Ken Baker (and as amended in 1997) it is illegal to own any Specially Controlled Dogs without specific exemption from a court.[5] The dogs have to be muzzled and kept on a lead in public, they must be registered and insured, neutered, tattooed and receive microchip implants. The Act also bans the breeding, sale and exchange of these dogs, even if they are on the Index of Exempted Dogs.[6]
Four types in particular were identified by the Act:
The Act also covers cross-breeds of the above four types of dog. Dangerous dogs are classified by "type", not by breed label. This means that whether a dog is prohibited under the Act will depend on a judgement about its physical characteristics, and whether they match the description of a prohibited "type". This assessment of the physical characteristics is made by a court.
The Act applies in England, Wales and Scotland,[7] with The Dangerous Dogs (Northern Ireland) Order 1991 having a similar effect in Northern Ireland.[8]
Index of Exempted Dogs [ edit ]
The Index of Exempted Dogs is maintained by the Animal Welfare section of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, which administers the registration of specially-controlled dogs in England and Wales.
In 1991 and 1992, details of all Specially Controlled Dogs and their owners and keepers had to be added to the Index of Exempted Dogs. From early 1992 to 1997, no dogs were allowed to be added to the Index. In 1997, The Dangerous Dogs (Amendment) Act 1997 was passed which made some changes.[9][10]
Case law [ edit ]
There have been several test cases of the act, including Dempsey, a pit bull terrier which in 1995 was finally reprieved from a destruction order, to widespread media attention.[citation needed] The definition of the word "type" in the legislation was of particular controversy, as was the lack of discretion that the Act gives magistrates.
In the case of R (Sandhu) v. Isleworth Crown Court, the claimant Sandhu was in prison and sought to nominate a temporary keeper to have his dog. The judicial review held that a person does have the right to nominate a person to temporarily keep the dog. This decision has more recently been more regulated to only allow for temporary keepership in certain circumstances.[11]
Criticism of the Act [ edit ]
The act has been described as a piece of rushed legislation which was an overreaction to a transient public mood.[12][13] The Act is sometimes cited as an unfavourable example of such legislation,[14][15] and in January 2007, the act was included in public responses to a BBC Radio 4 poll of unpopular UK legislation.[16]
The act has also been criticised as ineffectual because its mandate is limited to the four banned breeds; it has been suggested that the act be amended to expand it remit to deal with dangerous dogs of any kind, irrespective of the breed.[17]
In the Brexit litigation about Article 50 in the Supreme Court (R (Miller) v Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union), the Dangerous Dogs Act was used as an example that even such a law cannot be cancelled by the royal prerogative.[18]
Comparable legislation elsewhere [ edit ]
Many other countries also have laws pertaining to dangerous dogs. These vary in severity. In some jurisdictions in Australia, dogs which have been declared dangerous are required to wear a collar of red and yellow stripes; under the legislation of some municipalities of Queensland, such dogs are seized and killed. In some local government areas, restrictions are very carefully spelt out.[19]
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
UK Legislation [ edit ]This post was contributed by a community member.
Someone broke the window and stole about $160 worth of goods from Gritz Liquor Store during a massive power outage in Annapolis on Thursday night, according to Annapolis police.
Officers responded to the store around 9:45 p.m. and found the glass door smashed and the alarm blaring. Police said they checked inside for the perpetrator but didn't find anyone.
When the store manager arrived on scene, he told police that two bottles of Evan Williams Egg Nog and 20 packs of Newport cigarettes were missing.
The power outage was caused when two of Baltimore Gas and Electric's (BGE) main feeder lines for the area went down, said spokeswoman Rachael Lighty. What brought down the two lines has yet to be determined.
BGE crews restored power to the downtown Annapolis area shortly before midnight.Outlaws is a first-person shooter released by LucasArts in 1997. It is one of the very few first person shooter games with a Wild West setting. It follows retired U.S. Marshal James Anderson, who seeks to bring justice to a gang of criminals who killed his wife and kidnapped his daughter. It uses an enhanced version of the Jedi game engine, first seen in Star Wars: Dark Forces. It is also largely credited as the first shooter game with a sniper zoom, as well as one of the first to feature a gun reloading mechanic. LucasArts' INSANE animation engine was used to render computer graphics animation sequences. These have special filters to look hand-drawn, and play between each mission and set up the action in the next area.
The game received generally favorable reviews from critics. While the graphics were often the topic of scrutiny and comparison to better looking titles of the time, such as Quake, reviewers were largely unanimous in praising the game's orchestral soundtrack, composed by Clint Bajakian, and solid gameplay. The voice cast includes veteran talent such as John de Lancie, Richard Moll and Jack Angel. A free expansion, entitled Handful of Missions, was released in 1998. Community-created expansion levels are also available and have received media coverage. Although not a huge financial success, the game has a cult following.
Gameplay [ edit ]
Outlaws features one of the earliest examples of a features one of the earliest examples of a sniper zoom system. Unlike many modern shooters, which switch to a full screen zoom, here only the scope itself is affected by the zoom.
Outlaws is a first-person shooter. Players control the character as he utilizes several American Old West weapons and items, such as a rifle, shotgun, dynamite and revolver. The player can activate the lantern inventory item to lighten dark areas, and use a shovel in specific areas to dig holes. In the lower difficulty levels, termed Good and Bad, the player is able to sustain several bullet wounds with no apparent ill effects. In the hardest difficulty level, Ugly, the player's resistance is reduced to one or two shots. This forces the player into a different style of play. Where on the easier difficulty levels a player might charge into a gunfight heedless of Anderson's personal health, in Ugly mode, the player must use stealth and cover to win.[1]
Aside from the main single player campaign, Outlaws includes a set of five discrete missions that chronicle Anderson's rise to the rank of U.S. Marshal. Each of the missions requires Anderson to either capture or kill a specific outlaw. Ranks (Deputy, Sheriff, and Marshal) are awarded on the accumulation of a set number of points. Points are awarded for recovering stolen gold, capturing/killing the outlaw, and for killing enemies. Each outlaw that the player captures or kills appears in a jail cell in Anderson's field office. More points are awarded for capturing an outlaw than for killing one, due to the difficulty in capturing one alive. Completion of the Historical Missions is not a requirement for playing the single player campaign.[1]
Outlaws also features a multiplayer deathmatch in for variants, including a Kill the Fool with the Chicken mode. Multiplayer can be played over local area network, and it was one of the featured games on the MSN Gaming Zone before its demise. The player can assume the role of one of six characters from the main game: Matt "Dr. Death" Jackson, "Bloody" Mary Nash, James Anderson, Chief Two-Feathers, "Gentleman" Bob Graham, and "Spittin'" Jack Sanchez. Each character has its own advantages and disadvantages in terms of speed/maneuverability, weapons selection, and resistance.[1][2]
Plot [ edit ]
James Anderson, a retired U.S. Marshal, comes home after a trip to the general store to find his wife Anna dying and that his daughter Sarah has been kidnapped by two outlaws known as Matt "Dr. Death" Jackson and "Slim" Sam Fulton, under the employ of the railroad baron Bob Graham. Graham has hired several wanted outlaws to "enlighten" the people of the county to sell their land to him, so that he can make money on a huge railway. However, the psychotic Dr. Death misinterprets Graham's meaning of enlightenment, attacks Anna and leaves her for dead, kidnaps Anderson's daughter, and burns his home to the ground. After burying his wife, the retired Marshal picks up his gun once again and rides off to find his daughter. He travels around the old West, shooting his way through each member of Graham's hired outlaws.
On his journey Anderson is haunted by dreams of his father's murder as a child. He recalls that while the two were camping out in the wild, an unknown assailant shot his father in his sleep, but left young James alive, telling him "to keep that fear [of death], kid". After questioning more and more outlaws, Anderson is confronted by Dr. Death in an old mine. Anderson eventually gets the drop on him; he gets tangled up in a rope above a deep mine shaft. Dr. Death tells him that his daughter is hidden in an old Indian cliff village. After finding out that Anderson is not going to let him out of the pit, he teases Anderson about the murder of his wife. Anderson is enraged and puts his cigar in the pulley from which the rope is hanging, eventually burning up the rope and sending Dr. Death plummeting to his demise at the bottom of the shaft.
At the Indian village, Anderson is ambushed by renegade Indian Two Feathers. After defeating him, Two Feathers praises Anderson's strength in battle, and out of sympathy because he once had a child he had lost, tells him the real location of Sarah: Bob Graham's estate, Big Rock ranch. Anderson blasts his way into Graham's villa, and finally confronts him. After a fierce gunfight, Graham is believed dead and falls to the ground, and Anderson reunites with his daughter. Graham, clinging to life and gun trained on Anderson, reveals that was the one who murdered Anderson's father. Just as Graham is about to finish off Anderson, Sarah manages to shoot Graham with Anderson's gun avenging her grandfather's death. After a tearful reunion, father and daughter ride into the sunset.
Development [ edit ]
Outlaws is powered by an upgraded version of the Jedi engine, which was previously used on Star Wars: Dark Forces.[3] LucasArts' INSANE animation engine is used to display the game's cutscenes. The game was also originally planned to have 12 unique multiplayer characters, each with their own in-game attributes. The final release halved that number to six characters. The game was inspired by western films such as The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and A Fistful of Dollars, as well as other Clint Eastwood westerns.[2] It was released for Microsoft Windows on March 31, 1997.[4] It is the first video game to feature a sniper zoom, and one of the earliest examples of a reloading mechanic.[5][6] Despite the serious tone of the game, Outlaws maintained a few easter egg jokes, including Max of the Sam & Max series, hidden inside a building, a pair of grey aliens experimenting on a cow, and several references to the Indiana Jones series of games and movies.[3][6][7]
In 1997, LucasArts released a patch to update the game to version 1.1 to add Glide and Aureal A3D, and another one to add Direct3D compatibility to the game in 2001, complementing the existing software rendering support. Shortly after the initial release, a small official expansion pack called Handful of Missions was released for free. It added four single player missions as well as multiplayer maps and updated the game to version 2.0.[8] Outlaws is listed as one of noted game designer John Romero's all-time favorite games.[9][10] On March 19, 2015, Disney Interactive re-released the game for Digital distribution on GOG.com.[11] In contrast, the community created XL Engine allows players to use their original CD to play through the game in a modern setting.[12]
In 1998, LucasArts released a set of four single player missions, called Handful of Missions, for download from the official website. The package includes several new multiplayer missions, and a patch to update the game to version 2.0. The single player missions take place outside of the original game's story, and each level is unrelated to the next.[13] Third party levels have been created by the game's community. On April 5, 2013 GameSpot and several other media outlets organized a playthrough of several LucasArts games to honor the then recently closed developer. GameSpot staff noted that the "community for [Outlaws] has created like 75 user generated maps."[6] In reality more than 1,500 custom multiplayer maps have been created since Outlaws was released, and maps continued to be released until late 2012.[14]
Music for the game was scored by composer Clint Bajakian. An orchestra was used with authentic instruments which was uncommon at that time. In total, Mixed Mode CD contains fifteen different audio tracks which were suitable for playback on a regular CD player. It is noteworthy that the crystal case of the game's original release had a tracklist printed on its back side as it is the case with most normal audio CDs. Computer Gaming Magazine awarded the score with a Special Achievement award in 1997.[15] In 2008 IGN selected the soundtrack from Outlaws to its "10 Great Videogame Albums" list.[16] Several veteran actors lend their voices to the game. John de Lancie portrays Matt Jackson, Richard Moll of Night Court plays Bob Graham. Veteran voice actor Jack Angel portrays two characters, George Bowers and Jack Sanchez. Jeff Osterhage, himself a veteran of western television films, voices the game's protagonist, U.S. Marshal James Anderson.[17]
Reception [ edit ]
Outlaws received mostly positive reviews from critics. It has been featured in multiple Best Of lists since its release. Complex.com writer Gus Turner included it in his list of The 25 Best LucasArts Games. Of its legacy Turner said it was not a "major financial success, the title has only been able to attract a cult following since its release."[24] Brittany Vincent of ShackNews placed it on her list of Five LucasArts Classics Ripe for Remakes, and noted that it "deserves another chance to woo gamers."[14]
GameSpot reviewer Chris Hudak commended the game's story and cinematic cutscenes, calling it a "movie-worthy experience" and citing the cinematic and musical influences of Sergio Leone's spaghetti westerns and Ennio Morricone's scores, respectively; he overall praised the game and called it "the most complete and faithful Old West shooter in the industry to date".[21] In a retrospective review of the game, Kotaku editor Luke Plunkett praised the game's soundtrack and called the multiplayer "excellent."[25] Plunkett cited the release of the visually superior Quake a year earlier and Half-Life not long after as factors that led to the game fading into obscurity for most players.[25] The Escapist's Stew Shearer gave high marks for the game's villains; he called them "fun to hate."[26] He stated that Outlaws "isn't just Doom with cowboys; you can tell that the developers put some real hard work into making the player feel like they're the hero in a Sergio Leone flick."[26] The reviewer for Computer Games Magazine noted that while the game did not look as visually appealing as its competitors, other developers should "show as much thought in level and multiplayer design."[22]
Some reviewers were more critical of the game. The reviewer for Computer Gaming World said that "There's nothing really wrong with Outlaws. There just isn't much right with it."[19] The reviewer noted that the game had excellent music and art, but felt that the game had nothing new or innovative to offer players.[19] Edge magazine's reviewer stated that "not for the first time, shown that it's not infallible."[20] Charlie Brooker of PC Zone (UK) had to take time to warm up to the game. "when you start playing Outlaws, it feels downright cruddy."[23] Brooker stated that after a lengthy amount of play his opinion changed, and ultimately he gave the game a favorable review.[23]
Outlaws was a finalist for the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences' 1997 "Outstanding Achievement in Sound and Music" award,[27] which ultimately went to PaRappa the Rapper.[28]The Dutch conservative coalition government has signaled since January that it intended to prohibit khat, the mild stimulant plant from the Horn of Africa, and now, indications are that the ban will happen soon. But the move is drawing heat from critics who charge it is based more on political considerations than hard science.
Y |
on said, “We’re still working toward a deal to provide two 747-8's to the Air Force—this deal is focused on providing a great value for the Air Force and the best price for the taxpayer.”
Key to the value proposition here is that the Air Force would still have to outfit the new 747-8's with all of the unusual and expensive riggings that Air Force One requires. These include private conference rooms in the cabin, private quarters for the president, an operating room for medical emergencies, a mid-air refueling probe, flares hidden in the wings to deter missile attacks, and a fuselage that can survive a nuclear blast on the ground. Based on a Pentagon budget request, the Air Force has the budget to spend nearly $3.2 billion on these modifications. It’s so far unclear how much the Air Force would pay Boeing for the two planes recovered from Transaero, and it’s possible we might never know the price of the deal.
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But still, Donald Trump must be pleased. The man behind The Art of the Deal barked loudly after his election last November that the new Air Force One was just too expensive. Never mind the fact that Trump might never get to fly in one of the two new Air Force One aircraft, which are expected to enter service some time between 2018 and 2022. If the deal does go through, however, we can expect the president to take credit. The irony of the fact that the comes from a backdoor Russian source while the Trump’s administration is under investigation for colluding with Russia will be lost on no one.
[Defense One]The new measures will mean that in future anyone buying a new computer or signing up with a new internet service provider (ISP) will be asked, when they log on for the first time, whether they have children.
If the answer is "yes", the parent will be taken through the process of installing anti-pornography filters, as well as a series of questions on how stringent they wish the restrictions to be, according to a newspaper.
The options include allowing parents to impose timed access limits on explicit material, or preventing children from viewing social networking sites such as Facebook during particular hours of the day.
Ministers will also tell ISPs to impose "appropriate measures" to make sure that those setting the controls are over 18, according to the Daily Mail.
They will also be told to prompt existing customers to install the technology to block pornography.
The measures, which are expected to be unveiled by the Government later this month, go further than recommendations drawn up by Reg Bailey, head of the Mother's Union, who was asked by ministers to look into the matter.
Ministers are expected to tell ISPs that they must bring in the new rules or face legislation
A Downing Street source told the Mail: "We know lots of parents are concerned about the material their children are accessing on the internet and we want to do more to help. We've consulted on a variety of options on how we can make it safer for children online.
"Internet service providers have made great progress to date in implementing 'active choice' controls, as recommended by Reg Bailey, where all users are asked if they want to switch on parental controls.
"After intervention from the Prime Minister, the Government is urging providers to go one step further and make sure their systems actively encourage parents, whether they are new or existing customers, to switch on parental controls."Watch on YouTube | Subscribe to Polygon on YouTube
Take a look at this early section from Torment: Tides of Numenera from InXile. It's an adventure game with an emphasis on story, character and dialog, but with an RPG core that includes all the elements of that genre such as character progression and combat.
But it's unusual in the amount of text it's happy to serve the player. It relies heavily on multiple choice options, which generally calls for a considered approach and a proper reading of any given situation.
This video is based on the very early part of a 10-hour build that was sent out to the game's Kickstarter backers, and which will also be made available via Steam Early Access next week. The final game, due for release later this year, will be around 50 hours long.Just in time for the season of giving thanks, Brian McKnight drops a track with one simple sentiment, "You make everything in my life much sweeter."
The song is laden with the Grammy-award winner's smooth R&B vocals, but has a contemporary vibe to it. The singer himself calls it a "groovy love song" which makes it perfect for cozying up in the winter with loved ones.
He once wooed women by listing his "five steps" to sweeping a lady off her feet. Now he's back at it again. For this joint, however, McKnight is counting the ways in which his special someone has changed his life. Awww!
Ladies, prepare to swoon (and gentlemen, take notes) as you check out Brian McKnight's latest track, "Sweeter." Be sure to watch for his forthcoming album when it drops Feb. 26.
Listen to Brian McKnight's "Sweeter"Abstract
One of the most novel features in the functional programming language Haskell is the system of type classes used to support a combination of overloading and polymorphism. Current implementations of type class overloading are based on the use of dictionary values, passed as extra parameters to overloaded functions. Unfortunately, this can have a significant effect on run-time performance, for example, by reducing the effectiveness of important program analyses and optimizations. This paper describes how a simple partial evaluator can be used to avoid the need for dictionary values at run-time by generating specialized versions of overloaded functions. This eliminates the run-time costs of overloading. Furthermore, and somewhat surprisingly given the presence of multiple versions of some functions, for all of the examples that we have tried so far, specialization actually leads to a reduction in the size of compiled programs. 1 Introduction The functional programming language Haskell [9...The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), among others, is now watching all the hoopla they created with published attacks on the MRM quickly fade into a silent void; a place where stories suffocate from a lack of traction.
It’s not much for all their effort, but I do think it could serve to be constructive for feminists. With the utter incompetence they displayed in their ideological attack on AVfM and the men’s movement in general, it became clear that these people don’t know what they are doing. The total incompetence is so pronounced that it approaches bizarre, especially considering their apparent intentions. They started a game of ideological football and fumbled every time they got their hands on the ball.
But I am not here to add more ridicule to what they have already piled on themselves. I am here to help. That decision was made shortly after I had a conversation with John the Other in which we both expressed frustrations with the shoddy planning and execution of the feminist attack on men’s human rights that was spearheaded by the SPLC. We wanted better. Actually, we need better.
We benefit by having our ideas scrutinized and challenged by serious, intellectually honest parties, particularly feminists (I know, but we hope eternal). Presenting those arguments to the public is a big plus for our side. And since the time is coming that most everyone, not just MRA’s, are going to demand credibility and competence from feminists, they seriously need to start making sense. They have a long way to go.
In fact, it came up in my conversation with John that we could make their case, the one for universal female victimhood, far, far better than they can, and we don’t even believe a word of the shit.
So, if we are ever going to get them up to speed on this newfangled idea of making sense (which is oodles and boodles of help when making an attack), we are going to have to help them get there.
I thought I might offer some of that help in the form of a handy reference guide, so that is what I decided to call it.
The Handy Reference Guide for Feminists, on White Horses or Not: How to Beat Those Meanie MRA’s in the Court of Public Opinion and Other Places Where People Talk About Things
I know, it is a really long title. Actually it is so long I could not fit it at the top of this article, so I had to call it something else. This is a hard job.
Anyway, a guide you were promised, a guide you get. As an example I am in part using the SPLC ‘s recent public self-sodomizing which they failed to disguise as an attack on the MRM. These suggestions can be saved and referenced by all feminists, horsey or not, should they want to launch an attack in the future that doesn’t end up dripping from their faces.
1) Recognize that the truth is about to get in your way a lot more.
I know you guys are not keen on some aspects of reality, but this is one to which you should pay attention. For some time now all you have had to contend with is a small band of bloggers buzzing around your ears. You could just make occasional jokes about us and that was all you needed to do. You regaled us with witticisms about our sexual frustrations and general status as losers. Nobody cared, you had the floor all to yourselves.
Notice anything different, lately?
The weather has changed. VAWA is being openly challenged. Bullshit is being called on misandry in most free forums. The message that men have an untold side to this story is being delivered and, most importantly, listened to. Fewer people are bowing down to your demagoguery, and your attempts to shut them up are only resulting in more people calling your bullshit.
You are approaching the time when fraudulent statistics and base emotional pleas are not going to cut it with a public that wants to know why you need so much money and what you are doing with it. If you want to hang on to that money, you better start figuring out a way to justify yourself rationally. That will require you to do what you haven’t done so far: Work.
2) Study the MRM.
It’s like when you were in college, but this time you have to read. Learn enough to know you don’t make an asshat statement like “The Innocence Project” is part of the men’s movement, or that many MRA’s want a return to “traditional values.” If you appear ignorant – and prove it’s more than appearance – before you even get to your first criticisms of the MRM, then don’t be surprised when people laugh in your face, or when the response from the people you are attacking is to publicly salt your self-inflicted cuts.
3) Pick better targets.
Your target selection sucks. Register-her is a loser for you. A few of you tried to play the “what-if-the-girls-are-afraid” card for a bunch of convicted felons and bigots. I mean, even today, how fucking dumb Is that?
Seriously, your better target would have been our stand (keeping in mind we are not monolithic) on jury nullification. Many of us support the use of jury nullification wherever the access to equal protection of the law and due process has been denied. We specify rape trials and have called for acquittals.
There is your target! Instead of spinning register-her, where your preferred demographic happen to have criminal records, you should have gone for the “totally unassailable” victims associated with rape trials. Doooods, seriously, how could you not see this? Rape’s your ticket. Men go ape-shit over rape and do all kinds of crazy things to kill or destroy the rapist or even men who might be rapists. It kind of blows your “men as oppressors” model, but the times will demand that of you.
Now, you’ll still have to deal with the fact that some people will actually read our writings on nullification and see your objections are another spin job. But that is more complicated and nuanced than the register-her thing. Fewer people will take the time to ferret out the truth, and you will have a better illusion of credibility and competence. Just keep reminding yourself that the truth doesn’t get to everyone.
Don’t forget, you will still have the support of socially conservative traditionalists. You must know that without their muscle you are fucked anyway – and that they are showing signs they might not be such quick bodyguards in the future. Better line up some big tits to shake at them when you want their attention.
They are still much more prone to go ballistic on your behalf over perhaps legitimate rape victims than those proven to have lied about being raped. Again, really, it’s kinda silly that I have to tell you this, isn’t it?
That just leaves one problem. The chivalrous demand for us all to get hysterical over rape is fading away. You have created a generation of young men that just don’t give a shit. Their growing apathy is the biggest problem you now face, and it won’t change till you start treating them better. But that can’t be addressed in this manual.
4) Quit trying to tie the MRM to psychotic mass murderers.
I know this is hard for you to see, but painting groups of men that want to spend more time with their children, or not be jailed for being poor, or want to be afforded due process or enjoy equal treatment under the law, don’t ultimately make very good targets for that kind of insinuation, especially since you don’t have a shred of evidence.
The fact that a couple of crazed killers said they didn’t like feminists only proves that being crazy doesn’t necessarily make you stupid.
You should get some sort of affirmation for realizing that the “can’t get laid” retort has played out for you, and bonus points that you knew you needed a different caricature to paint of MRA’s, but making us out to be Ted Bundy’s made you look histrionic and foolish in front of the world.
5) Calling us anti-feminist is not a shocking revelation.
There are lots of anti-feminists in the world. Many of them are not MRA’s. We are successfully showing the world that being anti-feminist is not being anti-woman. So when I see some mainstream hack make a statement like ‘They say they are for men’s rights but really they are anti-feminist,’ I cringe for you.
You would do well to realize that most women don’t identify as feminist, and your assumption that everyone will always get offended at the idea of anti-feminism is only a product of your insulated and detached thinking. Yo, wakey, wakey. You’re looking desperate.
I hope the feminists out there find this guide informative and useful. There is no need to thank me. Teaching you how to make a cogent, credible point, or at least the appearance of one, helps you, and it also helps the MRM. It’s a win-win for us both!
We have long been criticized here for not being willing to work with feminists. It is one of the few criticisms that has real merit. I feel bad about it personally and I really want to fix the problem, to make the MRM better and to make myself better as a person. So this is the first of more efforts in the future to build a bridge with you and help you with your mission.Signup to receive a daily roundup of the top LGBT+ news stories from around the world
An anti-gay group behind a billboard which claims God is angry about same-sex marriage, has vowed to erect another 999 of the same message across the US.
Last week, God’s Original Design Ministry, which is opposed to equal marriage, put up a billboard in Durant, Oklahoma.
It reads: “Marriage is between one man and one woman. Please, I need your help with this. – God”.
The group also wrote on Facebook, that it has plans to erect another 999 of the billboard in other areas of the US, so long as people are willing to fund the campaign.
It reads: “This billboard is funded 100% by the your generous donations. One down and 999 to go for 1,000 points of light. Thank you and God bless!”
Many have criticised the campaign, saying that the ministry could use the money to help people.
It would also seem that God has recently had a spectacular change of heart – as he has also been busy appearing in a pro-gay billboard campaign.
Creators of a popular spoof ‘God’ Facebook page raised $86,980 (£53,897) in donations last month, to advertise its message of love and inclusiveness.
The first of the billboards went up just down the road from headquarters of hate group Westboro Baptist Church.
The pro-gay billboard was well received by many of the Topeka locals, with the notable exception of the church.When people discover I work in a shop whose primary languages are both Erlang and Ruby, something inevitable happens: I get asked about Elixir. People assume that my love of both Ruby and Erlang automatically equates to love of Elixir, and they are surprised to learn this isn’t the case. Elixir is a wonderful language with a very passionate community. I have nothing against Elixir. I simply haven’t found a significant reason to move to Elixir from Erlang.
Anything that grows the Erlang community is good for Erlang. Elixir has attracted many new developers and swelled attendance at Erlang conferences. Elixir is making the Erlang community a more vibrant and active place. This is undeniably good and makes me a fan of Elixir. But this isn’t a reason for me to move from Erlang to Elixir. Despite its relative immaturity, Elixir provides a very powerful and compelling feature set. What it doesn’t do, however, is provide a feature set that isn’t fully shared by Erlang.
One common misconception of Erlang is that the language itself comprises the sum of its features. For many languages there is no distinction between the language, its runtime, and its standard library. In this area Erlang is critically different from other languages. The Erlang language itself is intentionally terse and minimal. The real power comes from the combination of the language, compiled Beam bytecode, the virtual machine, and the OTP library.
When people talk about Erlang they generally discuss its excellence in building scalable, highly available, redundant, fault-tolerant systems. As well they should. This is exactly the problem Erlang was designed to solve. What is often misunderstood is that virtually all these capabilities have nothing to do with the Erlang language itself. Most of these capabilities are provided by the Erlang VM, the compiled Beam bytecode, and the OTP library. Although these systems were all designed together and all evolved together, they are separate things. A fact which Elixir smartly takes advantage of. The beauty of Elixir is that it fully embraces the entire Erlang ecosystem. Elixir compiles to Beam bytecode, runs in the Erlang VM, and is fully compatible with the OTP library. This begs the question: What does Elixir offer to a programmer already proficient in Erlang?
The syntax and semantics of Elixir are very modern and heavily influenced by Ruby, making the language very accessible to a wide range of programmers. This is by design and has been a critical factor in the growth of and excitement around Elixir. Erlang, on the other hand, is a pure functional language with origins in Prolog. Compared to many mainstream languages it is very esoteric and the learning curve is steep. For many Elixir is more approachable and easier to learn. This is the true strength of Elixir. To the seasoned Erlanger, however, it isn’t nearly as compelling. The mountain has already been climbed.
So as I said earlier, my coworkers and I are very excited that Elixir is growing the Erlang community. We have great respect for Elixir’s creators and contributors. They have done great work which should be lauded. But we like Erlang. We are productive with Erlang and it makes us happy. I definitely understand why programmers new to Erlang choose to start with Elixir. But for me, we’re happy to stay where we are–leveraging the maturity and stability of Erlang to build cool applications.Singer's salacious video for Do What U Want was delayed because of resurfacing allegations against co-stars R Kelly and Terry Richardson, according to reports
Lady Gaga's music video for Do What U Want was allegedly scrapped due to accusations of sexual misconduct against two of its stars. According to a source speaking to the New York Post, the involvement of R Kelly and Terry Richardson was too much for a video that already "[seemed] literally [like] an ad for rape".
On Thursday, TMZ posted 33 seconds of the video, which was shot in November and subsequently shelved. The footage shows Gaga in the role of hospital patient, interacting with Kelly's doctor character. "Will I ever be able to walk again?" Gaga asks the other singer. "Yes, if you let me do whatever I want with your body," Kelly replies. "I'm putting you under, and when you wake up, you're going to be pregnant."
Kelly is also seen reaching under Gaga's bedsheet, where she appears to be nude. "How does that feel?" he says. "Seems like that medicine is starting to kick in." She responds with a moan. Nurses appear later, dancing with and on an anaesthetised Gaga. TMZ's video finishes with the pop-star nude and writhing under sheets of newspapers before Richardson, who is snapping photos.
In January, Gaga wrote on her official website that Do What U Want's video had been "delayed" because she didn't have enough time to work on it. "Unfortunately, I was given a week to plan and execute it... All my most successful videos were planned over a period of time when I was rested and my creativity was honoured."
But New York Post's Page Six reports that there were some other factors: resurfacing allegations of sexual assault, brought against Kelly by journalist Jim DeRogatis, as well as several models' subsequent abuse claims against Richardson. Kelly was found not guilty in an earlier case related to sex abuse, and Richardson has denied all of these latest accusations. A representative for Lady Gaga had no comment on the allegations.
As the Post's unnamed source put it: "Gaga had a video directed by an alleged sexual predator, starring another [alleged] sexual predator. With the theme, 'I'm going to do whatever I want with your body'?" In April, the Post reported that Kelly had been sued in 2010 for allegedly sexually harassing his maid. It stated that he settled the case out of court.
Do What U Want, which is a duet with Kelly, reached No 9 on the UK singles chart. It was the second single to be released from the singer's commercially disappointing third album, Artpop.
• Listen to Do What U Want hereIn adolescence, being socially successful depends to a large extent on being popular with peers. Even though some youths have what it takes to be popular, they are not, whereas others seem to have a secret ingredient that just makes the difference. In this study the G-allele of a functional polymorphism in the promotor region of the 5HT2A serotonin receptor gene (-G1438A) was identified as a secret ingredient for popularity among peers. These findings build on and extend previous work by Burt (2008, 2009). Tackling limitations from previous research, the role of the 5HT2A serotonin receptor gene was examined in adolescent males (N = 285; average age 13) using a unique sample of the TRAILS study. Carrying the G-allele enhanced the relation between aggression and popularity, particularly for those boys who have many female friends. This seems to be an "enhancer" effect of the G-allele whereby popularity relevant characteristics are made more noticeable. There is no "popularity gene", as the G-allele by itself had no effect on popularity.I’m on all fours, scuttling across the carpet. It’s a shade of sickly mauve that makes me think of an office corridor. Strapped to my face is a black mask that makes me think of war. “Right arm forward. Left leg forward. Then right arm. Keep pushing! Now reverse!” I have forced my mind into neutral, but I have just enough awareness to detect a quiver of amusement in the voice of my trainer, Dean.
My gym clothes are coated in a sleek membrane of sweat. With the mask on, my breathing sounds thick and mechanical. The effect is something pitched between Darth Vader and one of the Venezuelan killer spiders in the Arachnophobia movie. The stuff of budget horror films — or 1980s children’s TV. The three other people in the gym — all male — are lifting weights, determinedly acting as if nothing is amiss; every so often, clandestine glances in my direction betray their bewilderment.
The Conrad London St. James hotel has just launched the new extreme altitude mask fitness class that I am currently wheezing my way through. Train Dirty London, a personal training company, started running the sessions at the luxury establishment in September, making Conrad London St. James the only hotel in Europe to offer such a regime. A flurry of eager women have signed up. “Some have already committed to follow-up sessions,” says Dean. I nod with polite incredulity between ineffective gasps of breath.
In the mask, the sensation of breathing is something close to trying to fill a bucket of water when it has a walnut-sized hole in the bottom.
Exercise involving altitude masks (also known as hypoxic training) has traditionally been the preserve of professional athletes. The England football team, India’s cricket squad, and Samoa’s national rugby side have captured headlines for using them. Unexpectedly, Conrad London St. James’s offering is aimed at women looking to burn calories rather than men seeking to bolster their tough-guy image. “Females who do yoga, with its emphasis on controlled breathing, are particularly excelling in the workouts,” says Dean, as I swivel and strain my way through a series of Russian twists — a particularly joy-sapping exercise that involves sitting on the floor, lifting the feet, leaning the torso back, and then turning the body to the right and left.
• The best hotels in Central London
However, Train Dirty London’s new fitness regime is also called Skinny Rebel. At best, this evokes images of a dodgy slimline cocktail; at worst, a pro-anorexia blog. Maladroit marketing aside, Skinny Rebel promises results; one session can burn up to 1,000 calories in 45 minutes.
The next 10 minutes are a smothering haze of mountain climbers, squat jumps and kettlebell swings. In the mask, the sensation of breathing is something close to trying to fill a bucket of water when it has a walnut-sized hole in the bottom.
Conrad London St. James, a luxury property in Westminster, is the only hotel in Europe to offer the workout.
When it comes to the burpees, I cave. I rip the mask off and do the next few exercises without it. Things feel a bit more manageable now — but all the while I can see the discarded mask dangling from one of the bench presses on the edge of my peripheral vision. Taunting me to reclaim it. In some devious twist, the source of the last 30 minutes of physical turmoil is now seducing me from the corner of my eye — like a packet of Percy Pig sweets at the supermarket checkout. I put the mask back on.
I’m a runner, so the final task — interval training on the treadmill — delivers a genuine, crackling rush of adrenaline. In the closing moments, I can’t resist the triumphalist temptation to mentally airbrush the last 45 minutes of my life: “well that wasn’t so bad”; “tough but fun”; “I could do it again”. And I think I will.
Skinny Rebel workouts run weekly at Conrad London St. James for both in-house guests and non-hotel guests. The workout is priced at £40 for one 45 minute session or £35 each for six sessions. For more information and to make a reservation, email: info@traindirtylondon.com.After overnight repairs and last-minute runway switch, Canada's last airworthy Avro Lancaster bomber successfully took off from Hamilton this morning to embark on its journey to the U.K.
The Second World War-era bomber took off around 10:20 a.m. ET from its home at the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum, located at Hamilton International Airport.
The departure was originally scheduled for Monday morning following a brief ceremony, but one of the engines didn't start up and the departure was pushed back.
Dave Rohrer, president and CEO of the museum, was riding in a B-25 Mitchell medium bomber with a documentary film crew behind the Lancaster when it became airborne. The film crew followed the Lancaster all the way to Oakville's waterfront and got some parting shots, Rohrer said.
Flight engineer Craig Brookhouse shares a kiss with his girlfriend Analia Moniz before boarding the Lancaster. (Sunnie Huang/CBC)
"[The takeoff] was beautiful," he told CBC News after the B-25 returned to the museum. “It was all you could hope for. The only thing is it could've been a day earlier.”
The technical issue that delayed Monday's departure was later narrowed down to the magnetos, a common ignition system in airplanes that creates electric current by rotating, Rohrer said.
"It turned out the spark was not as strong as it should be. The mags were a little weak," Rohrer explained, adding that the crew worked overnight until 1 a.m. to repair the engine.
"I'm just so proud of the crew. They did an awesome job."
The bomber landed in Goose Bay, N.L., shortly after 5 p.m. local time. It will make another stop in Iceland before flying into the Royal Air Force base at Coningsby, in eastern England, on Friday.
Once there, it will embark on a six-week tour of the United Kingdom with the only other airworthy bomber of its kind, a Lancaster belonging to Britain's Royal Air Force.
Over the 1.5-month jaunt, millions are expected to turn out to see the twin Lancasters in action.
'The Lancaster Ladies'
The Lancaster's cross-Atlantic journey has drawn much fanfare to the museum, which opened its doors early to welcome spectators. The lineup on Monday stretched all the way around the museum, and many of the fans returned on Tuesday.
The Lancaster Ladies, led by Sylvia Cook, third from right, returned on Tuesday to say farewell to the bomber. (Sunnie Huang/CBC) Among the spectators, a group of women who call themselves the “Lancaster Ladies” posed for photos with the crew.
For Sylvia Cook, 67, chasing the Lancaster has been a family tradition. Cook said her mother and the original Lancaster Ladies used to wave their scarves every time they saw a bomber flying by, even though they weren't sure if their boyfriends or husbands were on the plane.
On Tuesday, she brought her own Lancaster Ladies — which included her daughter and a dozen others — to say farewell to the Lancaster.
“Every time I come here and see the Lancaster, it reminds me of the stories my mother used to tell,” said Cook.
You can follow the Lancaster's journey with our live blog below.It will weigh as much as 11 London buses, give accurate weather forecasts a week ahead of time, and ultimately allow meteorologists to say whether freak weather events are down to nature or climate-altering human activity. When built next year at the UK Meteorological Office’s headquarters in Exeter, the 140-tonne Cray XC40 computer will be the biggest, most powerful computer devoted solely to climate science and weather forecasting.
“We believe that in the field of weather and climate research, this will be the biggest in the world,” said Rob Varley, chief executive of the Met Office, who this week announced the plans to build the £97-million giant. Unlike other supercomputers, such as the larger “Titan” machine at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, the Cray XC40 will be devoted exclusively to climate science. With a capacity of 16 petaflops (a measure of the number of calculations the computer can perform each second), it will be more than twice as powerful as its nearest climate-dedicated rival, the Hornet machine, which is being built at the University of Stuttgart in Germany.
Advances in computing mean that today, four-day weather forecasts are as accurate as one-day forecasts were 30 years ago. Varley says the new machine’s huge computing power will extend this accuracy further, to around five or six days ahead.
The computer is also intended to boost the accuracy, scale and reliability of forward-looking climate simulations and models, to better assess how climate change will impact weather systems. Pier Luigi Vidale, a climate scientist at the University of Reading, UK, says that one of the first projects to deploy the Cray will be the pan-European Primavera study, which will examine the combined effects oceans, aerosols and greenhouse gases are likely to have on climate patterns and extreme weather events over the next 50 years.NEW ORLEANS -- Some Sewerage & Water Board customers have had issues with the utility for so long, they're wondering if it's time to get a lawyer.
Lynette Smith says she has been waiting for crews from the Board to fix the leak in front of her yard near Mazant Street for a month-and-a-half. She says that leak gave her a $407 water bill.
Smith says she's been told she will not have to pay it all, but she's afraid she'll still have to pay extra.
"Well, I guess I will have to pay it and then get me a lawyer," Smith said.
The board confirmed back in September that 5,000 customers were overbilled. The S&WB has been working to fix those accounts, but now some question if you can get your money back for overpaying.
"Typically you're going through the administrative hearing process first on a kind of individual dispute," Davida Finger a professor at Loyola University's College of Law said.
She is currently working on a lawsuit on behalf of a group seeking the Board to notify customers of potential flood issues. But getting one's money back is different. She says it's possible to file a claim but...
"The court system shouldn't be overloaded with disputes that could be taken care of if the agency could set up a system of policies and procedures that had accuracy, accountability and oversight," Finger explained.
Without a lawyer, customers have to go through the Board's hearing process.
"To me that was outrageous," Cleopatra Jenkins said.
Jenkins is another customer at a loss after getting her bill. She tells us after not receiving one for several months, she got an $800 bill. That number has since increased.
"And they sent me the bill and it's $1200," Jenkins said.
But she says she didn't spend that much, nor can she afford to pay it. To be fair, the board has not been able to research her claims.
"What is it like in St. Bernard? $60 bucks a month," Jenkins asked Eyewitness News.
Jenkins says by contrast since moving to St. Bernard Parish after last August, bills are consistent.
"The way I look at it is if I sued the City it would take me years to get my money," Jenkins said.Exercise can make over muscles — even at the DNA level.
Following an intense workout, certain chemical alterations to DNA appear in a person’s muscle cells, researchers report in the March 7 Cell Metabolism. These alterations turn on genes that regulate a cell’s energy.
This work helps clarify the mechanism by which exercise benefits cells. And it raises questions about whether the benefits of an active lifestyle are passed from parent to child, says study coauthor Romain Barrès of the University of Copenhagen. “Do we carry some consequence of whether our parents were active or not?” Barrès asks.
Genes can be turned on or off by a process known as methylation, in which a methyl group — consisting of one carbon atom and three hydrogen atoms — is added to DNA. This chemical tag can turn genes on or off, modifying the production of blueprints for making proteins.
Previously, scientEye am for real: One-eyed albino shark-clops 'is not a fake', say experts
It looks like a creature from the ancient myths.
So when a shark pup with albino skin and a single eye was found by fishermen in Mexico, and photographs were beamed across the world, many dismissed the strange creature as a hoax.
But after examination by a Mexican biologist, the shark was declared real.
It was removed from the womb of its mother, an endangered dusky shark, which was caught in the Gulf of California.
This one-eyed albino fetus was cut from the belly of a pregnant bull shark caught off the coast of California this summer
Shark researchers say the creature is genuine, although it is unlikely to have survived after birth
Mexican biologist Felipe Galvan-Magana diagnosed the fish with cyclopia, a rare defect that causes the development of only one eye.
It has also drawn comparisons with a famous celluloid monster — green, grinning Mike from Monsters, Inc.
The one-eyed shark has achieved cult status since Pisces Fleet Sportfishing published pictures of it in July, giving rise to rumours of Photoshopping or other hoaxes.
Shark expert Felipe Galvan Magana, of Mexico’s Centro Interdisciplinario de Ciencias del Mar, said: ‘This is extremely rare. As far as I know, less than 50 examples of an abnormality like this have been recorded.’
The shark’s condition is known as cyclopia, and is a rare congenital disorder characterised by the failure of the front portion of the brain to properly divide the orbits of the eye into two cavities.
Cyclopia occurs within the spectrum of brain and face defects known as holoprosencephaly, which in severe cases can result in miscarriage or stillbirth.
In 2005 a kitten born with only one eye and no nose caused a similar online stir.
The feline, one of two in a litter, became known as Cy (short for Cyclops) and died within a day.
In 2005 a kitten - nicknamed Cy - was born with the same rare congenital disorderWilliam Hague, the Foreign Secretary, has told MPs that he is considering the case for international action to divert oil revenues into an escrow account that would be administered by the UN on behalf of the Libyan people.
The plan, similar to the oil-for-food system imposed on Saddam Hussein's Iraq after the first Gulf War, would require the UN Security Council to invoke its powers under Chapter VII of the UN charter.
Mr Hague said he was looking at the plan as part of efforts to "reduce the financial flows to the Gaddafi regime" amid fears that state oil revenues are helping to fund violence against opposition groups and civilian protesters.
The personal finances of the dictator and his household are subject to international sanctions and asset-freezes, but the regime continues to have access to hundreds of millions of dollars' of state oil revenues.
Although some oil production facilities |
to ask him,” Muscato said. “He’s not under any obligation to tell you what his mansion cost or what his private jet cost and it’s all tax exempt, but he doesn’t have to disclose any of that.”
“Our case is saying that this is a textbook example of the government showing preference to religion over non-religion, which is prohibited under the Constitution because it’s unequal treatment,” he said.
Bertelsman argued in his ruling that American Atheists, Inc. had not applied for the exemptions available to religious organizations and therefore are not being unfairly excluded.
“The Atheists allege that the IRS’s differing treatment of churches and other tax-exempt entities violates the Equal Protection laws of the Fifth Amendment, the First Amendment and the Religious Test Clause of Article VI, §3 of the Constitution. Doc. 1, Complaint, ¶11,” the judge wrote.
He continued, “(T)he Atheists admit that they have never sought recognition as a religious organization or church under §501(c)(3). See Doc. 22, Pl. Response in Opp. to Mot. to Dismiss, pp. 2 n. 1, 4. Rather, the Atheists assert that it would violate their sincerely held believe [sic] to seek classification as a religious organization or church from the IRS.”
Of course, American Atheists, Inc. hasn’t sought recognition as a religious group, Muscato said.
“We can’t in good conscience call ourselves a religious organization on our application because we’re emphatically not religious,” he said. “The point is that we shouldn’t have to say that we’re religious or we’re not to get the same treatment from the IRS.”
The judge threw the suit out, said Muscato, “on a fundamental misunderstanding of what we’re looking for, which is equal treatment.”Cardiff City Football Club is pleased to announce the signing of Greg Halford from Rotherham United for an undisclosed fee, subject to international clearance.
The versatile defender and midfielder has linked up with the Bluebirds, after signing a contract committing him to the Club until the summer of 2018.
Halford, who is comfortable operating in a number of positions, began his career with Colchester United, where he made over 150 appearances.
The thirty-two year old boasts Premier League experience with Sunderland and Wolves, and has also notably represented the likes of Sheffield United, Portsmouth, Nottingham Forest and Brighton & Hove Albion in the Championship.
After moving to the AESSEAL New York Stadium in July 2015, Halford made thirty-eight appearances for Rotherham United, where he played under Neil Warnock last season.
He becomes Cardiff City’s first signing of the January transfer window. #HalfordIsABluebird
HEAR FROM GREG EXCLUSIVELY WITH CARDIFF CITY PLAYER HD LATER TODAY!As part of next year’s celebrations honoring the 50th anniversary of the original series of Star Trek, the United States Postal Service will be offering up four Trek themed postage stamps.
The USPS is known for honoring important moments and people in history on their stamps. It’s quite an honor to have one’s image emblazoned upon the official USPS stickies. In 2016, the USPS honors Star Trek in it’s 50th year with a set of four pretty cool looking stamps for you to decorate the corners of your envelopes.
From the press release:
Designed by The Heads of State, who also designed the issuance/panel, each stamp showcases one of four digital illustrations inspired by elements of the iconic Star Trek: The Original Series. Antonio Alcala served as the project’s art director.
This is not the first time Star Trek has been honored by the USPS. The first Star Trek postage stamp, worth 33 cents, was released in September, 1999 in celebration of the USPS’s “Celebrate the Century” initiative.It was a tale of two debate strategies Monday night in South Carolina.
A lively Elizabeth Colbert Busch struck early and often against Mark Sanford's record in Congress and as governor while Sanford hit back with consistent attempts to tie his opponent to Democratic congressional leaders in the only debate in South Carolina's special election campaign.
About 25 minutes in, Colbert Busch raised Sanford's widely publicized 2009 disappearance as governor in a discussion about fiscal matters.
"When we talk about fiscal spending, and we talk about protecting the taxpayers, it doesn't mean you take that money we saved and leave the country for a personal purpose," Colbert Busch said, implicitly referring to his trip to Argentina to visit his then-mistress and now fiancee.
"I couldn't hear what she said," Sanford replied.
"Answer the question," Colbert Busch responded sternly, prompting Sanford to return to a discussion about sequestration.
Law enforcement officials concluded that Sanford did not improperly use state money to pay for trips to New York and South America to see his Argentinian mistress.
In another heated exchange, Sanford slammed Colbert Busch for once donating to his gubernatorial campaign. "I would just humbly suggest on that one, that if it was not simply a political statement at this moment, I don't think you would have written me a $500 check after I left the United States Congress as I began to run for governor," he said, responding to Colbert's Busch criticism of his congressional record. Sanford represented the 1st district for six years before running for governor in 2002.In an interview with The Huffington Post that aired in full on Monday evening on HuffPost Live, Warren, a Democrat from Massachusetts, was asked about the promise in her book that she was "fiercely determined to do everything I can to help us once again be the America that creates opportunities for anyone who works hard and plays by the rules." She was also questioned about her warning that "we're running out of time."
"I do believe in us," said Warren. "And I believe in us on days like this, on a morning where a whole lot of people come together to talk about ideas, to talk about two books. Because what we're talking about in here is we're talking about economics, we're talking about power, but we're also talking about values. This is a moment in time for our country and, I believe, for our world, a moment in time where we decide who we are as a people and what kind of a future we're going to build. As your [Thomas Piketty's] book shows, it's tough, it is an uphill climb. It will not happen naturally that the world will even back out. But what it also shows is that these are not natural forces that make it happen, it's a set of rules by which we govern ourselves, and here in America we the people get to decide what the rules are. So I get how hard this is. This is about concentrated money and power on one side, but it's about our values, our voices and our votes on our side. I believe we can fight back. I believe we can win."The video will start in 8 Cancel
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Manager Dean Smith has ruled out Derby County signing Brentford star Jota.
The Bees boss left Jota out of their 5-1 friendly win over Aldershot Town on Friday, but confirmed it was because of a reported "imminent" bid from a Premier League club.
Smith also likened Jota to John Terry leaving Chelsea and said that the Spaniard would not move to another Championship club because of his affection for Brentford.
The quotes come despite bookmakers Sky Bet pricing the Rams as favourites to land the 26-year-old.
Jota was 7/4 to sign for Gary Rowett's men for the 2017-18 season, while Burnley (7/2), West Ham (8/1) and Newcastle United (12/1) were also in there.
"Jota's agent has told him that there is a bid imminent from a Premier League team and it has to be a massive bid," Smith told GetWestLondon.
"He and his representatives know that. His affection for the football club is second to none.
"He won't go to a Championship team because, it sounds corny, but like John Terry he doesn't want to play against Brentford.
"We understand that the Premier League is where a lot of young footballers want to play now and our aim is to get there.
"He's been no problem at all. He's happy to play for Brentford, if nothing comes that is acceptable to the football club.
"If something doesn't happen very soon he'll say I'm staying at Brentford because of his affection for the club."
Following the departure of Tom Ince to Huddersfield Town, we asked Rams's fans who they would want to replace the winger.
Jota's name, along with Matt Ritchie and Jordan Ibe, was a common theme among supporters.Pt Chevalier Video Ezy closed down in December last year. Its Great North Rd building is currently vacant.
A former Video Ezy customer didn't know he had late fees until a debt collector tracked him down.
Michael Stansfield was a customer at Pt Chevalier Video Ezy which closed in December last year.
The accountant says he thought something wasn't right when he received a letter asking him to pay late fees on two DVDs he'd incurred at the store before it closed down.
SUPPLIED Michael Stansfield received a letter from debt collecting agency Ecollect which asked him to pay late fees on two DVDs.
The original late fee amount was $11 but another $7.50 was added for administration costs.
The letter also warned that a minimum of $22.50 would be added if the amount wasn't paid within 14 days.
"It didn't smell right from the onset because I didn't think it was legit or anything," Stansfield says.
Stansfield says he was also confused when he read that: "A video store is not required to notify you of an outstanding debt and is required by law to pursue debts for up to six years".
"But this is the first notification we've ever got," he says.
"If Video Ezy had written to everyone telling them they were closing and were collecting overdue fees then that would have been fine."
Read more:
*Late fees shock
*Video Ezy NZ franchisor in liquidation
The national franchisor for the Video Ezy brand, Video Ezy International (NZ), went into voluntary liquidation in April 2015.
The company's business and franchise manager Stuart Howard declined to comment, saying his position has changed since the company went into liquidation.
In 2013 Mt Eden resident Ewa Dulinska received a similar letter from a debt collection agency after Video Ezy on Dominion Rd shut.
At the time Howard said the late fees were legitimate but the debt collector shouldn't be involved.
"We have reinforced to the company that they should not be collecting for a store that has terminated," he said.
A Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment spokeswoman says the video store should in principle inform its customers before a debt collector is involved.
She says it is a breach of the Fair Trading Act if a store demands collection of fees and late payments "when there is no contractual entitlement to make such demands".ANALYSIS/OPINION:
When one of the District of Columbia’s top political leaders is willing to spend a day at the shooting range with a new gun owner, it’s a sign the capital city may be ready to put aside the past. For 30 years, Washington banned handguns, only to face a Supreme Court rebuke in 2008. Now the city is about to make it easier for law-abiding residents to legally own a firearm.
On Tuesday, the D.C. Council is expected to pass the Firearms Amendment Act of 2012 under expedited procedures so it can take effect this summer. The ordinance will do away with many of the expensive and time-consuming hurdles to registering a gun in the District that were put in place after the court’s decision.
D.C. Council Chairman Kwame R. Brown, who will vote for the bill, has made a 180 on gun rights. Last fall, when I began my series “Emily Gets Her Gun,” about the process of getting a legal handgun in the District, I asked Mr. Brown if he thought the city was adhering to the high court’s decision that the gun ban was unconstitutional.
He didn’t answer directly. “The real question is how do we reduce crime, how do we get people back to work,” Mr. Brown said. “When you do that, so you can reduce crime, so it reduces the fear of crime.” I pointed out that higher gun ownership always leads to less crime.
When asked point-blank whether he believed in the Second Amendment, he sidestepped again, saying, “I don’t support having more guns in the District of Columbia.”
But by spring, Mr. Brown had a different perspective. “I want to go shooting with you sometime,” he told me at city hall one day, to my surprise. “I’ve never shot a gun before.” There are no shooting ranges in the District, and it’s illegal for me to take my gun anywhere, even unloaded, in the city. So we decided to meet at a nearby shooting range in Lorton.
Mr. Brown arrived before me at Sharp Shooters Small Arms Range on Friday. I found him explaining to store salesman Mike Collins how the new legislation will make it much easier and faster for D.C. residents to register legal guns. Wearing a tie under a sweater and accompanied by two aides, LeJuan Strickland and Karen Sibert, the chairman looked comfortable and confident in the gun store. “Not many Democrats here,” he said to me, laughing. No one in the store contradicted him.
I took Mr. Brown aside to teach him the National Rifle Association’s three safety rules. Then I handed him my D.C.-legal Sig Sauer to demonstrate the fundamentals of stance, grip and trigger pull. After 30 minutes, Mr. Collins picked out a.22 pistol from among the range’s rental firearms, gave us eye and ear protection and set us up in lanes in the range.
Mr. Brown was not afraid of the gun. On his first try, all his rounds landed in the blue part of the silhouette target. “Great job,” I said, after bringing back the target to get a closer look.
“Not good enough. Put it back out there. Let’s do it again,” he said. This time, he shot almost all in the nines and had two good groupings. After a couple more magazines with the.22, he was ready for more of a challenge. I loaded my 9 mm and showed him its basic controls. He took the gun and placed all his shots in or around the bull’s-eye. We decided he needed a new paper target to show his improvement. “I’m gonna tear this up,” he said, clipping up another blue target, and he did.
The chairman walked to the lane where Mr. Strickland was shooting his own.40 caliber Glock. Mr. Brown wanted to compete with Mr. Strickland, who has been shooting all his life in his home state of Missouri. They put their targets as far back as possible to see who could get a head shot first. To make it a little fairer, Mr. Brown shot with the.22 and Mr. Strickland used the.40. Still, Mr. Brown won handily. He got the head on the second shot, then hit three more. “Ben’s Chili dogs on you, LeJuan,” Mr. Brown said, laughing at his bemused aide.
The councilman shot for an hour and a half. At the end, he carefully rolled up his final blue target to put up in his office. Then he sorted through the spent brass casings on the floor to find a few of each caliber he had shot as souvenirs. He clearly had had a fun time, but was the range what he expected?
“No, actually it wasn’t. I figured you just go in and fire, no technique and just do it for the sake of saying you shot a gun,” he told me. “But I was really focusing on the target. It felt more like a sport. I wanted to make it a competition. If I spent some time in here, I think I’d be good,” he said. I agreed.
“But what I really want to do is learn to shoot a shotgun so I can go hunt,” he said.
“We can shoot clays next,” I said. “Now that’s hard.”
“It’s only hard in your mind,” he said. “You just have to stay focused.”
I hope this experience at the range will help the chairman better understand that with access to facilities where they can practice, law-abiding citizens in the District can help make the city safer. In particular, the District still needs to recognize our right to bear arms with concealed carry. When that issue comes up, we’ll see if Mr. Brown will continue to be such a willing ear and a good sport.
“Emily Gets Her Gun” is a series following Senior Editor Emily Miller as she went through all the hurdles to get a legal gun in the nation’s capital.
Emily Miller is a senior editor for the Opinion pages at The Washington Times.
Copyright © 2019 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.Some of Lem's works in 9 languages
This the list of works of Stanisław Lem and its adaptations. Stanisław Lem was a Polish writer, best known for his science fiction. His works were translated into 40 languages and over 30 million copies have been sold.[1]
Fiction [ edit ]
Novels and novellas [ edit ]
Compilations [ edit ]
Nonfiction [ edit ]
Unless noted, not translated into English
Dramatic adaptations [ edit ]
Lem was well known for criticizing the films based on his work. An example is his famous characterization of Solaris by Andrei Tarkovsky as "Crime and Punishment in space".
1978 - 1981 London's Triple Action Theatre Group world tour of Solaris adapted and directed by Steven Rumbelow. It was seen by Lem in Kraków when it was presented at Theater Stu in 1980.[14]
Music adaptations [ edit ]
The Cyberiad (1970; 2nd version 1985), an opera by Krzysztof Meyer; broadcast by Polish Television (1st act, 1971), staged in Wuppertal (Germany) (1986)
(1970; 2nd version 1985), an opera by Krzysztof Meyer; broadcast by Polish Television (1st act, 1971), staged in Wuppertal (Germany) (1986) Solaris (2010-2012) (2012), an opera by Detlev Glanert, libretto by Reinhard Palm, staged in Bregenz (Germany) (2012) [19]
(2012), an opera by Detlev Glanert, libretto by Reinhard Palm, staged in Bregenz (Germany) (2012) Texts by Lem were set to music by Esa-Pekka Salonen in his 1982 piece, Floof.
See also [ edit ]just look at the pretty pictures
Introduction
How this Huckberry Saga Got Started
No VC Funding
Grow Intelligently
Pay for Growth
Earn Growth
Who is the Huckberry
Section 1: It’s All About the Dopamine
Communication Strategy
Structural Strategy
“Hey - I found something cool for reading that email - I gotta remember to open it again next time”
“Hey - this is on the Huckberry site - if they make content this awesome then they are pretty awesome.” If the reader digs the quality of the content then the people who make it should also be pretty awesome as well - again a positive feedback loop for reading the email.
everyone
Recently paid / fixated on buying something cool
Newer subscriber in the Huckberry
Beginning to trust Huckberry
Content is seen almost as the consolation prize
Invest in the introduction to contextualize the rest of the email
Analytically evaluates product as “would that jacket work for me?”
The sale header images are important for quickly contextualizing products
Emphasizes the ‘Closing Sales’ section for product breadth
HB Journal
Diversions are stumbled upon as a cool feature
Longer term subscribers
Found cool products & brands
Purchase a couple of times
See HB Journal
Discovered awesome content in Diversions
Email open is driven by desire to engage
Uses the aesthetic design to feel what’s going on
Looking for products to catch his eye
Interested in discovering cool products
Attention to ‘Closing Sales’ driven by FOMO
Knows the HB Journal
Expecting Diversions awesomeness
Section 2: Telling a Story with Dope Product
What am I seeing
Why am I seeing it
How will this work for me
What’s the site?
What am I looking at?
How do I navigate around the site?
How do I get back to where I was?
Who are these people? Can I trust them?
This is a badass, super-in-depth, critical deconstruction of what's driving the most successful startup in my world,. Read it, save it, like it, share it, or if it's too long -- you'll get the idea of why this tookto properly articulate the magic of what's going on here.If you want to pick-up the PDF version of this monster & support great content like this - pick it up onfor $20 ().In this glorified world of startups where the majority of them primarily look to otheras the way of doing business - there is this rare exception when you stumble onto a product that makes you say “Yes! This is how it’s supposed to be!!!” We all shared this feeling during both the iPhone & iPad announcements - it was simply how a smartphone & tablet were ‘supposed’ to be.In Feb ‘12, the founder of anstartup pinged me with a couple of questions from an article & with an intro to his new company. The format of the email had this tone of “we are doing something epic - you should pay attention” that immediately perked up my ears. The second that I jumped over to the site & pieced together what they were doing - I got gooseflesh (). This little, gave me that iPhone “this is how it’s supposed to be” chills. Here are some excerpts from my notes immediately after checking outfor the first time:produces a magazine-quality publication that it calls “the” with insanely dope articles like thisor the design aesthetic of Dieter Rams (). It was content that I wanted to read but would not have followed / been attention to the places where it would have been otherwise. To make a comparison, Red Bull isn’t an energy drink company, they are an marketing / adventure addicts financing themselves by selling energy drinks.wasn’t a normal retailer - they sell product to pay for the sick articles & content the founders always wanted to read.In stark contrast to the “discount product as much as possible” to generate revenue -approach was to source sick product that subscribers would fall in love with & any discounts would be added bonuses. After looking at the product selection, the Fry meme of “shut up & take my money” immediately popped into my head.Emails were crafted with brand intros, brand pages had the story about the company, product pages identified & explained features - the entire company was built around giving the customer reasons to care about the product & reasons to buy it. It was simply awesome!After spending some time pouring over the site & basically awestruck with the brilliant experience thatwas building - I replied asking when they wanted to hang out (trying to contain my tween-at-a-One-Direction-concert-like excitement). As a guy who loathes formal ‘meetings’ & has a “doing business with friends” philosophy - when they said “let’s hangout” - I knew it was going to be a fun meeting.On a brisk Friday, I rode over to North Beach and walked up three flights of stairs to theoffice where design, photostudio, customer service, marketing, warehouse, and 4 desks all were nicely packed into about 500 sq. ft. This was awesome because it was decidedly different from the $1m+ seed round- it was clear that there was a unique story behind this company. To give you idea of the character of the founders, when UPS would deliver about 50 cartons from a brand - they would be carried up one by one up three flights of stairs, unpacked, then pick-n-packed for each order, and then the guys would walk them down with the UPS guy for fulfillment the next day. This is the type of down & dirty startup-gumption that’s really fun.We did the normal 5-min intro that turned into an hour of geeking out over gear, knives, backpacks, and bikes - after that, we were all kinda cool that it was going to be a fun lunch. What followed will be one of the most memorable experiences of my life - mainly because I had the single greatest meal of my life,for the record) and the conversation was flowing like an ‘87 Chateau Margaux - it was epic!After hanging out with theguys for several hours, I was 120% completely sold thatwas building something special. Over the past 18-mos, I have been enthralled with thestory and after filing a 62 Freedom of Information Act requests ().There are 2 major reasons thatis a special company.During that lunch - we hit the subject of seed rounds and afundraise several times from a couple of different angles. Each time bothemphatically responded that they would not interested in and would not be a round of financing. Considering that nearly every startup I speak to with even a modicum of traction raises a $1m seed round - this almost vehement aversion to raising outside financing kinda caused my head to spin at this pleasant surprise.put up $20k to startupwith the goal of building a company that they were proud of. It’s the kind of language that Nick Offerman uses when discussing the pride of building a canoe - it’s a symbol of craftsmanship and ingenuity.is primarily male-focused with a consistent outdoor / camping / adventure theme - the best analogy that I can make as to how they view building it is:“Going ‘camping’ in a $1m RV isn’t really camping - it’s place shifting.is like a Marine Corp soldier who is dropped in the Sierra Nevada mountains with a top of the line kit.”view raising a round like going ‘camping’ in a $1m RV where all the modern comforts & tech the RV insulate the camper from the realities of nature. They are intimately connected with the product and customer in the same way that the Marine Corp connect with geography, population, and culture for extended campaigns. For example,is custom platform based on how they believe the retail experience should be not how any other company works. They are building out theretail experience prudently - piece by piece, brick by brick based on what’s in the best interest of the customer.This is probably my favorite part ofanswer only to thefamily & customers driven by a sense of craftsmanship. During one of our conversations, Rich commented that:This was a statement that was really cool and has stayed with me for almost two years. It’s in stark contrast to the Andrew Mason /style of growth - where the only thing that mattered was getting a person’s email address. By not raising a round - the growth metrics, although impressive, are ancillary to building product that when you step back & look at it - you are proud of the product. This way of thinking perfectly encapsulates the, founder of, philosophy of building a 100 year company.Additionally - we have had many conversations about how startups scale & grow for the sake of growth or for purposes of raising another round of financing. During one of our many conversations,said:is a remarkable company because of the prudent focus of building long-term friends at the right speed dictated by what’s best for them - not investors or the market.of the daily show regularly that he doesn’t want big government, he wants smart government. In the same vein -doesn’t want to grow big - they want to grow intelligently.-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------There are essentially two ways to grow as a startup, you can:This is what I mean by paying for growth - raise a big seed round, hire a sick PR firm on an extremely expensive retainer, and then push your way into high profile publications to generate demand for your startup. Once the PR train is off to the races - customer growth surges because people are ‘interested in checking you out’ not really because they have bought into the startup (i.e. BBM for Android / iPhone). These aren’t the type of customers thatwants precisely because they are not the customers thatis a startup that they will get.The guiding philosophy ofishave repeatedly said that when you send the right email structured in the right way with the right products over a period of time - you earn respect of and builds stronger relationship with the customer. And let’s face it - a decent PR firm charges a $10k/mo retainer and on a $40k startup budget - that doesn’t get a whole lot of value.From my perspective they see paying for growth as a manager saying “respect me because I am your manager” versus earning respect as “here are my actions, you decide whether to give me your respect.”The earn it model comes from basis of respecting the user’s inbox - ifis going to build a relationship with the user, they will need to create a model that compels the user to open the email & start forming the relationship with them. There are two primary ways thatworks to accomplish this:The products they sell must be something that a majority of theteam would buy themselves AND from brands they respect. The goal is to have, at the very minimum, a user open the email and see a bunch of cool gear to drool over.Basically,has modeled itself on Top Gear where ya technically Top Gear reviews cars, but we all really watch it to see Jeremy Clarkson shred the tires of a new Ferrari. The way that I can explain it is:In the process of consistently showing great product from awesome brands -builds a positive brand relationship with the customer who is left thinking “ya those Benchmade knives are sick” regardless if they purchase it.As you remember from the opening section, the first thing that stood out to me aboutis the quality of the. Where most retailers see their blog as a medium to promote themselves or the products they sell,sees it as the way to open the door.Thehas articles that are so incredibly interesting & exciting in way that commands the reader’s attention. Great content also serves as a distributed means of earning a spot in your inbox - great content is shared and this opens the door for customers as a brand touchpoint.Here are some of my favorite articles from 2013:There are three main characteristics of each of these articles:1. They communicate the sense of adventure2. All are visually striking3. Unmistakably CoolGreat content is shared with friends simply because it’s fun to tell the world you found something awesome. The goal ofisn’t to sell you on signing up for, it’s a brand touchpoint that prompts the reader to pay attention and think “Whoa! These guys are dope - I gotta remember to flag this for the next time I see something from them.” The point is to progressively earn the users respect and get them to buy intoas a brand.The best way to think about the“Earn It” model is to think about it like a scoring system from the perspective of the reader:Stumble across interestingArticleSee a cool brand in theStoreInteresting Subject in a HB email that prompts you to openPurchase something fromRead entire HB email & click on a link in DiversionsEventually as the user assigns points -gains cred & earns the loyalty & business of a customer. However, it’s not enough to earn the respect and then simply abuse the customer by pushing them to spend money. Huckberry believes that they need to constantly earn their respect - the adage of “what have you done for me lately” comes to mind. Should Huckberry drop the ball on product or content, the user will get bored and unsubscribe.The most important part of this model is the last section ofemails - the Diversions. Diversions are three of the best articles from around that web that are the last shot thattakes to deliver value to readers. So if the user scrolls through the products and doesn’t find something interesting -can get get a + 1 from the user by sending them to a great article from around the web. Even though these are not on thesite - it doesn’t matter becausestill gets the +1 in the users mind for sending them to something great & thus positively rewards the user for investing in opening the email.So I guess the next line of questioning goes to the fact that does this actually work? Does combining great great with great content actually work? This is how the Huckberry model breaks down:We already know that Huckberry smashes & I mean slaughters benchmark averages - they average better than 3.1x more engagement than retail averages:All of this circles back to the grow intelligently thesis -'s primary focus is to earn the respect of users. When you earn their respect, you begin forming a long term relationship that is like setting a concrete foundation for a house. As the collapse of the Groupon-style business model demonstrates - startups without this foundation collapse.is designed from the bottom up to not let this happen.Now that I have gushed over how cool the company is - let’s start critically analyzing what they are down to create a framework. There are 6 aspects to focus on:. This ‘97 jam kicked off the pop-rap preoccupation with cash & flaunting cash that pretty much hasn’t stopped 15 years later. The track basically talks about how the only thing that is important is to make money and then spend it on really expensive stuff. If we were to apply this to the world of startups - this track should be the anthem to the OMGpops & Groupons of the world - companies that enjoyed immense success (i.e. a hit single) and then collapse when the spotlight moves on.The only thing thatcares about is Dopamine delivered to the customer in a positive feedback loop. That’s mission #1 - everything else waits untilstarts delivering value to customers & earning a spot in their inbox. Once they earn a spot in the inbox - it’s about delivering value to encourage continuing to open emails. That’s what’s hard - constantly delivering a valuable contribution to the consumer regardless if they purchase to match get the right sale.is doing something right because their statistics are pretty impressive:These numbers clearly demonstrate thatis doing something special in their long term approach to building a relationship with customers. There are three primary components to themodel that all work together to provide a constant source of positively reinforcing dopamine to encourage the interaction. The three aspects are:firmly believes in taking the time to send the right email rather than sending a bunch of emails - it’s the quantity has a quality all of it’s own as Yishan Wong would say.Each email is an additive experience with sections successively building upon one another as well as priming the user to theThemodel is built to deliver value to differently depending on the intent of the user. The nature of and relationship with the audience,built a way to generate substantive value for the two primary focuses of readers.3a. Transactionally / Purchase Focused Users3b. Experientially / Consumption Focused UsersSomehow the prevailing ‘wisdom’ inis “if we just send enough emails to customers - then we’ll be in your inbox on the day you want to buy something & BAM! We win!” *cough* Bonobos *cough*. Basically - this is like a midfielder wildly punting shots from center pitch to score the winning goal. If you’re going to take a shot - utilize the midfield & strikers to strategically set up the right shot.With retailers and especially the majors like Groupon or Gilt - the constant barrage of emails is simply foolish. Plan & simply - emails that always pitch product is like a guy at a party who won’t stop talking about how much money he makes, how many girls he sleeps with, or name dropping how important his meetings are - everyone gets tired of hearing that because it’s annoying.The epitome of this model is Bonobos - they send a billion emails that basically deliver zero value to the user beyond pitching product. Let’s take a closer look at a recent email from Sept 11th -This strategy hasn’t been working all too well for Bonobos. One of the main reasons is that this brand touchpoint delivers almost zero value (i.e. no reward / dopamine) for the user’s investment (i.e. opening the email). The overwhelming majority of us are not even conscious that this cost / benefit scenario is happening. It functions like a - 1 point in our subconscious scoring system that disincentivizes us from opening the next email. After all, whyI open the next email when this one wasn’t useful for me?What’s happening is the interaction is informing the experiential knowledge-base in our brain that begins to establish a connection between Bonobos emails & a lack of value for me. The brain begins to discount the value of evening receiving these emails because they don’t deliver value for the utterly simple investment of opening the email.This essentially defines how's communication strategy systemically differs from other retailers. In early ‘13 I was hanging out at theoffice and we were making fun of this technique, whensaid:'s strategy is to send +/- five or six really well done emails per month that methodically deliver value to the reader.followed up a bit later with:Whensaid that - the flare gun erupted in the night sky and the structural nature of themodel became increasingly apparent. Over the past year - I have been paying especially close attention to how they accomplish this. Although most of my comments / analysis would not be confirmed or denied - this is what I see going on.The structure of every email is designed to deliver value (i.e. dopamine) to the reader in a way that works to foster a relationship. This is the basic anatomy of theemail:Each part of the email serves a specific function designed to create a deeper more valuable experience for the user. Let’s break out each of the main parts and really dive into how the goal of each section is designed to deliver value.The introduction is the story that will unify the product narrative of the entire email. This will prime the brain to guide the expectations of what is coming next. The Introduction is provides the opportunity forto explain what you are seeing & why you will like the productsHuckberry is a business that sells products that people want to buy. They aren’t a daily deal site where the core value proposition is basically an outlet mall a la Gilt. The goal is to introduce great products from interesting brands for the primary purpose of piquing the reader’s interest to check out more. The goal here is to get the reader excited about discovering something cool - that delivers a positive feedback loop or that Dopamine reward to the brain.If the reader decides to purchase - that’s awesome! But that’s not the goal - the goal is to deliver value. Whend |
60 or more drinks per month. And compared with gun owners who kept their firearms at home unloaded and under lock and key, those who said they sometimes carry a loaded weapon for personal protection or who keep a weapon loaded and unlocked around the house were more likely to do things like drink and drive, and to engage in what substance abuse researchers call "binge drinking."
Healey reports that at least one-third of firearm-related deaths are alcohol-related, which added up to almost 400,000 of them in the U.S. between 1997 and 2009. And a survey of risk behaviors conducted under the auspices of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 1996 and 1997 found that nearly 35 percent of all suicides and homicides are alcohol-related.
That hasn't stopped some states from legalizing the concealed carry of weapons in bars, unfortunately. Georgia is the latest state to do so just this year. In fact, Georgia is allowing people to carry guns pretty much anywhere. And it's worked out so well. Remember this?
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According to witnesses who spoke with WSB-TV, the man wandered around the Forsythe County park last Tuesday night showing his gun to strangers, telling them “there’s nothing you can do about it.” “Anyone who was just walking by – you had parents and children coming in for the game – and he’s just standing here, walking around [saying] ‘You want to see my gun? Look, I got a gun and there’s nothing you can do about it.’ He knew he was frightening people. He knew exactly what he was doing,” said parent Karen Rabb. Rabb said that the man’s intimidating behavior panicked parents causing them to hustle children who were there to play baseball to safety after the man refused to leave. “It got to the point where we took the kids and brought them into the dugout and the parents lined up in front of the dugout,” Rabb said. Police report they received 22 calls to 911 reporting the man.
The police came and informed the parents that the man had done nothing illegal. And that's what has the NRA worried. They lost at least 22 supporters that day and probably a lot more, many of them people who are probably fine with guns in the abstract but don't think it makes a lot of sense to let people run around little league fields brandishing guns while their kids are playing. These are people who don't care if you want to own guns but don't feel very comfortable when a whole groups of people who, let's face it, don't exactly appear to be well-trained Navy SEALs, are clumsily tromping all over Wal-Mart with long guns bouncing off their backs. You know, normal Americans who understand without having to be told that putting a bunch of gun fetishists in the same room with a full bar is just plain dumb.
Unfortunately for the NRA, all common sense will be opposed by their most fanatical followers these days so they have to fool them into thinking that proposals expanding their rights will actually restrict them. Let's have a toast to their success.Scientists are calling for urgent monitoring of Antarctic ice shelves, as a new paper finds large areas of ice could lose their land-locked roots if as little as 5 to 13 per cent of the shelves were to disappear.
The paper, by researchers at Germany's Friedrich-Alexander-Universität, is one of the first to quantify the amount of floating ice an Antarctic ice shelf can lose without its grounded portion sliding into the ocean.
An ice shelf is a thick slab of ice which stretches out as an extension of an ice sheet.
Ice sheets are grounded on rock, formed over time through the accumulation of snowfall. When ice sheets melt they can contribute to sea level rise.
The floating portion of the ice shelves holds back or "buttresses" the ice sheet that lies on the sea floor, providing resistance and reducing the speed at which an ice sheet flows into the ocean.Still debating whether or not it's worth upgrading to the latest and greatest Node.js LTS, otherwise known as 4.2? If you are still running 0.12 or stuck even further in the dark ages on 0.10 and below, these numbers might make you think twice about being set in your ways.We've been running Node.js 0.12 since shortly after its release and have had no issues with it. Loving to live on the cutting edge, after several weeks of testing 4.2 locally, we decided to push it live to both CasinoRPG and GoldFire Network. We didn't need to update any of our code (other than re-installing our modules), so we assumed it would be a routine upgrade with the possibility of some minor speed boosts. What we saw was far from ordinary:On both CasinoRPG and GoldFire Network, not only did we see our memory graphs smooth out significantly, but the total memory usage dropped by over 50%! This is the kind of improvement you might expect in a very early version, but it certainly caught us off guard at this stage of the game.So, why the massive memory gains when upgrading to 4.2? That remains somewhat of a mystery to us (if you've got an idea we'd love for you to comment). Certainly a vastly newer version of V8 has helped, and we've heard that updates tohave led to fairly significant gains, but there's surely more at play here. Regardless, the results can't be ignored. Happy upgrading!Studies have found that by age four, children in middle and upper class families hear 15 million more words than children in working-class families, and 30 million more words than children in families on welfare. This disparity in hearing words from parents and caregivers translates directly into a disparity in learning words. And that puts our children born with the fewest advantages even further behind. Among those born in 2001, only 48 percent of poor children started school ready to learn, compared to 75 percent of children from middle-income families.
The “word gap” is a significant but solvable challenge. We know that it’s possible to help parents and communities make small changes that have a big impact on our kids, whether it’s teaching parents about the importance of vaccinations and regular check-ups, or putting babies down to sleep on their backs to prevent sudden infant death syndrome. Efforts like the Providence Talks project in Rhode Island and the Thirty Million Words Project in Chicago are already experimenting with new approaches to close the “word gap.”
I have been an advocate for early childhood development for my entire adult life, ever since I was a young law student working at the Yale Child Study Center. And the more I learn about the new research in the field, the more I am convinced that this is an issue vital to the future competitiveness of our country, the strength of our families, and the health of our communities. That’s why I’ve made early childhood development a major focus of my new work at the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation.
In partnership with an innovative non-profit in San Francisco called Next Generation, we’ve launched a campaign called “Too Small to Fail.” Our first goal is to address the biggest obstacles standing in the way of parents talking, reading, and interacting with their children — a lack of awareness and a lack of time.
Research suggests that how much parents know about the importance of having quality interactions with their babies matters even more than their income or educational attainment. If they start to view reading a bedtime story as just as important as changing a diaper, then they’ll find a way to do it. To help spread the word, Too Small to Fail will conduct a public action campaign to give parents the information they need.
Of course, there are only so many hours in the day. Parents in low income families, especially those who struggle to work two jobs with few benefits or flexibility, face enormous pressures on their time and attention. So Too Small to Fail will work with employers and the business community to encourage them to give parents more flexibility and support, just as the Clinton Foundation has previously worked with the private sector to lower the cost of AIDS drugs in Africa and the calorie count of snack foods in American schools.
We hope that by moving forward on both these tracks, we can help more parents and care-givers give our kids the start they deserve. As a first step, we are releasing a strategic roadmap that lays out the research behind Too Small to Fail and the agenda ahead of it. I hope you’ll take a look and share it with your friends and neighbors. We’re all in this together, after all, and we all have an opportunity to be part of the solution.
Americans have always believed that, at our best, we’re a land of equal opportunity; that it doesn’t matter where you come from or who your parents were — you should have the same chance as anyone else to live up to your full God-given potential. Closing the “word gap” will help reduce the inequality in our society and restore a sense of mobility and possibility to American families. All our kids deserve the chance to start life on an equal playing field. They’re too small to fail, so let’s help them succeed. Please join us at toosmall.org.Cyber security has been lurking as a major issue across the country and worldwide.
The 2016 election cycle was riddled with talk of hacking. And after the election, U.S. intelligence agencies determined that Russian hacks interfered with the election.
Whether it's high profile companies being hacked or government information being leaked, most companies and officials do not know how vulnerable they actually are -- most do not even know when they have been hacked.
Despite all the attacks, the cyber security field is currently experiencing a shortage of professionals and practitioners, with more than 250,000 positions remaining unfilled in the U.S. workforce alone.
Roberto J. Mejias, assistant professor/director for the Center for Cyber Security Education and Research at the Hasan School of Business at Colorado State University-Pueblo, is doing what he can to fix that.
"More than 90 percent of organizations have been hacked or compromised, and only 20 percent of them know that they have," Mejias said.
CSU-Pueblo is one of only six colleges in Colorado with the NSA-CAE certification. Others include Colorado School of Mines, Colorado Technical University, United States Air Force Academy, University of Colorado-Colorado Springs and the University of Denver.
The CSU-Pueblo center started about a year and a half ago, Mejias said. The program currently has 20-25 students.
"Only 5 percent of universities and colleges have the National Security Agency-Center for Academic Excellence certification. So we are very proud of that," Mejias said.
CSU-Pueblo had to set up the Center for Cyber Security Education and Research in order to maintain the designation.
"We've gotten a lot of support from our provost Rick Kreminski and our Dean Bruce Raymond. They gave me the resources and the time to do this," Mejias said.
Students in the Cyber Security Emphasis Program can earn a bachelor's of science diploma. They can also earn a NSA-CAE Cyber Defense certificate from the NSA.
"We teach a whole range of technical cyber security techniques," Mejias said.
The program looks at cyber security threats and attack vectors, cyber security defense-in-depth techniques and adversary and vulnerability assessment.
Students also learn about the design of network security, threat risk models and risk mitigation strategies, cryptography, a range of computer forensic tools and the development of threat-vulnerability asset grids.
Students can also participate in the National Cyber League, which allows students to compete in cyber security challenges with their counterparts at several universities. CSU-Pueblo students have finished in the top 15 percent of about 2,700 competitors. Students also participate in field projects that uncover vulnerabilities in cyber defense for local businesses.
Mejias said the center serves an important purpose in a field that is predicted to have a shortfall of 1.5 million professionals by the year 2019.
He said educational institutions must play an increasingly active role in training and educating the next generation of cyber security professionals.
"Our center is targeting high school students and college students, freshman, to look into the field of cyber security," Mejias said.
Mejias said to most high school and college kids and most uninformed observers, computer information systems is just programming.
"It's like medicine. You have programming, you have database analysis, you have web design, you have cyber security. You have all these different fields that they can go into," Mejias said.
The center is working to obtain grants from the National Science Foundation and the Department of Homeland Security. Mejias said CSU-Pueblo is one of 15 schools nationwide participating with the University of Arizona's cyber security program for a large Department of Homeland Security Grant.
"I think we have a pretty good chance. We have very unique demographics and technical aspects here," he said.
Mejias noted that CSU-Pueblo is an Hispanic Serving Institution.
"We have 47 percent Hispanic and minority students on our CSU-Pueblo campus," he said.
"The incoming freshman class is 55 percent minority. That's African American, Native American, Hispanic. So we are truly an HSI school in the true sense of the word."
Mejias said CSU-Pueblo also has good technical assets.
CSU-Pueblo also has Homeland Security Studies, which is a minor program composed of an 18 credit hour workload. Students can also receive a certificate in the field.
"Technically, we have two entities here that basically are able to do cyber security. That's why we got this NSA-(CAE) certification on the first go around," Mejias said.
"NSA-CAE does not look at minority status. They look only at technical ability in cyber security, and we have that. The Department of Homeland Security and any state grants look at both HSI and technical abilities; we have the ability to do all of that."
Mejias said many universities and state organizations still don't understand the importance of cyber security education.
"They just don't get it. To their own peril. This program works closely with NSA Department of Homeland Security and other intelligence agencies to give students a top-level cyber security education," Mejias said.
"Most businesses are too busy with day-to-day operations and increasing sales performance to be concerned with cyber security issues and vulnerabilities.
"These are exciting times if you are interested in cyber security. And students should be cognizant that there are wonderful career opportunities in cyber security."
anthonym@chieftain.comIn yet another sign that Hispanics are key in presidential politics, President Barack Obama's administration will reportedly announce Friday that it will stop deporting and grant work permits to nearly 1 million immigrants who entered or remained in the United States illegally as children and would be eligible for the DREAM Act, which is stalled in Congress amid election-year gridlock and competing proposals. (Read recent stories on ideas put forth by Sen. Marco Rubio and U.S. Rep. David Rivera, both Miami Republicans, here, here and here.)
From the Associated Press:
WASHINGTON – The Obama administration will stop deporting and begin granting work permits to younger illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. as children and have since led law-abiding lives. The election-year initiative addresses a top priority of an influential Latino electorate that has been vocal in its opposition to administration deportation policies.
The policy change, described to The Associated Press by two senior administration officials, will affect as many as 800,000 immigrants who have lived in fear of deportation. It also bypasses Congress and partially achieves the goals of the so-called DREAM Act, a long-sought but never enacted plan to establish a path toward citizenship for young people who came to the United States illegally but who have attended college or served in the military.
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano was to announce the new policy Friday, one week before President Barack Obama plans to address the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials' annual conference in Florida. Republican presidential challenger Mitt Romney is scheduled to speak to the group on Thursday.Spies asked for a US government analysis on a US-China strategic economic dialogue. Credit:AP
The US and China are negotiating what may become the first arms control accord for cyberspace, embracing a commitment by each country that it will not be the first to use cyber weapons to cripple the other's critical infrastructure during peacetime, officials involved in the talks say.
While such an agreement could address attacks on power stations, banking systems, cellphone networks and hospitals, it would not, at least in its first version, protect against most of the attacks China had been accused of conducting in the US, including the widespread poaching of intellectual property and the theft of millions of government employees' personal data.
The negotiations have been conducted with urgency in recent weeks amid hopes to announce an agreement when President Xi arrives in Washington for a state visit on Thursday.
Mr Obama told the US Business Roundtable on Wednesday that the rising number of cyber attacks would "probably be one of the biggest topics" of the summit meeting, and his goal was to see "if we and the Chinese are able to coalesce around a process for negotiations" that would, ultimately, "bring a lot of other countries along".Welcome to From Concept to Screen, an ongoing article series about the various stages of the production that your favorite character, vehicle, creature, location, or scene of the Star Wars saga had to undergo before arriving on the silver screen.
This time we go for a meditative retreat and look at the various locations of the Jedi Temple and examine how they all came to grace the silver screen in the prequel movies.
Jedi Temple exterior
George Lucas wanted the Jedi Temple to be set apart from the general art deco style that was the guideline for the buildings on Coruscant, to have it be more a place with a sense of sacredness to it while still maintaining a sense of grandeur. To design the temple complex as distinctly different, designers Doug Chiang and Ed Natividad were inspired by the contrast of the TransAmerica pyramid in San Francisco and the rest of the city’s skyline. Other influences include the Forbidden City in China, as well as gothic and Egyptian architecture. Early concept art depicts the Jedi Temple as a pyramid with parts of the walls cut-away or replaced with various other towers before arriving at a pyramid shape with the top cut off to put the various towers up on. The central tower was to house the Jedi Council Chambers and many drawings were made of that tower where gothic-like spikes were added that stuck trough the roof and would become pillars in the actual council room.
For Attack of the Clones new thumbnail sketches were made to give Lucas new ways to show off the now familiar exterior of the Jedi Temple. In these quickly drawn sketches various kinds of lightning and moods could be tested.
The exterior of the Jedi Temple was built as a miniature by ILM for The Phantom Menace, which was reused for Episode II with slight modifications and refurbishing. For Revenge of the Sith the model was expanded with the entrance and stairs. The clone troopers were digital, but Hayden Christensen filmed his part of marching towards the Temple during the pick-ups against blue screen.
During postproduction for Episode III work had begun also on the 2004 DVD release of the original trilogy and among the changes was the addition of the Jedi Temple in the Return of the Jedi Coruscant celebration.
Jedi Council chamber
The description to the artists by George Lucas for the interior of the Jedi Council chamber was “gentleman’s clubs, where important people sit in big, comfortable chairs and discuss important matters.” The exterior shot of the Jedi Council chamber by night was made with a specially-built model of the tower. With the exterior established, the interior had to match with that and thus various designs were tried out, not only of the room, but the chairs as well. At one point the Council would not sit in a full circle, but rather a half one. The actual set was build six feet (around the 1.80 meters) above the stage floor in the Leavesden Studios to accommodate the many puppeteers that were needed to bring Yoda, Yaddle, and Yareal Poof to life. The latter was built directly into his chair. A change later made during post-production required the digital lowering of the window, as well as the removal of a middle bar to make the two smaller windows into one bigger window.
After shooting, the set was struck down because it was too large to keep, but the chairs were put into storage. For Attack of the Clones, the set was rebuilt, reflecting the changes made for the previous movie. For Episode III it was once again rebuilt, but this time only as a half set. For every movie the blue screen in the windows was to be replaced with breathtaking views of Coruscant’s cityscape.
The very first finalized shot for Episode III was Obi-Wan sitting in his chair on the Jedi Council.
Jedi Archives & Analysis Room
The inspiration for the Jedi Archives came from other famous libraries like the Vatican to venerable stately architecture seen in many English libraries with their ceiling-high bookshelves and with busts on display. The set on which Ewan McGregor and Althea McGrath (Jocasta Nu) acted out their scene was a minimal one with only a couple of pillars, busts on pedestals, a floor, and the desk that McGregor sits at. All the rest was added by ILM with a miniature built in 1/8 scale. The library model was an impressive 12-feet-long and featured five bays with rows of shelves. It also contained a removable back wall for when the bays had to be shot without the back wall which was needed so they could make the five bays into a total of 10 for the final shots. The books themselves were made to glow by CGI, but the model did contain books with various shades of blue. The busts of what would later be known as the Lost Twenty were done in two ways: there were miniatures made that featured cameos, among others, of animation director Rob Coleman, John Knoll, and even George Lucas. Then there were the real busts that were built for the live-action shoot — these included busts of Yoda, Saesee Tiin, Ki-Adi-Mundi and, of course, Count Dooku.
For the room in which Obi-Wan has the saberdart analyzed in the Analysis Room, they repainted the floor of the Jedi Council Chamber set and added doors next to the windows. They also added three consoles for Jedi to sit at. The clean room in which the droids appear however was a miniature, with Ewan McGregor staring into a blue screen wall behind the windows. This miniature was actually the first bit of work that ILM did for the movie.
Youngling Training Room
With Attack of the Clones showing more of the Jedi Temple, designers began to play with the familiar Council chamber pillars and big windows and using them to create new rooms. In one concept image they added a new floor design as well as plants to a veranda, which became the Youngling Training Room in which the Bear Clan helps out Obi-Wan. The set used for filming thus also became a redress of the Jedi Council set with a different floor plan and with some plants and a couple more pillars added. Due to only half the set being redressed into the training room, Lucas had a limited option of camera angles. The area outside the training room was created by using a miniature combined with some live-action elements shot against a blue screen. While the blue floor of the stairs appeared to be carpet, it actually was a coat of stippled blue latex paint. False perspective was also used on the arches to make it appear larger than it actually was.
Mace’s original office & Yoda’s room
Another redress of the Jedi Council chamber set for Attack of the Clones was for the original office of Mace Windu. Adding blinds to the window, a different color scheme, a bed and a big ornate desk the crew created a whole new room. However, Lucas did not like the set and moved the scene to a more sparsely and monk-like room. The bed of Windu, however, ended up being used for the extreme close-up of Anakin having his nightmare about his mother. The new room for Mace Windu was just a big blue screen box with tuffer chairs and a window with blinds. This room was not only used for Windu but also for Yoda, who was given a more yellow color to differentiate from Windu’s copper colored room.
Yoda’s room returned in Revenge of the Sith for two scenes. One of them being a discussion between Yoda, Mace, and Obi-Wan about the bad state the galaxy is in and the role of Palpatine (this scene ended up deleted but can be seen on the DVD) and the other being the lesson Yoda gives Anakin about letting things go. The latter was shot during the pickups in Shepperton Studios on a minimalistic set: the three chairs they sit on and one window with blinds was all that was build.
Jedi Temple communication center & Circuit Room
The Jedi Temple communication center (or War Room/Briefing Room as it is also known) from Revenge of the Sith was one of the sets that was first built as a maquette so that Lucas could decide on the camera angles he would want and how much was needed to be made as a practical set.
The design for the circuit room where Obi-Wan changes the signal was approved on May 1, 2003, by Lucas and was drawn by Ryan Church. The circuit room was built as a miniature made out of plexiglass and with the help of a laser cutter, which found more and more use throughout the production of the prequels with the constant improving technology. The concept art of the control room in which he and Yoda watch the hologram of Anakin killing younglings was drawn both as how it would appear on a typical day, as well as a damaged by clone fire. The set was build has a half-set with the other half being completed by ILM.
Hangar
Various hangars were seen in Episode II and III and were mostly done digitally. The scene in Revenge of the Sith where Anakin quickly leaves to go to help out Palpatine was written in postproduction and filmed on August 30, 2004, in a matter of minutes. For this quick shoot there was no set at all required. The CG model was also used as background for the shots of the clone troopers taking aim at Bail Organa later in the movie, with the live-action being filmed on a set which was not much more then the floor with the speeder of Bail on it.
The Clone Wars would also show various hangars, including one that had a carbonite chamber added.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars areas
For the animated series many new locations were shown like the detention center, a funeral room, a Holocron Vault addition to the Jedi Archives, a Chamber of Judgment in which Ahsoka faces judgment of the Council and the quarters of not only Barriss Offee, but Anakin, as well. We saw the medical center where the Jedi come for treatment and finally we went outside to a topside garden, which was only glimpsed briefly in the background of Episode III.
Great Hall and other hallways
And to get to all these areas you need to have hallways, but it was not until Attack of the Clones that we would end up seeing these hallways. These hallways were to be “moody, like a cathedral” according to Lucas, a place of contemplation with rooms for meditation around every corner. The staircases, like the one seen next to the training room of the Bear Clan, were actually inspired by the staircases of New York’s Grand Central Station.
Many of the hallways in both Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith were realized as partial sets with miniatures added by ILM and in the cases where you see more then the hallway (like Episode II’s hallway with Yoda and Mace Windu talking or Episode III’s outside view) a matte painting was used to complete the shot. The bodies of the dead younglings that Obi-Wan and Yoda find in Episode III were played by a couple of extras, among them sons of crew members.
And with us inside the Jedi Temple now we can go and visit the subject for the next article: The great Jedi with a smile, Kit Fisto.
For more images featuring the Jedi Temple please go to StarWars.com’s official Tumblr and Instagram in which it is the Spotlight of the Week!
Sources: The Art of Star Wars Episode I, The Art of Star Wars Episode II, The Art of Star Wars Episode III, Creating the Worlds of Star Wars: 365 Days & Sculpting A Galaxy
Sander de Lange (Exar Xan) from the Netherlands worked on the Rogues Gallery feature in Star Wars Insider and has written the back-story for Niai Fieso through “What’s the Story?”. He is an editor for TeeKay-421, the Belgian Star Wars Fanclub and an administrator for the Star Wars Sourcebooks page on Facebook.The European Defence Agency (EDA) Annual Conference 2017 entitled 'Security in the digital age: the added value of European cooperation’ was opened Thursday morning (23 November) in Brussels by the Head of the Agency, Federica Mogherini.
Addressing a 400-strong audience representing the whole European defence spectrum - governments, armed forces, industry, EU institutions, NATO, think tanks and media - Mrs Mogherini said the conference was taking place “at the most important moment for European defence in decades” with bold new initiatives such as the Coordinated Annual Review on Defence (CARD), the Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) and the European Defence Fund (EDF) creating an unprecedented momentum for enhanced cooperation.
“Today, we are building a European Union of security and defence. It' not a plan, not a dream anymore, but a reality (...) All the building blocks of a security and defence union are finally there”, she stated. This means that Member States can now project and develop their defence capabilities together: “We can buy together, to ensure that we have all the capabilities we need while also spending efficiently. And we can act together, much better than before, to manage or prevent crises, to strengthen our partners, to make our citizens more secure”. Acting together is a necessity “because today’s security challenges are too big for any of our Member States alone. Everyone understands this today. Our citizens are asking for more security and more efficient budgets, and the two are only possible if we join forces”, Mrs Mogherini stressed.
The EDA, a leading force
“The Council, the Commission and the European Defence Agency have all played their part in shaping the path towards a European Union of security and defence”, she went on. The EDA was a “leading force” in defining the recent ‘defence package’ and, as far as PESCO is concerned, is already helping Member States assess the value of their projects for cooperation. “This will be central to the success of PESCO”, the Head of the Agency stressed.
The ambition is to move towards a European security and defence union, not re-open the debate on a European army. “But in a way, we are doing something that is much more ambitious. We already have European missions and operations - 15 of them so far - and we have created a single command centre for our training and advisory missions. We are now working to build a truly European defence industry, a truly European defence market, and a truly European defence research which are the basis for a truly European defence. European military trainings are a concrete option. And the possibilities of PESCO are immense”, she stated. The CARD and the European Defence Fund (EDF) are also key instruments in which the EDA has "great expertise, a huge potential - which also means huge responsibilities - to support Member States and the Commission in their decisions".
Cyber defence: clear need for closer cooperation
Turning to the conference topic, Mrs Mogherini said cyber was a defence domain where close cooperation was more indispensable than ever. “Cyber threats require a response that is both civilian and military. To protect our cyberspace, we will need more research, better capabilities, more training and exercises, in constant coordination with our partners”.
Promising new cyber initiatives recently saw the light - such as the setting up of a Hybrid Fusion Cell within the External Action Service, the inauguration of the European Centre for Countering Hybrid Threats in Helsinki, the first ever European strategic cybersecurity table-top exercise ‘CYBRID’ co-organised last September by the Estonian Presidency of the EU Council and the EDA, and last year's EU-NATO Joint Declaration which also covers cybersecurity - but more needs to be done: “We have to explore the full range of possibilities that we have built over the last couple of years with the Commission, Member States, the External Action Service and the European Defence Agency”.
Exciting journey
With the new tools (CARD, PESCO, EDF) in place, EU defence cooperation has reached a level that was unimaginable not only 60 years ago but even just six months ago, Mrs Mogherini said. “A new exciting journey has just started. Everyone will have to play it role, starting of course from us, from the European Defence Agency and the External Action Service. We will have to find new ways of working together across the institutions – knowing that this is for the entire Union, for each of our citizens, and for a more peaceful and secure world”.
More information:US President Barack Obama (C) walks to his bus as he arrives in Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, Minnesota, August 15, 2011, where he is to begin his three-day bus tour in the Midwest centering on ways to grow the economy. JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images
Updated: 6:15 p.m. ET
The U.S. Secret Service has two new buses in its fleet for President Obama to use on his three-day, three-state Midwestern bus trip that kicked off Monday.
CBS News has learned the buses were purchased in recent months at a cost of just under $1.1-million each and will serve as part of the fleet of vehicles the Service uses for all of its protectees.
In the past, the Secret Service would lease buses as needed and outfit them with the security and communications equipment.
"We have not been satisfied with the level of protection offered by leased buses," said a Secret Service official.
Last year, the Secret Service placed an order for two buses with the Hemphill Brothers Coach Company of Whites Creek, Tennessee at a combined cost of $2,191,960.
The buses have lavish interiors and are usually leased to transport stars of the entertainment industry.
The company's website says its clients have included Beyonce, Cher, Gloria Estefan, Jennifer Lopez, Stevie Wonder, Lady Gaga, Britney Spears, Mariah Carey, Madonna, Jack Nicholson, and Pope Benedict.
Mr. Obama will travel through Minnesota, Iowa and Illinois on the tour. He has four town hall meetings planned, as well as a forum on rural economic issues.
Although the bus trip has the feel of a campaign swing, the White House is billing it as "official." That means taxpayers pick up all the related costs. When Mr. Obama ventures out on political trips, his campaign or the Democratic National Committee pay a small portion of the cost of presidential travel, as required by the Federal Elections Commission.
But spokesman Jay Carney says "the president is not engaged in a primary election and he is doing what presidents do, which is go out in the country and engage with the American people, have discussions about the economy and other policy issues."
Aboard Air Force One en route to the start of the bus trip in St. Paul, Minn., Carney told reporters that "to suggest that any time the president leaves Washington it's a political trip would mean that presidents could never leave unless they were physically campaigning on their own behalf, and he's not; he's out here doing his job and meeting with the American people."
But Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus called a news conference in Minnesota this morning to raise objections to the taxpayer-funded nature of the president's trip.In today’s papers in Raipur there’s a harrowing tale. A gang run by a couple kidnaps young girls, has them raped, and convinces them that they have nowhere to go now. The girls, shamed, scared, and lonely, are put into prostitution.
It is horrifying that the couple has two daughters of their own, that they were able to use a hotel to keep them captive and that girls in early teens are not safe anymore, but to me the most infuriating part is how easy it is to convince the girls that they will not be accepted by their families. Such is the stigma of anything sexual in our society. In Masaan, its not the act of making love, or the psychological issues related to it that cause pain. All the pain is due to a threat of exposure. The shamefulness of sexuality.
What the central government has done in last couple of days is another step in the wrong direction. The state run ISPs have started blocking porn websites, and the porn ban is expected to spread to private ones soon. In a society with already struggling with a lack of sexual education, taboos on mixing of genders and massive repression, this will further the middle-easternization of India.
Ancient India wasn’t like this. It celebrated raas, celebrated Shakuntala by Kalidas, celebrated Arjun eloping with Subhadra, celebrated love and its expression in all myriad ways. The women were not asked to cover themselves up, and it was men who covered their heads, not women. Then came the invaders. From Middle East and later from Victorian England. The two most repressed societies ever. And we started equating sexual abstinence with morality. Abstinence was only for the Sanyasis, who renounce all pleasure. Why did we all become Sanyasis?
The irony is that England has shed its jaded Victorian ideas, but we still cling to the laws they made for us. We still ban homosexuality, and even sexual experimentation amongst the heterosexual. In the race to be the most Hindu ever, the state is becoming Abrahamic.
This is not about protecting children. That’s the responsibility of their parents, not of the state in general. This isn’t even about protecting the porn stars. That’s a legitimate task of the state but the state doesn’t do it. A blanket porn ban achieves nothing except pushing the industry to black market. And it makes the government claim a moral high stand.
Now we all know that porn is not simple. In India, the problem of revenge/boast porn is rampant. Guys shoot an encounter with or without permission and upload it for the world. This is a crime, and needs to be stopped. Sites with porn without consent or child pornography should be banned, of course. Unless they have a robust mechanism to identify and remove such content. But thats not the case here. No attempt is made to identify and target the right sites. Just a blanket porn ban.
To appease those who want to police the morality of others, we are making choice immoral. Porn ban does not solve any problem. In country after country, banning sexual entertainment doesn’t lead to lower sexual violence. The opposite in fact. And porn ban doesn’t even curb consumption. Pakistan is the largest consumer of porn in the world, despite the porn ban. And not safe for women, or for children.
There was a post recently about ISIS demanding |
pressure better than air. There is one caveat to consider, however. Access to nitrogen is limited in some areas, and it usually costs more to fill your tires with it. Just checking your tire pressure every couple weeks and filling up with air as needed is nearly as effective at maximizing fuel efficiency compared to going with nitrogen. That said, if you can find a local auto shop (e.g., Costco) that offers free nitrogen inflation, it’s worth making the switch.
Eco-friendly brake pads: Bosch introduced a new line of copper-free ceramic brake pads that are safer for the environment. Apparently, the copper that’s in traditional brake pads washes off into lakes and rivers, harming the wildlife in the process.
Asbestos fibers were traditionally used in making brake pads, but one eco-friendly alternative has proven to be safer and equally effective -- banana peels. That’s right, the same banana peels you toss in the trash (but should put in your compost bin) can be mixed with a resin to make brake pads that work just as good as the old asbestos pads.
Not sure if these banana peel brake pads are on the market yet, but keep an eye out for them at your local auto parts store.
Green Tires: Low-rolling-resistance tires improve fuel efficiency by reducing the amount of resistance between your tires and the road. This accounts for about 5-15% of your vehicle’s fuel economy, so you can get quite a big boost in fuel efficiency by going with a low-rolling-resistance tire. All major tire manufacturers offer these greener tire alternatives.
Electric conversion kit: This upgrade is far from inexpensive -- typically costing $3,500 to $10,000 – but I’ll include it to satisfy anyone out there looking to dominate the road with the ultimate green machine. These electric car conversion kits hit the market in 2008, and they work by replacing the dirty gas-powered engine with a clean 100% electric-driven motor.
The conversion process involves removing the engine, exhaust, fuel tank, radiator and several other components. The three main components of the electric kit include the batteries, controller and electric motor.
There are quick and dirty ways to build an electric car from all used parts, which would save you a bundle. This guy turned a Geo Metro into an electric car for next to nothing. He now gets the energy equivalent of 130 mpg in the car!
33. Watch less TV
The average American stares at a screen – TV, tablet and smartphone – for more than seven hours per day. That number is, in some cases, much higher for people like myself strapped to a computer all day.
Not including actual work you do on your computer or phone (Facebook, Instagram and selfies don’t count as work), turn off your electronic screens for an extra hour or two each day. Your energy savings will slowly add up over time, and who knows, you might actually discover that there’s a big beautiful world right outside your door.
34. Ditch plasma for LED
Speaking of TV watching…Plasma’s are the energy hogs of the flat screen world. Next time you replace your TV, consider an LED model. LED TVs are a type of LCD TV that utilize energy-efficient LEDs to light the screen.
A quality 50-inch LED TV typically costs less than $10 per year to power (assuming 5 hours of use per day). A plasma TV of the same size may suck down triple or quadruple that amount of juice.
Yeah, the running costs of any TV these days is far from exorbitant, but every little bit of energy savings helps.
Have a look at Energy Star’s list of the most efficient TVs for 2014:
35. Cover your swimming pool
It’s amazing how much energy you can save by using an inexpensive cover on your pool, such as those floating bubble covers. According to Energy.gov, a pool cover can reduce energy costs associated with heating a pool by as much as 70%.
EXAMPLE: Heating an average-sized pool to 80-degrees in Chicago during the summer months using a heat pump costs about $810 in energy costs. However, this figure is reduced to $105 when a cover is placed on the pool when not in use.
You can go a step further and ditch the heating unit altogether and just use the pool cover for all your heating needs. If your swimming pool gets a lot of direct sun, the pool cover alone can boost the water temp by 15-degrees or more.
36. Install an energy monitoring device
The only way to truly find out where energy is being wasted in your home or business is to install an energy monitoring system. These little doohickeys track energy usage throughout your home or building so you can see exactly which appliances and electronic devices are sucking the most power.
It’s totally possible to reduce your monthly energy expenses by 15% to as much as 40% by using an energy monitoring device. Prices vary significantly from as little as $25 for a single outlet model to $200 or more for a whole-home energy monitoring device.
37. Switch to rechargeable batteries
Recyclable batteries cost more than single-use batteries, but the gap is closing. Today, the availability of rechargeable batteries is far beyond what it was just a decade ago. Prices are also much cheaper than back then.
Are they really better for the environment, though? You betcha. Here are some of the benefits:
Production of rechargeable batteries consumes 23 times less non-renewable natural resources compared to single-use batteries
Rechargeable’s have 30 times less impact on air pollution, 28 times less impact on global warming and 12 times less impact on water pollution.
Much more efficient: You can recharge modern rechargeable batteries thousands of times where in the past most types could only be recharged hundreds of times at the most.
Needless to say, even rechargeable batteries die eventually. So, should you toss the dead ones into the trashcan? NO! Rechargeable batteries – including lithium ion (Li-Ion), nickel cadmium (Ni-Cd) and nickel metal hydride (Ni-MH) – should never end up in landfills.
Recycling rechargeable batteries is easy
Call2Recycle is a nonprofit company dedicated to ensuring these batteries are recycled rather than landfilled. Go to Call2Recycle’s locator map to find a battery recycling station near you.
Thanks for reading…
There are so many other ways to go green, but hopefully these tips will help give you a good start. Please share this article with friends and family if you found it useful. A more sustainable future is something we can all benefit from, and it all starts with educating each other about the benefits of preserving the environment in our day-to-day lives.Screen Shot 2016-09-30 at 12.36.39 PM.png
Hillary Clinton's lead over Donald Trump doubled Thursday (Sept. 29) to 10 points as Trump's support waned and Clinton's rose.
( (The Times-Picayune/Lucid))
Three days after the contentious first presidential debate, Democrat Hillary Clinton has doubled her lead to 10 points over Republican Donald Trump, according to the latest tracking data from The Times-Picayune/Lucid presidential poll. Clinton's support among likely voters grew three points Thursday (Sept. 29) to 45 percent, while Trump's dropped two points to 35 percent.
The poll is a non-probability survey based on more than 400 likely voters responding online each day. The results are based on a rolling, three-day weighted average. Likely voters are defined as those who say they are registered to vote and likely to vote Nov. 8.
Presidential election 2016: Daily tracking poll Where do Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, Gary Johnson and Jill Stein stand today?
The poll has been in the field since Aug. 1, asking the same questions each day. Thursday's widening is the first true reflection of the post-debate gap between the two candidates, who faced off Monday night in Hempstead, N.Y.
"Because we publish a three-day average, this is the first day in which all of the data collection occurred entirely after the presidential debate," said Eli Ackerman, Lucid's polling director. "All responses were collected between Tuesday and Thursday. In our releases on Wednesday and Thursday, some portion of the data was collected before the debate."
Trump's numbers have dipped in many national polls this week. That's likely a result of fallout from his widely panned debate performance and, perhaps, his continued attacks against former Miss Universe winner Alicia Machado, which intensified Friday.
Clinton had led 43-38 percent on Tuesday. Trump and Clinton each dropped a percentage point Wednesday, ceding a point to Green Party candidate Jill Stein and another to the number of undecided voters. Likely voters who still haven't made up their minds remains at 10 percent.
Stein lost a point Thursday to end up at 2 percent. Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson remained steady at 8 percent.
It's unclear whether Trump's supporters might be declining to participate in the poll because of his lately perceived poor showing. Ackerman said he hasn't seen much change in the number of Democrats and Republicans responding to the poll questions, although there could be some apathy among independents who lean toward one political party or the other.Post Brexit Scottish Attitudes Poll - Do Scots Want A Second Independence Referendum?
On behalf of Daily Record & Daily Mirror, Survation conducted polling by telephone Saturday looking at attitudes to a potential second Scottish Independence Referendum. Full data tables can be viewed here:
Sample Size - 1002 Scottish Adults aged 16+.
Fieldwork Date - June 25th
Method - Telephone (named person stratified sample landline & mobile phone combination contact points).
Weighting Targets - Data were weighted by sex, age, 2014 Scottish Independence Referendum vote (see note 1), 2016 Holyrood Constituency vote, likelihood to vote, and 8 category Scottish region.
EU Referendum Voting By Party
Although declared future likelihood to voting & declared turnout (2) is sytematically exaggerated in opinion polls, the declared Leave/Remain percentages by party among Scots in the EU Referendum were as follows:
Declared EU Referendum Splits Based on Holyrood 2016 Past Vote CON LAB LD SNP DNV Voted Leave 27% 17% 16% 29% 32% Voted Remain 73% 83% 84% 71% 68%
Declared EU Referendum Splits By Age
16-34 Voted Leave 23% Voted Remain 77%
35-54 Voted Leave 24% Voted Remain 76%
55+ Voted Leave 33% Voted Remain 67%
Do Scots Want A Second Independence Referendum Post Brexit?
Following the result of the UK's referendum on membership of the European Union, where the UK voted to leave, do you think?
Scotland should hold a second independence referendum - 41.9%
Scotland should not hold a second independence referendum - 44.7%
Don't know - 13.4%
=> Public support for a second referendum is split, with a small majority (52/48) of Scots currently against holding a second referendum:
If there was a referendum tomorrow with the question Should Scotland be an Independent country?, how would you vote?
Yes - 47.0%
No - 41.2%
Undecided - 10.0%
Refused/WNV - 2%
Base: Likely to Vote with undecided / refused removed
If there was a referendum tomorrow with the question “Should Scotland be an Independent country?”, how would you vote?
Yes - 54%
No - 46%
Notes
Scottish Independence past vote shows evidence of false recall - which is backed up by near perfect balance of recall for Holyrood 2016 vote so this sample does appear to be politically balanced Turnout was lower than expected in the UK’s independence referendum in Scotland on a relative basis vs more “leave” parts of the country. If higher turnout could be considered to have favoured remain this may explain this sample’s lower declared remain % vs actual 62/38 for Scotland as a whole. Turnout for a second Scotland Independence Referendum would be significantly higher based on the 2014 actual turnout %.
<ENDS>
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Feb. 12, 2016, 9:45 PM GMT / Updated Feb. 13, 2016, 12:32 AM GMT By Pete Williams, Corky Siemaszko and Elisha Fieldstadt
An Ohio man who slashed four restaurant patrons with a machete and was later killed by police had come to the attention of the FBI four years ago for radical comments, law enforcement officials said.
Agents took a brief look at Mohamed Barry but moved on, the officials said. The officials did not elaborate on the radical comments.
Investigators said Friday it is unknown why Barry, 30, attacked patrons at Nazareth Restaurant and Deli in Columbus shortly after 6 p.m. Thursday, or why he struck at that restaurant.
Barry was shot and killed by police at the end of a five-mile chase shortly after the rampage.
The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security have been called in to assist in the investigation.
"Based on the nature of the assault, we believed it prudent to bring in federal partners," Columbus Police Chief Kim Jacobs said. "We believed he acted alone... I'm not aware that we have any known history with the suspect."
Investigators are looking into whether Barry attacked the restaurant in the mistaken belief that owner Hany Baransi was Jewish, sources told NBC News. He is actually an Arab Christian from Haifa, Israel.
Barry, who lived in Columbus, had asked a worker at the Nazareth Restaurant and Deli where the owner was from a half hour before he started slashing, investigators said.
"Obviously we were targeted because there's a whole bunch of businesses around here," Baransi told the Columbus Dispatch. "I'm the only foreigner."
While police have confirmed that Barry questioned a restaurant worker before returning with the machete, Jacobs insisted "we do not have a known motive at this time."
Meanwhile, police identified the four survivors of the mayhem — William Foley, 54, Neil McMeekin, 43, Gerald Russell, 43, and Debbie Russell, 43.
Foley, who remains in critical but stable condition, was the most badly hurt victim.
Bill Foley was performing Thursday night at the Nazareth Restaurant and Deli when a man with a machete started attacking people. gofundme
Baransi said Foley is a musician who regularly performs at the restaurant.
"I wish that guy attacked me," he told the Dispatch. "Bill is gentle. He would not hurt a fly."
Foley's longtime friend Bonny Ryan Stem told NBC News the victim has a following in Columbus and also does Civil War reenactments.
"He is a very talented man," Stem said. "He is loving and kind and makes everyone feel as though they are his best friend. He is a very patriotic family man who loves his wife and his family."
It was dinnertime when Barry barged in and began attacking diners with his machete, police said.
The patrons fought back and hurled chairs at the intruder, police said. Baransi said one of his workers fended off Barry with the metal baseball bat he keeps behind the counter.
Barry fled the eatery in a white Toyota Corolla.
When cops caught up with Barry and forced his car into the curb, the suspect "lunged across the hood" with a machete and knife in his hand, Sgt. Rich Weiner told NBC affiliate WCMH Thursday night.
Police fired a Taser stun gun to try and stop him, Weiner said. When that didn't work, they fired their guns multiple times. The suspect was pronounced dead at the scene.
Baransi told the Columbus Dispatch the only reason he was not in the restaurant is that he had gone home that evening with a migraine.
"The one night I leave early this happens," Baransi told the newspaper, adding that he had not taken a night off since Jan. 2. "I feel so guilty for leaving my people."While last weeks blog focused on Michael Jackson’s influence on the music stars of today and the reason why they decided to pursue a career in music and dance, I wanted to discuss who were the performers that inspired and influenced Michael Jackson?
Michael grew up listening to and watching Motown, the Rat Pack and musicals. He has R&B and soul in his blood. He was influenced by performers from all forms of entertainment making tributes in his songs and dance to the following – James Brown, Fred Astaire, Sammy Davis Jr, Gene Kelly, Diana Ross, Marcel Marceau, Charlie Chaplin, Jackie Wilson, Frank Sinatra, Bob Fosse, The Bee Gees, Diana Ross, Chuck Berry, The Temptations, Etta James, Ray Charles and Mavis Staples.
James Brown
Michael’s biggest influence and his favourite performer was the Godfather of Soul, James Brown. Michael was blown away by James’ energy and charisma on stage. He loved the way James danced, the way he so effortlessly moved his feet when he would perform. As a child, Michael would watch James on television, eagerly trying to learn his dance steps. He would get very angry when the camera man wouldn’t show James’ feet.
“When I saw him move I was mesmerized. I’ve never seen a performer perform like James Brown and right then and there I knew that that was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.”
He performed with his idol in 1983 when Brown called him on stage to dance to his song.
He presented Brown with a BET Lifetime Achievement award in 2003 (see picture above) and spoke at his funeral in 2006 saying “James Brown was my greatest inspiration. Ever since I was a small child, no more than like six years old, my mother would wake me no matter what time it was, if I was sleeping, no matter what I was doing, to watch the television to see the master at work.”
Fred Astaire
Jackson, who had a thorough knowledge of the movie musical, revered Fred Astaire, star of Top Hat, Swing Time and the Towering Inferno. He records in his memoir how thrilled he was when Astaire praised him. He dedicated his 1988 biography Moonwalk to Astaire. The old master even invited him over to his house, where Jackson taught the moonwalk to him. Michael’s “Smooth Criminal” resembles Astaire’s musical “Band Wagon” from several moves to the similarity of the famous white jacket.
Following the 1983 performance of Billie Jean, Astaire called Jackson and said, “I watched it last night, and I taped it, and I watched it again this morning. You’re a helluva mover. You put the audience on their ASS last night!”
Astaire spoke fondly of Jackson before his death “I didn’t want to leave this world without knowing who my descendant was. Thank you Michael”
Charlie Chaplin
Undoubtedly, one aspect of Michael Jackson’s deep emotional identification with Charlie Chaplin was his shared experience of a pre-maturely terminated childhood. Jackson saw himself in Chaplin. Michael spent time in Charlie Chaplin’s home in Switzerland while recording his “Blood on the Dancefloor” album.
He stated “If I could work with anybody, it would be Charlie Chaplin who I love so much”
“You have to have that tragedy, that pain to pull from. That’s what makes a clown great. You can see he’s hurting behind the masquerade. He’s something else externally. Chaplin did that so beautifully, better than anyone.”
Michael released one of his favourite songs by Charlie Chaplin “Smile” in 1995.
Sammy Davis Jr.
Part of the Rat Pack with Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra, he became known as Mister Show Business and one of the greatest entertainers ever.
Michael idolised his singing and dancing and on Sammy’s 60th anniversary special he told Sammy, he wouldn’t be where he is today without his help. That is why he sang this tribute song to Sammy on that night.
Sammy Davis Jr. also paid tribute to Michael singing “Bad” and telling the audience the King of Pop was “more than a friend, he’s like a son”.
“I’ve known him since he was six years old and I’ve watched the growth in the man and how he’s grown as a performer, he’s fantastic, I don’t think he’s scratched the surface of where he’s gonna wind up in this business, it’s frightening to see him on stage”
Mavis Staples
Mavis Staples is an American rhythm and blues and gospel singer. She was part of the Staple’s Sisters from the 70’s and is still performing.
What many people don’t know is that Michael’s “shamone” is actually a tribute to Mavis’ song “I’ll Take You There” where she said that word in the song. He was clearly mesmerised by her.
Marcel Marceau
Jackson shared how much in awe he was of the performer, how “he would defy the laws of gravity.” The two developed a friendship over the last several decades.
He “learned a lot” from Marceau, Jackson said that his Moonwalk step was inspired by Marceau. “He was a great guy. I used to go see Marcel Marceau all of the time, before Off The Wall,” he said, with a smile. “I used to sneak in and sit in the audience and watch how he would defy the laws of gravity, like he was stepping on air.”
Jackie Wilson
Jackie Wilson was a Motown singer and one of the main influences of black pop’s transition from R&B into soul. He is probably best known for his song “Higher and Higher”.
Michael dedicated his album of the year for “Thriller” at the 1984 Grammy’s by saying “In the entertainment business, there are leaders and there are followers. And I just want to say that I think Jackie Wilson was a wonderful entertainer…I love you and thank you so much.”
It is clear how all of these icons of the entertainment industry had influenced Michael Jackson’s performances. He brought them all together and onto the biggest stages across the world. Every time you hear or see him he is bringing these influences to life.
AdvertisementsMastering Angular dependency injection with @Inject, @Injectable, tokens and providers
Providers in Angular are key to how we develop our applications, and injecting dependencies can be done in various ways. In this post, we’re going to debunk some terminology behind the @Inject() and @Injectable() decorators and explore the use cases for them. Then, we’ll dive into understanding tokens, providers and take a look behind the scenes at how Angular actually fetches and creates our dependencies, as well as some Ahead-of-Time source code explanations.
Injecting providers
With most things Angular, there is a lot of magic happening when it comes to dependency injection (DI). With Angular 1.x we had a pretty simple approach using string tokens to fetch particular dependencies - I’m sure you know this:
function SomeController ( $scope ) { // use $scope } SomeController. $inject = [ '$scope' ];
You can check out my old post on the DI annotation process for more on that if you like.
This was a great approach - but it came with some limitations. Typically we’d create various modules when building our applications, as well as importing external modules, such as feature modules or libraries (such as ui-router ). Different modules couldn’t have controllers/services/etc with the same names, which would then cause conflicts during the compile phase (as dependencies with the same names would clash, thus overriding each other).
Fortunately for us, Angular’s new dependency injection has been completely remastered and rewritten, and it comes with much more power and flexibility.
A new dependency injection system
When injecting a service (a provider) into your components/services, we specify what provider we need via a type definition in the constructor. For example:
import { Component } from '@angular/core' ; import { Http } from '@angular/http' ; @ Component ({ selector : 'example-component', template : '<div>I am a component</div>' }) class ExampleComponent { constructor ( private http : Http ) { // use `this.http` which is the Http provider } }
The type definition here is Http (note the capital H), and Angular automagically assigns this to http.
At this point, it’s pretty magical how it works. Type definitions are specific to TypeScript, so our compiled JavaScript code should theoretically not know anything about what our http parameter is when it comes to running it in the browser.
Inside our tsconfig.json files we’ll likely have emitDecoratorMetadata set to true. This emits metadata about the type of the parameter into a decorator in our compiled JavaScript output.
Let’s take a look at what our code actually gets compiled into (I’ve kept the ES6 imports in for clarity):
import { Component } from '@angular/core' ; import { Http } from '@angular/http' ; var ExampleComponent = ( function () { function ExampleComponent ( http ) { this. http = http ; } return ExampleComponent ; })(); ExampleComponent = __decorate ( [ Component ({ selector : 'example-component', template : '<div>I am a component</div>', }), __metadata ( 'design:paramtypes', [ Http ]), ], ExampleComponent );
From here, we can see the compiled code knows about http being equal to the Http service provided by @angular/http - it’s added as a decorator for our class here:
__metadata ( 'design:paramtypes', [ Http ]);
So essentially, the @Component decorator is transformed into plain ES5, and some additional metadata is supplied through the __decorate assignment. Which in turn tells Angular to lookup the Http token and supply it as a first parameter to the Component’s constructor - assigning it to this.http :
function ExampleComponent ( http ) { this. http = http ; }
This looks a little familiar to our old from $inject, however the class is being used as a token instead of a string. Power, and no naming conflicts.
You might have heard of the concept of a “token” (or even OpaqueToken ). This is how Angular stores and retrieves our providers. A token is a key that is used to reference a provider (our Http import is a provider). Unlike conventional keys however, these keys can be anything - such as objects, classes, strings, etc.
@Inject()
So where does @Inject come into play? We could alternatively write our component like this:
import { Component, Inject } from '@angular/core' ; import { Http } from '@angular/http' ; @ Component ({ selector : 'example-component', template : '<div>I am a component</div>' }) class ExampleComponent { constructor (@ Inject ( Http ) private http ) { // use `this.http` which is the Http provider } }
At this point, @Inject is a manual way of specifying this lookup token, followed by the lowercase http argument to tell Angular what to assign it against.
This could (and will) get very messy when a component or service requires a lot of dependencies. As Angular supports resolving dependencies from the emitted metadata, there’s no need to use @Inject most of the time.
The only time we’d need to use @Inject is alongside something like an OpaqueToken - which creates a unique blank token to be used as a dependency injection provider.
The reason we use @Inject is because we cannot use an OpaqueToken as the type of a parameter, for instance this will not work:
const myToken = new OpaqueToken ('myValue' ); @ Component (...) class ExampleComponent { constructor ( private token : myToken ) {} }
Here, myToken is not a Type, it’s a value - which means TypeScript cannot compile it. However, when we introduce @Inject alongside an OpaqueToken, things will work out nicely:
const myToken = new OpaqueToken ('myValue' ); @ Component (...) class ExampleComponent { constructor (@ Inject ( myToken ) private token ) { // use the provider for `token` } }
We won’t dive into OpaqueToken any further here, but this gives you an example of using @Inject for manually specifying tokens to be injected, as well as showing that the token can be anything. This means, we’re not restricted to what TypeScript classifies as a “type”.
@Injectable()
It’s a common misbelief that this is a required decorator on any class that we plan on injecting into a component/service in our apps. This may change however, as there is a current issue to make @Injectable() mandatory (however this is pretty fresh and may not land for a while, or ever).
When using Angular decorators, the decorated class stores metadata about itself in a format that Angular can read - this includes the metadata about what dependencies it needs to fetch and inject.
If no Angular decorator has been used on a class there is no way for Angular to read what dependencies it requires. This is why we need to use @Injectable().
If our service injects providers we must add @Injectable(), which providers no extra functionality, to tell Angular to store that metadata it needs.
Therefore, if our service looks like this:
export class UserService { isAuthenticated (): boolean { return true ; } }
We don’t need to decorate it to be able to inject it into a component for example, because it doesn’t inject any providers itself.
However, if our service looks like this and contains a dependency (Http):
import { Http } from '@angular/http' ; export class UserService { constructor ( private http : Http ) {} isAuthenticated (): Observable < boolean > { return this. http. get ( '/api/user' ). map (( res ) => res. json ()); } }
This would break as the Http provider metadata would not be stored for Angular to compose it correctly.
We can simply add @Injectable() to solve this:
import { Injectable } from '@angular/core' ; import { Http } from '@angular/http' ; @ Injectable () export class UserService { constructor ( private http : Http ) {} isAuthenticated (): Observable < boolean > { return this. http. get ( '/api/user' ). map (( res ) => res. json ()); } }
At this point, Angular is aware of the Http token and can supply it to http.
Tokens and Dependency Injection
Now that we know how Angular knows what to inject, we can learn how it resolves our dependencies and instantiates them.
Registering a provider
Let’s take a look at how we’d register a typical service inside an NgModule.
import { NgModule } from '@angular/core' ; import { AuthService } from './auth.service' ; @ NgModule ({ providers : [ AuthService ], }) class ExampleModule {}
The above is shorthand for this:
import { NgModule } from '@angular/core' ; import { AuthService } from './auth.service' ; @ NgModule ({ providers : [ { provide : AuthService, useClass : AuthService, }, ], }) class ExampleModule {}
The provide property in the object is the token for the provider that we’re registering. This means that Angular can look up what is stored under the token for AuthService using the useClass value.
This provides many benefits. The first, we can now have two providers with the exact same class name and Angular will not have any issues in resolving the correct service. Secondly, we can also override an existing provider with a different provider whilst keeping the token the same.
Overriding providers
Here’s what our AuthService might look like:
import { Injectable } from '@angular/core' ; import { Http } from '@angular/http' ; @ Injectable () export class AuthService { constructor ( private http : Http ) {} authenticateUser ( username : string, password : string ): Observable < boolean > { // returns true or false return this. http. post ( '/api/auth', { username, password }); } getUsername (): Observable < string > { return this. http. post ( '/api/user' ); } }
Imagine we use this service heavily throughout our application. For instance, our (streamlined) login form uses it to log the user in:
import { Component } from '@angular/core' ; import { AuthService } from './auth.service' ; @ Component ({ selector : 'auth-login', template : ` <button (click)="login()"> Login </button> ` }) export class LoginComponent { constructor ( private authService : AuthService ) {} login () { this. authService. authenticateUser ( 'toddmotto','straightouttacompton' ). subscribe (( status : boolean ) => { // do something if the user has logged in }); } }
Then we can bind our user information using the service to display the username:
@ Component ({ selector : 'user-info', template : ` <div> You are {{ username }}! </div> ` }) class UserInfoComponent implements OnInit { username : string ; constructor ( private authService : AuthService ) {} ngOnInit () { this. authService. getUsername (). subscribe (( username : string ) => this. username = username ); } }
We then hook this all up into a module, such as AuthModule :
import { NgModule } from '@angular/core' ; import { AuthService } from './auth.service' ; import { LoginComponent } from './login.component' ; import { UserInfoComponent } from './user-info.component' ; @ NgModule ({ declarations : [ LoginComponent, UserInfoComponent ], providers : [ AuthService ], }) export class AuthModule {}
There could also be various components that use the same AuthService. But let’s assume we now have a new requirement, and need to change our authentication method over to a library that lets us use Facebook to log users in.
We could go through every single component and change all the imports to point to this new provider, however we can instead utilise the power of tokens and override our AuthService to use the FacebookAuthService :
import { NgModule } from '@angular/core' ; // totally made up import { FacebookAuthService } from '@facebook/angular' ; import { AuthService } from './auth.service' ; import { LoginComponent } from './login.component' ; import { UserInfoComponent } from './user-info.component' ; @ NgModule ({ declarations : [ LoginComponent, UserInfoComponent ], providers : [ { provide : AuthService, useClass : FacebookAuthService, }, ], }) export class AuthModule {}
So you can see here we’re using the long-hand form of registering the provider, and essentially swapping out the useClass property with a different value. This way, we can use AuthService everywhere in our application - without making further changes.
This is because Angular uses AuthService as the token to search for our provider. As we’ve replaced it with a new class FacebookAuthService, all of our components will use that instead.
Understanding Injectors
If you’ve made it this far, you should hopefully have an understanding of tokens and the dependency injection system of Angular, however in this next chapter - we’re actually going to break down the compiled AoT code from Angular to walk through it a little further.
Pre-compiled code
Before we dive into the compiled code, let’s look at the pre-compiled version of the code. Precompiled? That’s the code you and I write before Ahead-of-Time compilation, so essentially everything you write is pre-compiled and Angular can either compile it in the browser for you via JiT or for a more performant approach we can offline compile (AoT).
So, let’s assume you’ve built out your application - but we’re just going to walk through a single piece of NgModule code:
import { NgModule } from '@angular/core' ; import { BrowserModule } from '@angular/platform-browser' ; import { Routes, RouterModule } from '@angular/router' ; import { HttpModule } from '@angular/http' ; import { AppComponent } from './app.component' ; export const ROUTER_CONFIG : Routes = [ { path : '', loadChildren : './home/home.module#HomeModule' }, { path : 'about', loadChildren : './about/about.module#AboutModule' }, { path : 'contact', loadChildren : './contact/contact.module#ContactModule' }, ]; @ NgModule ({ imports : [ BrowserModule, HttpModule, RouterModule. forRoot ( ROUTER_CONFIG )], bootstrap : [ AppComponent ], declarations : [ AppComponent ], }) export class AppModule {}
This should look pretty familiar - we have a root component and some routes that we’re routing to different modules with. So what’s the real code look like, as we know Angular is compiled?
Angular will produce VM (virtual machine) friendly code, to make it as performant as possible, which is fantastic. What we’ll do is dive into that compiled code and explain it a little further.
AppModuleInjector
Angular will generate an injector for each of our modules, so in our case it will take AppModule (our decorated class) and create an injector named AppModuleInjector.
Let’s look at the generated code for our AppModuleInjector and break it down:
import { NgModuleInjector } from '@angular/core/src/linker/ng_module_factory' ; import { CommonModule } from '@angular/common/src/common_module' ; import { ApplicationModule, _localeFactory } from '@angular/core/src/application_module' ; import { BrowserModule, errorHandler } from '@angular/platform-browser/src/browser' ; import { RouterModule, ROUTER_FORROOT_GUARD } from '@angular/router/src/router_module' ; import { NgLocaleLocalization, NgLocalization } from '@angular/common/src/localization' ; import { ApplicationInitStatus, APP_INITIALIZER } from '@angular/core/src/application_init' ; import { Testability, TestabilityRegistry } from '@angular/core/src/testability/testability' ; import { HttpModule } from '@angular/http/src/http_module' ; import { ApplicationRef, ApplicationRef_ } from '@angular/core/src/application_ref' ; import { BrowserModule } from '@angular/platform-browser/src/browser' ; import { Injector } from '@angular/core/src/di/injector' ; import { LOCALE_ID } from '@angular/core/src/i18n/tokens' ; import { RouterModule, provideForRootGuard } from '@angular/router/src/router_module' ; import { Router } from '@angular/router/src/router' ; import { NgZone } from '@angular/core/src/zone/ng_zone' ; import { Console } from '@angular/core/src/console' ; import { ROUTES } from '@angular/router/src/router_config_loader' ; import { ErrorHandler } from '@angular/core/src/error_handler' ; import { AppModule } from './app.module' ; import { AppComponentNgFactory } from './app.component.ngfactory' ; class AppModuleInjector extends NgModuleInjector < AppModule > { _CommonModule_0 : CommonModule ; _ApplicationModule_1 : ApplicationModule ; _BrowserModule_2 : BrowserModule ; _ROUTER_FORROOT_GUARD_3 : any ; _RouterModule_4 : RouterModule ; _HttpModule_5 : HttpModule ; _AppModule_6 : AppModule ; _ErrorHandler_7 : any ; _ApplicationInitStatus_8 : ApplicationInitStatus ; _Testability_9 : Testability ; _ApplicationRef__10 : ApplicationRef_ ; __ApplicationRef_11 : any ; __ROUTES_12 : any []; constructor ( parent : Injector ) |
my direct participation to effect relationships, change, and understanding through re-definition till the outcome of ALL relationships on Earth, by all participants, is ALWAYS what is best for all life
I commit myself to walk the time that is required to delete through self-forgiveness from my flesh the abuse that I have allowed the living flesh to become, and then to re-birth myself and gift to my flesh Life, as what is best for all Life, as the living participant, till this is done. Clearly stable, trustworthy, effective, and it results in a world changed to in every way reflect that which is best for all life.
I commit myself to prepare the way before all children to be that of life by confronting the accepted foundation as parenting of the world system as it reflects in education, religion, government, and all other systems that protect the current abusive parental system until parenting is in fact that which guarantee that in every way every child will always be educated to be that which is best for all life, and through this we will guarantee a world that is best for all.
I commit myself to unlock the prison of this world through free-choice and to give the key through understanding of how the key functions to everyone else, so that they can also unlock their prisons as I understand that each key has been uniquely created by each person themselves, and therefore alone each one can unlock their own prison door, but I can support them and haunt them until they realize the confinement they find themselves in is their own personal hell from which they are free to escape - if they dare.
I commit myself to not accept any excuse in any way that justifies why the prison on Earth should continue.
I commit myself to be the parent I must be with my children, so that they will result in the living flesh that is freely life in expression here on Earth.Since the dawn of modern warfare, the best way to stay alive in the face of incoming fire has been to take cover behind a wall. But thanks to a game-changing "revolutionary" rifle, the U.S. Army has made that tactic dead on arrival. Now the enemy can run, but he can't hide.
After years of development, the U.S. Army has unleashed a new weapon in Afghanistan -- the XM25 Counter Defilade Target Engagement System, a high-tech rifle that can be programmed so that its 25-mm. ammunition detonates either in front of or behind a target, meaning it can be fired just above a wall before it explodes and kills the enemy.
It also has a range of roughly 2,300 feet -- nearly the length of eight football fields -- making it possible to fire at targets well past the range of the rifles and carbines that most soldiers carry today.
Lt. Col. Christopher Lehner, project manager for the semi-automatic, shoulder-fired weapon system for the U.S. Army's Program Executive Office Soldier, said that the XM25's capability alone is such a "game-changer" that it'll lead to new ways of fighting on the battlefield, beginning this month in Afghanistan.
"With this weapon system, we take away cover from [enemy targets] forever," Lehner told FoxNews.com on Wednesday. "Tactics are going to have to be rewritten. The only thing we can see [enemies] being able to do is run away."
And that would make it much easier for U.S. troops to put them in their sights, either with that same XM25 or another direct-fire weapon.
With this new weapon in the Army's arsenal, Lehner said, "We're much more effective, by many magnitudes, than current weapons at the squad level. We're able to shoot farther and more accurately, and our soldiers can stay behind sandbags, walls or rocks, which provides them protection from fire."
Lehner said the first XM25s were distributed to combat units in Afghanistan this month. The 12-pound, 29-inch system, which was designed by Minnesota's Alliant Techsystems, costs up to $35,000 per unit and, while highly sophisticated, is so easy to use that soldiers become proficient within minutes.
"That's how intuitively easy it is, even though it's high-tech," Lehner said. "All a soldier needs to know how to do is laze the target. It decimates anything within its lethal radius."
Once the trigger is pulled and the round leaves the barrel, a computer chip inside the projectile communicates exactly how far it has traveled, allowing for precise detonation behind or ahead of any target.
"We have found that this has really made our soldiers so much more accurate and being able to deliver this high-explosive round in about five seconds," said Lehner, taking into account the time it takes a soldier to laze, aim and fire the weapon. Once fired, Lehner said, the round will reach its target in a "second or two," meaning the entire process from aiming to direct hit lasts less than 10 seconds, compared to 10 minutes or longer for traditional mortar fire.
A potential battlefield scenario, according to Army officials, might go something like this:
-- A patrol encounters an enemy combatant in a walled Afghan village who fires an AK-47 intermittently from behind cover, exposing himself only for a brief second to fire.
-- The patrol's leader calls for the XM25 gunman, who uses the weapon's laser range finder to calculate the distance to the target.
-- He then uses an incremental button located near the trigger to add 1 meter to the round's distance, since the enemy is hiding behind a wall.
-- The round is fired, and it explodes with a blast comparable to a hand grenade past the wall and above the enemy.
"This is revolutionary for many reasons," Lehner said, citing increased efficiency, safety and lethality. "This is the first time we're putting smart technology in an individual weapon system for our soldiers. We feel it's very important to field this because it keeps us ahead of the technological curve of our potential enemies. We have a feeling other people will try to copy us -- this is the future."
Lehner said the Army plans to purchase at least 12,500 XM25 systems beginning next year -- enough for one system in each infantry squad and Special Forces team.
The military isn't overly concerned that the weapon might be captured by the enemy, because they would be unable to obtain its highly specialized ammunition, batteries and other components. Lehner said he expects other nations will try to copy its technology, but it will be very cost-prohibitive.
"This is a game-changer," Lehner said. "The enemy has learned to get cover, for hundreds if not thousands of years.
"Well, they can't do that anymore. We're taking that cover from them and there's only two outcomes: We're going to get you behind that cover or force you to flee. So no matter what, we gotcha."America’s largest online retailer has no plans to hop on the Bitcoin bandwagon. Amazon’s head of payments told Re/Code that the company has no current plans to accept the digital currency. “Obviously it gets a lot of press and we have considered it,” he said, “but we’re not hearing from customers that it’s right for them.”
Despite widespread media coverage, Bitcoin is not currently accepted by many traditional retailers. Overstock.com is one of the largest online stores to accept the currency. Several vendors of digital cift cards, such as Gyft and eGifter, do accept Bitcoin, so people can buy cards through those channels and then spend them at Wal-Mart, Target and other big stores.
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The value of Bitcoins has fluctuated wildly in the last week on conflicting reports that Chinese government is planning to ban the country’s banks from working with Bitcoin-related businesses. The currency was valued at $495 early Tuesday.
Contact us at editors@time.com.A new paper argues that the decline of the labor and capital shares, as well as the decline in low-skilled wages and other economic trends, have been aided by a significant increase in markups and market power.
Of the various ills that currently plague the American economy, one that has economists particularly worried is the decline in the labor share—that is, the part of national income that’s allocated to wages.
The two standard explanations for why labor’s share of output has fallen by 10 percent over the past 30 years are globalization (American workers are losing out to their counterparts in places like China and India) and automation (American workers are losing out to robots). Last year, however, a highly-cited Stigler Center paper by Simcha Barkai offered another explanation: an increase in markups. The capital share of GDP, which includes what companies spend on equipment like robots, is also declining, he found. What has gone up, significantly, is the profit share, with profits rising more than sixfold: from 2.2 percent of GDP in 1984 to 15.7 percent in 2014. This, Barkai argued, is the result of higher markups, with the trend being more pronounced in industries that experienced large increases in concentration.
A new paper by Jan De Loecker (of KU Leuven and Princeton University) and Jan Eeckhout (of the Barcelona Graduate School of Economics UPF and University College London) echoes these results, arguing that the decline of both the labor and capital shares, as well as the decline in low-skilled wages and other economic trends, have been aided by a significant increase in markups and market power.
In order to document the rise of market power across the U.S. economy throughout six decades, the authors rely on Compustat data from 1950 to 2014. Since privately-held firms are not required to disclose financial information, they note, their dataset includes only publicly-traded firms (which still account for a third of total U.S. employment and 41 percent of sales). Furthermore, since Compustat data represent only a sample, they then compare their results with aggregate data from the IRS.
Measuring markups, De Loecker explained in a conversation with ProMarket, is notoriously difficult due to the scarcity of data. In attempting to track markups across a wide set of firms and industries, De Loecker and Eeckhout diverged from the standard way in which Industrial Organization economists look at markups, the so-called “demand approach,” which requires a lot of data on consumer demand (prices, quantities, characteristics of products) and models of how firms compete. The standard approach, explains De Loecker, works when it is tailor-made for particular markets, but is “not feasible” when studying markups across many markets and over a long period of time.
To do that, De Loecker and Eeckhout use another approach, the “production approach,” which relies on standard, publicly-available balance sheet data and an assumption that firms will try to minimize costs, and does not require other assumptions regarding demand and market competition.
Using this approach, De Loecker and Eeckhout find that between 1950 and 1980, markups were more or less stable at around 20 percent above marginal cost, and even slightly decreased from 1960 onward. Since 1980, however, markups have increased significantly: on average, firms charged 67 percent over marginal cost in 2014, compared with 18 percent in 1980.
Markups, De Loecker and Eeckhout note, do not necessarily imply market power—but profits do. The enormous increase in profits over the past 35 years, they argue, is consistent with an increase in market power. “In perfect competition, your costs and total sales are identical, because there’s no difference between price and marginal costs. The extent to which these two numbers—the sales-to-wage bill and total-costs-to-wage bill—start differing is going to be immediately indicative of the market power,” says De Loecker.
Markup increases, De Loecker and Eeckhout find, became more pronounced following the 2000 and 2008 recessions. Curiously, they find that economy-wide it is mainly smaller firms that have the higher markups, which according to De Loecker is indicative of widely different characteristics between various industries. Within narrowly defined industries, however, the standard prediction holds: firms with larger market shares have higher markups as well. “Most of the action happens within industries, where we see the big guys getting bigger and their markups increase,” De Loecker explains.
The economic implications of market power
In recent years, a growing body of literature has linked the rise of market power to several adverse economic trends, such as the decline in new business start-ups, diminishing competition, and rising income inequality.
Likewise, De Loecker and Eeckhout argue that the increase in market power is consistent with a number of economic trends, among them the decline in the labor and capital shares, declining wages for low-skilled workers, decreases in labor force participation, flows, and interstate migration rates, as well as slowing GDP growth.
While some economists argue that the decline in the labor share is largely due to the transition of the U.S. economy from manufacturing to service industries, De Loecker and Eeckhout dispute this approach: most of the transition from manufacturing to services, they contend, happened before the late 1980s and has since slowed down. The decline in the labor share, they find, is closely linked to the rise in markups, especially since 1980. And while growth has been high during the 1980s and 1990s, they argue, the slowdown in GDP in the past decade, since the financial crisis, coincided with the sharper increase in market power.
“If you get a productivity shock in perfect competition, you’re just going to pass on that productivity gain to your consumers. Your costs go down and mechanically price goes down for everybody,” says De Loecker. “But if you have a bit of market power, you’re going to hold some of those cost savings in your own pocket, and the wedge between price and cost is going to increase. If you don’t produce as much as you would in a perfect competitive outcome, you’re not going to need as much labor, you’re not going to need as much capital, and there’s not going to be that much entry. That kind of insight almost naturally gives rise to all those implications.”
Market power, De Loecker and Eeckhout note, is far from the only force contributing to these trends, and the paper does not attempt to establish any causal link. “We are providing a very simple Econ 101 explanation,” says De Loecker. “If firms’ costs minimize and markups go up, it’s almost a direct implication that their expenditure for labor over sales will go down. If I’m a monopolist, I’m going to reduce quantity, so I need fewer workers, then my prices go up, and my profits go up. It’s almost a direct consequence of the optimal behavior of the firm. Essentially, nominal and real wages will go down, which is something that we see in the data, flows will go down across sectors, and you will see participation going down. Those are the logical implications for market power.”
Disclaimer: The ProMarket blog is dedicated to discussing how competition tends to be subverted by special interests. The posts represent the opinions of their writers, not those of the University of Chicago, the Booth School of Business, or its faculty. For more information, please visit ProMarket Blog Policy.Jackie Robinson West Players Heckled At Friday's Blackhawks Game
By Chuck Sudo in News on Feb 15, 2015 5:00PM
The Chicago Blackhawks did a classy thing Friday night and honored a prior commitment to host the Jackie Robinson West Little League baseball team during Friday night's win over the New Jersey Devils. The Blackhawks could have rescinded the offer after Little League International stripped JRW of its national championship after determining the team's managers used a false boundary map to recruit players from outside its district. Why punish the kids further for the actions of some adults?
Unfortunately, some adults didn't get the memo.
At this stage the truly adult thing JRW management (or the parents of the team's players) should do would be to sit their kids down and say "this isn't your fault." But JRW retained attorneys Thursday; manager Darold Butler, team director Bill Haley and Illinois District 4 administrator Michael Kelly weren't talking to anyone outside of Little League International officials before the lawyers arrived; and it's possible some of the parents may be aware of what JRW was doing.
But that won't stop some meatheads from painting everyone involved with the team as cheaters and it's likely those are the same meatheads who become a bit too competitive at their own children's Little League baseball games, Pop Warner football games, youth hockey and soccer contests and even Easter egg rolls.
Let the kids have their moment and try to separate the actions of a few adults from the pleasant experiences these kids had last summer. This is already stressful enough for them to process without a Greek Chorus of Idiots passing judgment on them.
[WGN TV]Earlier this month, SB 239, which is a bill that reduces the penalty for knowingly exposing people to the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) from a felony to a misdemeanor, was signed into law by California’s Governor Jerry Brown (D). According to supports of the bill, like its sponsor, Sen. Scott Wiener (D-CA), doing so will destigmatize the dangerous sexually transmitted disease (STD), which will supposedly help stop it from continuing to spread.
While this may seem like a good idea in theory, in reality, it puts countless lives in potential danger. This is because it’s now easier for people to get away with intentionally trying to cause harm to others by knowingly infecting them with the STD, which sadly, is not entirely uncommon.
For example, just recently, Daryll Rowe, a 26-year-old hairdresser from Edinburgh, Scotland was arrested and charged with “intentionally infecting” four men, and “attempting to infect” a further six, with HIV in what officers called a “cynical campaign” to give the disease to as many people as possible.
According to reports, Rowe would find other guys on Grindr, a gay dating app, lie to them about being HIV-free, and then meet up with them to have unprotected sex in hopes of giving them the disease. If the person he was meeting up with insisted that he wear a condom anyway, he would allegedly cut the tip off of the condom before proceeding.
After infecting his victim’s, Rowe would then engage in mockery and celebrate infecting them. For instance, after hearing that one of the men he had slept with was sick with the fever, he sent him a message saying, “maybe you have the fever cos I came inside you and I have HIV, lol. Whoops!” In another case, he reportedly laughed at another one of his victim’s over the phone while making fun of him about his potential diagnosis.
In court, prosecutors spoke at length about his horrific behavior. “With full knowledge, putting others at risk, he embarked on what was a cynical and deliberate campaign to infect other men with the HIV virus,” argued Caroline Carberry, one of the prosecutors involved in the case, noting, “unfortunately for some of the men he met, his campaign was successful.”
To clarify, she stated, “he had numerous, casual sexual relationships with men he met via Grindr…He deceived each of those men into believing he was HIV-negative…He reassured the men he was clean and when they insisted on a condom, he deliberately sabotaged the condom.”
When confronted by the victims, Carberry mentioned that Rowe responded by sending cruel text messages. “Many of [the victims] were sent abusive and mocking messages,” explained Carberry.
At least one of Rowe’s victims were also present to testify against him. “First of all, I had really swollen glands in my neck like golf balls. Shivery. Hot and cold at night. Couldn’t eat. Couldn’t walk. I was just really ill. I thought maybe I caught [a] glandular fever from him.” recalled an unidentified victim during Rowe’s trial. Upon learning that it was not a fever, but actually HIV, he was understandably outraged. “I couldn’t believe it really. He’s obviously f***ed up in the head,” he told the court.
Although the trial against Rowe is still ongoing, it’s likely that he’ll be found guilty. Hopefully, once convicted, he’s punished as harshly as possible for intentionally infecting others with a dangerous disease to deter others from doing something similar.CLEVELAND, Ohio -- David Griffin took over as general manager of the Cavaliers on Feb. 6, 2014. He actually was an "interim" general manager. He was promoted for the rest of the season after owner Dan Gilbert fired Chris Grant.
Question: Who came to Cleveland in Griffin's first trade?
Answer: Spencer Hawes.
Question: Who was the first player Griffin sought to acquire?
Answer: Channing Frye.
In February of 2014, Frye was starting for the Phoenix Suns, averaging 11.1 points, 5.1 rebounds and shooting 43 percent.
Why the fascination with Frye? He is a 6-foot-11 power forward/center who can shoot from 3-point range. He is a solid low-post defender, a decent rebounder.
Basketball analytics that put emphasis on making the 3-point shot put a smiling face next to Frye's name.
The Suns didn't want to trade Frye in 2014. So Griffin shopped for another big man who could shoot, settling on the 7-foot Hawes. The new general manager sent two second-round picks, Earl Clark and Henry Sims -- how do you like those names? -- to Philadelphia for Hawes.
In 27 games for the Cavs, Hawes averaged 13.5 points, 7.7 rebounds and shot 45 percent from 3-point range.
So it was a nice little deal.
WAY BACK WITH FRYE
The Cavs first tried to sign Frye in the summer of 2009. He was a free agent who averaged only 4.2 points, shooting 42 percent for Portland. Then-GM Danny Ferry wanted to add shooters around LeBron James, especially a big man who could shoot from 3-point range.
Yes, that's been a prevailing theme for the general managers of James for years -- find shooters.
Back in 2009, the Cavs were way over the salary cap. They could only offer Frye a minimum contract. Instead, he signed a two-year, $3.8 million deal with Phoenix.
Frye is from Phoenix and played at the University of Arizona. So the Cavs had little chance of signing him unless they significantly outbid Phoenix. The salary cap prevented them from doing so.
I mention this story simply because it's the first time Frye popped up on their radar screen.
MEANWHILE, IN PHOENIX
When Frye signed with the Suns, Griffin was the assistant to Suns general manager Steve Kerr. Both loved Frye's game and believed he'd thrive in their run-and-gun system. Frye averaged a career high 11.2 points for the Suns in 2009-10. That led to the Suns signing him to an extension through the summer of 2014.
Griffin spent the 2009-10 season watching Frye, appreciating the big man's professionalism. Frye was willing to start or come off the bench -- and to defend power forwards and centers. He studied the game and became one of Griffin's favorites.
After the 2009-10 season, Kerr and Griffin resigned. Griffin was hired as the assistant general manager to Grant in Cleveland in September of 2010.
So when Griffin took over the Cavs, he picked up the phone and tried to obtain Frye. The Suns were not interested in trading him anywhere.
THE BACK UP PLAN
On July 1, 2014, James became a free agent. So did Frye. The Cavs didn't know if James would return. They hoped so. They courted him.
But Griffin also was working on a back-up plan. What if James stayed in Miami? He talked a lot to Frye about coming to the Cavs. Griffin also was looking at other players such as Chandler Parsons and Gordon Haywood.
But they had to wait on James. What James decided would determine what happened with the franchises in Cleveland and Miami.
By July 7, Frye had a firm four-year, $32 million offer from Orlando. He was very interested in Cleveland and playing for Griffin, who no longer carried the "interim" tag to his job title. But he couldn't wait much longer and eventually went to Orlando.
On July 11, James announced his return to the Cavs.
IT'S NOT OVER
In January of 2015, Griffin made two major trades that saved the season. That's when he turned Dion Waiters and two first-round picks into J.R. Smith, Iman Shumpert and Timofey Mozgov.
But he also tried to trade for Frye during that period, without success. The next attempt came near the 2015 trading deadline. Orlando coach Scott Skiles loved having Frye and wanted to keep the veteran for his leadership.
In the summer of 2015, Griffin asked yet again about Frye -- but Orlando was not interested.
PERSISTENCE PAYS OFF
This season's trading deadline was Feb. 18. Griffin had a few deals in the works. One would send Anderson Varejao to Portland. It was a salary cap-driven deal, one that would save the Cavs about $50 million on the luxury tax.
Owner Dan Gilbert could have stopped right there, saving the cash. But Griffin still wanted Frye. Sharing the court with Kyrie Irving and/or James would create a lot of open 3-pointers for Frye, as they had for Smith and other Cavs.
Orlando's season was a mess. This time, the Magic were willing to dump Frye's salary and rebuild. Griffin found a way to pick up Frye, and still save $15 million in luxury tax. Gilbert gave the green light. He could have kept the $50 million after the Varejao deal, but the basketball people had long convinced the owner of Frye's value.
Besides, from the start of these talks, Griffin wanted to turn Varejao into Frye.
THE VAREJAO DEAL
Here was Varajao's contract:
2015-16: $9.7 million.
$9.7 million. 2016-17: $9.3 million.
$9.3 million. 2017-18: $10 million, $1 million guaranteed.
The Cavs sent Varejao and a 2018 first-round pick to Portland (protected 1-10) so the Blazers could take on Varejao's contract. Portland wanted the future pick. The Blazers cut Varejao, who then signed with Golden State.
Vareajo has played only 30 minutes in the postseason, scoring seven points for the Warriors.
THE FRYE DEAL
Here was Frye's contract:
2015-16: $8.1 million.
$8.1 million. 2016-17: $7.8 million.
$7.8 million. 2017-18: $7.4 million.
Orlando wanted to get rid of the contract. The Magic took backup guard Jared Cunningham and a future second-round pick. The Cavs had a $9.6 million trade exception that was used as well.
Between the two deals, the Cavs traded Varejao, Cunningham, a first- and a second-round pick. They added Frye and saved $15 million on the salary cap.
They see Frye as protection for the likelihood of losing center Timofey Mozgov to free agency this summer. He also is depth in case Kevin Love is injured.
This was not just a quick fix deal, the Cavs want him for a few years.
THE IMMEDIATE PAYOFF
Frye will turn 33 on May 17. He still can really shoot. He averaged 6.0 points and 3.3 rebounds in the regular season for the Cavs, playing only 17 minutes a game. He shot 39 percent on 3-pointers.
The Cavs knew his real value would be in the playoffs. Coach Tyronn Lue played Frye only 29 minutes in the first round. But in the second round, Frye's time came. He scored 55 points in 77 minutes in the sweep of the Hawks. He was 20-of-31 from the field (11-of-19 on 3-pointers).
Players such as Frye help teams contend. Think of Robert Horry in the old days with San Antonio. Their long-range shooting can shred defenses and bring instant offense off the bench.
This was not Griffin's biggest deal. But this is an important one, as Cavs fans saw in the Atlanta series.This past year I read 56 books. That’s slightly off the pace of 60 books a year that I’ve set over the previous 12 years, but then I did read a lot of very long history books this year — yes, I’m looking at you, Robert Caro – and my wife and I did make a very time-consuming move to Canada late in the year. Or at least that’s what I’m telling myself. Maybe the real answer is that I’m just getting tired of trying to read so damn many books.
I know how many books I read because I’ve kept a list of every book I’ve finished since January 1, 2000. As of today, my total for books read in the new millennium stands at 776, of which 368 were fiction or poetry and 408 were nonfiction or memoir. Just less than 30 percent of those books, a total of 229, were written by women. At one point, I tried to keep track of how many of the authors I read were non-white, but the racial demarcations became so tangled — what to make of Bliss Broyard, a white writer who wrote a book about her father, Anatole, who concealed his (nearly invisible) African-American heritage until his death? — that I gave up.
As you can see, I’m a wee bit obsessive about my book lists. I’m deeply competitive, too. Because books are long, and because, in addition to holding down a number of teaching and freelance-writing gigs, I am also the primary caregiver for our six year old, my reading time is limited, which means I have to pace myself. I long ago figured out that to reach my goal of reading 60 books a year, I needed to average five books a month, or a little more than a book a week. For years now, reading has been something like training for a marathon. I keep mental tallies of how many pages I’ve read per night, and how many more pages I need to read in the next few days to keep to my average. In 2011, after years of hovering in the mid-50s, when my annual average hit precisely 60 — that is, 720 books read over 12 years — I did a private victory lap.
And that, finally, is what is so bizarre about my little obsession: I’m competing with no one. No one even knows I keep the lists. Once, some years ago before we adopted our son, I bragged to my wife that I had read 66 books in the previous year. She was appalled. Here she was busting her ass working long hours at her high-level job at the United Nations, and I had time to read 66 books a year? Needless to say, that was the last time I bragged to her about how many books I’d read. In fact, aside from a few deliberately vague references to members of my family, all my mental gymnastics over how many pages I read in an evening and how well I was keeping to my five-books-a-month pace has remained a well-kept secret.
In an odd way, the fact that no one else knows has made me more competitive, not less. I’m sure serious runners are familiar with this seeming paradox. Maybe nobody else knows that you shaved 1.2 seconds off your personal best time for the mile, but you know — and that knowledge, plus the fact that your achievement has brought you no external reward, gives you a perverse sense of satisfaction. Or no, let’s be honest about this: it gives you a perverse sense of superiority.
Because in the end, whether you’re recording how many seconds it takes you to run a mile or how many books you read in a year, what you are really doing is finding a way to quantify your inner sense of self-worth. For some people, their self-worth is bound up in the way they look, but beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so physical fitness — the number of seconds shaved off personal-best times, the number of reps at a certain weight, and so on — becomes a convenient proxy. In my case, I care about being seen as smart. In our culture, bookishness is a signifier of intellectual capacity, so the more books I read, the smarter I must be. That no one else knows is not merely beside the point; it heightens the sense of achievement. I’m a genius, I’ve been quietly telling myself for the past 13 years, and nobody even knows it.
This is made all the more complicated, and in a certain way more poignant, by the fact that I am a writer, so far not a terribly successful one. The problem isn’t so much that I’ve managed to publish only a handful of stories in literary magazines and have two unpublished novels languishing in my digital bottom drawer. That is galling, of course, but the real problem is that until very recently, my work just wasn’t very good. Unsuccessful writers tend not to say this aloud very often, at least not in public. It’s easier to blame the cruelty of the market and boneheaded editors, but I suspect that when they’re alone at their writing desk most serious writers are like me: for most of their early writing lives, they read their own stuff and cringe.
It is difficult to describe how painful this is. I became a writer not just because I thought I had something to say, but because I love good writing. I care about good writing. I will go so far as to say that, for me, good writing has a moral dimension to it. A great novel like Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, or a revelatory story like James Joyce’s “The Dead” from Dubliners is like some incredibly fine moral scalpel that can slit me open, turn me inside out, and force me to feel the world in a raw, intimate way that only a great work of art can. A clumsy sentence or an insufficiently explored character in a place where that sort of thing isn’t supposed to occur — in a published novel, say, or a reputable literary magazine — feels not merely lazy or bad, but wrong.
And here I was doing it myself, year after year, story after story, book after book. For years, I had to come at my writing desk sideways, creep toward it inch by inch while pretending to be doing something else — reading the newspaper, checking my email, staring out the window — because I knew that once I sat down and opened up the file of whatever I was working on, it would suck. Worse, I had no idea how to make it not suck. I spent hours and hours — years, in some cases — fiddling with stories and parts of novels, and when I printed them out to read them afresh, they still sucked just as bad as they always had.
Through all those long years, reading — compulsive, competitive reading — was my balm. Early on, when I was in grad school, I told myself that an hour spent reading was as important to my progress as a writer as an hour spent writing. At the time, this was almost certainly true. I wasn’t one of those kids who read books by the bagful and had plowed through Tolstoy and Dostoevsky by the time I was 15. I probably read more books than the average American teenage boy, but I also played a lot of sports and watched a lot of TV. If I’m being honest, I’d also have to admit that I spent a fair amount of my adolescence too high to do anything but crank Pink Floyd and stare at the bedroom wall.
This became a real handicap in my 20s when I started to get serious about being a writer. My earliest attempts at fiction were all transparent knock-offs of early Raymond Carver stories. This was in part because I was in many ways a sad, confused character out of an early Carver story, but it was also because Raymond Carver was one of the very few contemporary writers I had actually read.
This is one of the reasons I started keeping the reading lists in the first place. I told myself I just wanted to keep a record of what I’d read, but, really, I knew myself well enough to know that I would turn it into a competition and start reading more. And I did. The first year I read 40 books. The next year I read 66. After a few years of steep dips following our son’s arrival, my averages boomed again, and by 2011 I had hit 74, my personal best. Keeping a list forced me to read more widely, too. Because I kept track of how many women and non-white writers I was reading, and because I was appalled how many white male writers I found I was choosing to read, I pushed myself out of my comfort zone and discovered great women writers like Julia Glass, Kate Christensen, and Edwidge Danticat that I might not have read otherwise.
But that was 13 years ago. I’m in my 40s now, and I don’t feel nearly as much a literary rube as I once did. There will always be people who have read more than I have and who have read more deeply than I ever will, but that doesn’t bother me as much as it once did. I’ve read enough to know what a good book is, and I’ve read widely enough to know that there are many different kinds of good books. More importantly, I think, I don’t hate my own work with same secret passion I once did. True, I’m getting paid to write again for the first time in decades, and serious people are taking my fiction seriously, but that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about being able to scroll down to any page of my own work that I consider finished and say, “Okay, a writer wrote that.” I still have to approach my writing desk crabwise, because this thing we do, this making magic out of words, is hard, no matter who’s doing it. But it no longer seems impossible to me. I no longer feel like I’m just fooling myself.
So in this new year, I am solemnly resolving to read fewer books. I’ll probably still record them because it’s habit now, and it is kind of nice to be able to look back over a year and see what I’ve read. But I won’t be aiming |
So Putin is not as pure as the driven snow. Big deal. The fact is, he’s still pushing for peace, which is not only beneficial for Moscow, but Europe and Ukraine as well. The only one that doesn’t benefit from peace is Washington, which is why the media is suppressing information that promotes de-escalation. It’s because Washington wants a war. War is the vehicle for breaking up the Russian Federation into tiny statelets that pose no threat to US military bases spread throughout Asia. War is the means by which Washington can make its pivot, surround China, and control its future growth. War paves the way for establishing US outposts in Ukraine and subverting greater economic integration between Russia and Europe. War is US policy because war advances US interests. Period.
Washington cannot achieve its strategic or economic objectives without a confrontation. That’s why the present situation so worrisome, because –judging by the scalding rhetoric emerging from the White House, the US State Department, and all the major media– Obama is going to continue to provoke Moscow until he gets the reaction he wants. If 40 dead in Odessa doesn’t do the trick, then the next provocation will be 400, or 4,000, or 400,000. Whatever it takes. It doesn’t matter. As Madeleine Albright noted some time ago when she was asked if the sanctions on Iraq were worth the half million lives they cost, she answered without the slightest hesitation, “We think the price is worth it.”
Whatever it takes. That’s US foreign policy in a nutshell.
Here’s more from Putin:
“The responsibility for what is happening in Ukraine now lies with the people who carried out an anti-constitutional seizure of power,.. and with those who supported these actions and gave them financial, political, information and other kinds of support and pushed the situation to the tragic events that took place in Odessa. It’s simply blood-chilling to watch the footage of those events.”
Try to imagine Obama saying something like that. Try to imagine Obama even caring about the people who died in Odessa. It’s a bit of a stretch, isn’t it? By now, Obama has seen the same videos as Putin. He’s seen the people hurtling themselves out of windows to escape the flames. He’s seen the victims being pummeled to death on the streets by neo Nazi goons. He’s seen the charred remains of the people who were incinerated in the fire. But he’s said nothing. He hasn’t even offered his condolences to the families who lost loved ones. He’s remained stone silent since the incident took place believing that any reference to the massacre would only undermine US policy. His callousness is all part of a political calculation. People don’t matter, what matters is the policy. Obama is no different than Albright or any other high-ranking member of the US political establishment in that regard. They’re all the same. Life means nothing to any of them. All that matters is the objectives of their constituents.
So, what does Putin really want?
Here’s what he says: “Russia urgently appeals to the authorities in Kiev to cease immediately all military and punitive operations in southeast Ukraine. This is not an effective means of resolving internal political conflicts and, on the contrary, will only deepen the divisions.”
“Cease all military and punitive operations”? In other words, he wants peace.
Unfortunately, Obama’s crew strangled Putin’s peace plan before it ever left the cradle. Just yesterday, the US-backed puppet regime in Kiev promised to step up attacks on protestors in the east. According to Defense Secretary Andriy Parubiy:
“The counter-terrorist operation will continue unhindered, despite the presence of terrorist and insurgent groups in the Donetsk region.”
As for Putin’s appeal for peace, puppet-PM Arseniy Yatsenyuk swiftly dismissed it as “hot air.”
So, there you have it. The threat of peace has been skillfully avoided giving Obama’s fascist friends the green light to pursue their strategy of tearing Ukraine apart, killing untold thousands of civilians, and deploying NATO to Russian’s western perimeter.
And that’s why Putin’s speech was blacked out by the media, because it conflicted with Washington’s plan to launch another war.
MIKE WHITNEY lives in Washington state. He is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion (AK Press). Hopeless is also available in a Kindle edition. He can be reached at fergiewhitney@msn.com.Mar '09 24
Evil Robot Monkey
I have three version of Evil Robot Monkey to offer for your consideration as one of the Hugo nominees for Short Story. It was originally published in the Solaris Book of New Science Fiction, vol. 2 edited by George Mann.
You may download a pdf of “Evil Robot Monkey“, illustrated by me. I do layout the way other people doodle and made this while I was waiting for the announcement to go live.
Or you could listen to me read it. Six minutes of science-fiction.
Evil Robot Monkey, by Mary Robinette Kowal
Edited to add: Andrew Neely very kindly converted the audio to an M4B (iTunes audiobook) version.
Or, you can skip after the cut and read the story right here.
Evil Robot Monkey
by Mary Robinette Kowal
Sliding his hands over the clay, Sly relished the moisture oozing around his fingers. The clay matted down the hair on the back of his hands making them look almost human. He turned the potter’s wheel with his prehensile feet as he shaped the vase. Pinching the clay between his fingers he lifted the wall of the vase, spinning it higher.
Someone banged on the window of his pen. Sly jumped and then screamed as the vase collapsed under its own weight. He spun and hurled it at the picture window like feces. The clay spattered against the Plexiglas, sliding down the window.
In the courtyard beyond the glass, a group of school kids leapt back, laughing. One of them swung his arms aping Sly crudely. Sly bared his teeth, knowing these people would take it as a grin, but he meant it as a threat. Swinging down from his stool, he crossed his room in three long strides and pressed his dirty hand against the window. Still grinning, he wrote SSA. Outside, the letters would be reversed.
The student’s teacher flushed as red as a female in heat and called the children away from the window. She looked back once as she led them out of the courtyard, so Sly grabbed himself and showed her what he would do if she came into his pen.
Her naked face turned brighter red and she hurried away. When they were gone, Sly rested his head against the glass. The metal in his skull thunked against the window. It wouldn’t be long now, before a handler came to talk to him.
Damn.
He just wanted to make pottery. He loped back to the wheel and sat down again with his back to the window. Kicking the wheel into movement, Sly dropped a new ball of clay in the center and tried to lose himself.
In the corner of his vision, the door to his room snicked open. Sly let the wheel spin to a halt, crumpling the latest vase.
Vern poked his head through. He signed, “You okay?”
Sly shook his head emphatically and pointed at the window.
“Sorry.” Vern’s hands danced. “We should have warned you that they were coming.”
“You should have told them that I was not an animal.”
Vern looked down in submission. “I did. They’re kids.”
“And I’m a chimp. I know.” Sly buried his fingers in the clay to silence his thoughts.
“It was Delilah. She thought you wouldn’t mind because the other chimps didn’t.”
Sly scowled and yanked his hands free. “I’m not like the other chimps.” He pointed to the implant in his head. “Maybe Delilah should have one of these. Seems like she needs help thinking.”
“I’m sorry.” Vern knelt in front of Sly, closer than anyone else would come when he wasn’t sedated. It would be so easy to reach out and snap his neck. “It was a lousy thing to do.”
Sly pushed the clay around on the wheel. Vern was better than the others. He seemed to understand the hellish limbo where Sly lived–too smart to be with other chimps, but too much of an animal to be with humans. Vern was the one who had brought Sly the potter’s wheel which, by the Earth and Trees, Sly loved. Sly looked up and raised his eyebrows. “So what did they think of my show?”
Vern covered his mouth, masking his smile. The man had manners. “The teacher was upset about the ‘evil robot monkey.'”
Sly threw his head back and hooted. Served her right.
“But Delilah thinks you should be disciplined.” Vern, still so close that Sly could reach out and break him, stayed very still. “She wants me to take the clay away since you used it for an anger display.”
Sly’s lips drew back in a grimace built of anger and fear. Rage threatened to blind him, but he held on, clutching the wheel. If he lost it with Vern–rational thought danced out of his reach. Panting, he spun the wheel trying to push his anger into the clay.
The wheel spun. Clay slid between his fingers. Soft. Firm and smooth. The smell of earth lived in his nostrils. He held the world in his hands. Turning, turning, the walls rose around a kernel of anger, subsuming it.
His heart slowed with the wheel and Sly blinked, becoming aware again as if he were slipping out of sleep. The vase on the wheel still seemed to dance with life. Its walls held the shape of the world within them. He passed a finger across the rim.
Vern’s eyes were moist. “Do you want me to put that in the kiln for you?”
Sly nodded.
“I have to take the clay. You understand that, don’t you.”
Sly nodded again staring at his vase. It was beautiful.
Vern scowled. “The woman makes me want to hurl feces.”
Sly snorted at the image, then sobered. “How long before I get it back?”
Vern picked up the bucket of clay next to the wheel. “I don’t know.” He stopped at the door and looked past Sly to the window. “I’m not cleaning your mess. Do you understand me?”
For a moment, rage crawled on his spine, but Vern did not meet his eyes and kept staring at the window. Sly turned.
The vase he had thrown lay on the floor in a pile of clay.
Clay.
“I understand.” He waited until the door closed, then loped over and scooped the clay up. It was not much, but it was enough for now.
Sly sat down at his wheel and began to turn.
END
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Like this: Like Loading...ISLAMABAD: Members of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) will be voting for Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N)'s Shahid Khaqan Abbasi when the National Assembly elects a new prime minister today.
The decision followed a meeting between PML-N and MQM-P leaders in the residence of MQM-P's Farooq Sattar at the Parliament Lodges.
Addressing the media after the meeting, Abbasi thanked the MQM leaders.
Sattar said rampant corruption and plunder is rife in Sindh. Whosoever becomes the prime minister will have to look after Sindh, he added.
He claimed wherever there have been [security] operations, a financial development package has been announced for those areas.
"N-league had politically outsourced Karachi," complained Sattar, hoping the party changes its attitude in the coming months.
Speaking after Sattar again, Abbasi said Sindh's problems will be resolved soon.
PM-nominee Abbasi, Sindh Governor Muhammad Zubair and party leaders Khawaja Saad Rafique and Abdul Qadir Baloch represented the government whereas the MQM-P members in the meeting included Ali Raza Abidi, Karachi Mayor Wasim Akhtar, Kishwar Zehra — the party's nominee for PM — and Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui, among others.
The MQM, is the fourth largest party in the assembly, with 24 members.
The party will now withdraw the nomination of Zehra who is contesting the election for the premier.Larry Fitzgerald was ordered to stay away from the mother of his son after she filed for an order of protection and accused Fitzgerald of domestic abuse. (Rick Scuteri/AP)
When Angela Nazario filed for an order of protection against Arizona Cardinals wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald in 2008, you would have been hard-pressed to find more than a line or two about it in the mainstream press.
At the time, Fitzgerald was a star and an NFL favorite, leading his team to the 2009 Super Bowl.
But there was one outlet that did jump on the story. It was the same outlet responsible for the ever-growing fracas the league now finds itself embroiled in — thanks to its willingness to publish videos of Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice delivering a knock-out punch to his then-fiancée Janay Palmer, and another of him dragging her out of an Atlantic City casino elevator facedown immediately after striking her.
That’s right: TMZ.
On New Year’s Eve 2008, TMZ published a story that said Fitzgerald had been ordered to stay away from Nazario. It detailed the allegations, gleaned from court documents, that she leveled against him — that after the two began quarreling, Fitzgerald challenged her to a play fight. Nazario said she swung at Fitzgerald, who then pushed her. He “grabbed me by my hair with both hands on the back of my head very very hard and tossed me across the room.” When Nazario tried to leave with their son, she said Fitzgerald “grabbed the back of my neck and slammed me down on the marble floor…. [I] was disoriented for awhile and could not get up, I remember he mumbled something about ‘that’s what happens when you try taking my son away from me.'” When she made it to her car, Nazario said she realized Fitzgerald had pulled out chunks of her hair.
Pretty grim stuff, and Nazario alleged it took place all while Fitzgerald held their infant son. But it barely made the pages of the Arizona Republic, the state’s paper of record, as Ray Stern of the Phoenix New Times observed. It was practically a footnote in a column by the Republic’s Dan Bickley, completely scrubbed of specifics of the allegations.
And as the national football-covering media descended on Tampa for Super Bowl XLIII, that’s what the incident became: a footnote. The big story — and seemingly the only story — the media cared about concerning Fitzgerald was that his sportswriter father would get to cover his son playing in the Super Bowl, and that he promised not to cheer from the press box.
Web sites such as Sports by Brooks and Fan IQ wondered why there was such resounding silence concerning the uglier story. Even then, Fan IQ was willing to hedge a bit:
Don’t take me wrong, I’m not saying Fitzgerald is a bad guy, we all make mistakes, although hopefully not ones this bad. But I do find it odd that the sports media chooses to ignore writing about a significant national problem — domestic violence — when one of the Super Bowl’s star players is openly accused of it.
Contrast that with the Republic’s coverage of the arrest of Cardinals running back Jonathan Dwyer:
The top two stories on the sports landing page are unmistakably about Dwyer and the charges against him.
A quick rundown: Dwyer is accused of hitting his wife, Kayla, two separate times in July. The first time, she called police, then told them she was arguing with Dwyer on the phone. She told them no one else was home, as Dwyer hid in the bathroom. The second time, Dwyer allegedly took Kayla’s phone and threw it from the second floor of their home to keep her from calling the police. She has since left Arizona with their son.
So what’s different this time around?
Well, for starters, TMZ has helped to make domestic violence in the NFL impossible to ignore, much to the chagrin of commissioner Roger Goodell and, if you ask Deadspin, the elite media “stooges” who cover him and the rest of the league.
“The Rice fiasco has been a clarifying moment for the top tier of NFL beat reporting, which today looks like nothing so much as a well-appointed kennel for obedient lapdogs,” wrote Deadspin’s Dave McKenna. “Because access is the coin of the realm in a media age that demands an ever-replenishing supply of what one NFL beat guy called ‘nuggets’ — Green Bay-Seattle will kick off the season! — the star reporters to one extent or another all belong to the league.”
Whatever existing gentlemen’s agreement to only cover off-the-field bad behavior in the most egregious of cases — everything else being a “distraction” from the only thing that really matters — is gone, swept out to sea like a too-loose bikini caught in a riptide of video evidence and national moral indignation.
There’s nowhere to hide anymore, thanks to TMZ’s operating philosophy, as explained by Anne Helen Petersen of BuzzFeed. In documenting TMZ’s rise in a story published in July, she said editor Harvey Levin “was driven to tirelessly pursue these scoops by a desire to dismantle the unspoken but elaborate system that exempted the high-powered and beautiful of Hollywood from the rules to which the rest of the world were held. Levin had spent nearly 30 years observing the system — cops, judges, prosecutors, juries — allow the beautiful, wealthy, and powerful to misbehave, sometimes with total impunity. TMZ was his opportunity to right those wrongs.”
It’s easy to see that same philosophy being applied to TMZ’s sports coverage.
The outcry against the NFL and Goodell after he suspended Rice for only two games was significant, but it was nothing after the public got hold of the notion that the commish was embroiled in a coverup. That’s arguably prompted swifter action in cases such as Dwyer’s and that of Carolina Panthers defensive end Greg Hardy. Hardy was moved to the exempt/commissioner’s permission list, effectively banning him from team activities while he awaits an appeal in his own domestic assault case.
But that’s not the only difference. The climate surrounding football has changed. There are more women covering it, and they’re speaking up, as Fox Sports’ Katie Nolan did, because they’re disgusted, too.
“It’s time for the conversation to change, or at least for those participating in the conversation,” Nolan said in a video for Fox Sports. “It’s time for women to have a seat at the big boy table, and not where their presence is a gimmick or a concept — just a person who happens to have breasts offering their opinion on the sports they love and the topics they know.
“Because, the truth is, the NFL will never respect women and their opinions as long as the media it answers to doesn’t. I’m ready when you are, Fox.”Intel's seventh-generation Core processor was recently delivered to unspecified companies in sufficient quantities for manufacturing, however the first run of chips are not likely destined for Apple's MacBook Pro.
Which Kaby Lake processors are shipping to manufacturers, and what class of products they are aimed at at this time are not yet known. Given previous Intel predictions on the matter, low-power chips more suitable for tablets will ship first, with more powerful chips expected to be used in MacBook Pro, iMac, and any potential Mac Pro revisions shipping at a much later date.During the investor's conference call, Intel's Chief Financial Officer Stacy Smith noted that while yields of the new processors in the first quarter were good, "they got a lot better in Q2 as well," which is what allowed the Kaby Lake processors to be released to manufacturers as close to Intel estimates for release as possible.Kaby Lake is Intel's next step following the sixth generation Skylake. The seventh generation of the chip uses the same 14nm process as Skylake, and adds native USB 3.1 Generation 2 support, bringing full 10 Gbps speeds to the protocol. Skylake and earlier processors require a discrete controller chip for the faster protocol, with the 2016 12-inch MacBook still being limited to 5 Gbps with inclusion of USB 3.1 Generation 1.Also included in the seventh generation Kaby Lake processor is integrated support for the 40 Gbps Thunderbolt 3, which uses the same connector as USB 3.1 type C, as well as the ability to use "passive" cabling for 10 Gbps speeds. Thunderbolt 3 has sufficient bandwidth to drive a pair of 4K displays at 60Hz, and contains HDMI 2.0 and DisplayPort 1.2. Also expected in Kaby Lake are also integrated graphics speed improvements.Kaby Lake will have five classes of processors, with two classes for mobile devices and tablets; one for laptops; and two spanning servers, high-power workstations, and desktops. No details are known about performance at this time. Intel's annual Developer Forum (IDF) is scheduled for August 16 in San Francisco, CA, with a wider release of information expected then.Intel originally developed the Core-series processors that debuted on Apple hardware on "Tick-Tock" development cycle, with major advancements such as a smaller processor die on the "tick," with refinements and power requirement reductions on the "tock." In the summer of 2015, Intel informed investors that it was moving to a "tick-tock-tock" cycle, as it was having difficulty with the rapid rate of development of the chips, and experienced problems with the shift to a 10nm manufacturing process, from the 14nm process used to develop the fifth generation Broadwell.Kaby Lake is the seventh generation of the Core family of processors, and the first released after the processor development philosophy shift. It is the third processor using the 14nm process, developed first for the fifth generation Broadwell.The only Apple laptop computer with the sixth generation Skylake processor is the 2016 12-inch MacBook. The Mid 2015 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro uses the fourth generation Haswell processor. The late 2015 iMac has Skylake desktop-class processors.774 special effects shots. Almost no budget. All volunteer. Open source software. Welcome to the crazy awesome world of Project London – a feature length SciFi extravaganza. We’ve covered Project London before and I think it’s going to be one hell of a film. The production work that’s gone in to it, strictly on a voluntary basis using open source software no less, is amazing. We’ve also had dealings with one of the actors featured in the movie as well, and I’m excited to see Jen in a special effects laden, scifi epic!
The fine folks at Spiral Productions have just given us two new products that help fill out the Project London universe.
* Project Manhattan by Caleb B. Wheeler, a prequel novella to the Project London movie.
* Project London graphic novel by Branson Anderson, based on the Project London screenplay that realigns the story into a completely new experience.
Project Manhattan is a prequel to the movie, part of which you can read right now, online. The Project London graphic novel, based on the screenplay for the movie looks fantastic! You can preview just about half of it online as well.
Still a bit shaky on just what Project London is? Take a gander at the trailer.
Now that you’ve seen the trailer, here are the official press releases detailing Project Manhattan and the Project London graphic novel.
Spiral Productions LLC, producers of Project London – the virtually no-budget, live action, science fiction film featuring 774 vivid, intense visual effects with animations created using open-source 3D software – announced today the availability of two novels from the movie’s website, www.projectlondonmovie.com. The prequel novella, Project Manhattan, is the first installment of the story that culminates in Project London. A graphic novel of Project London, based on the movie’s screenplay, presents a much darker exploration of the epic story and realigns it into a completely new, visual experience for the printed page.
The two new books debuted at the 2011 Emerald City Comicon in March, where the supplies of each book sold out at full price, with minimal promotion, to both existing and new fans of Project London from around the world. Showing its support for the movie’s growing fan base, Spiral Productions has made digital previews of the two books available for free on the Project London website, including the first 15 pages of Project Manhattan and 61 pages (nearly half) of the graphic novel.
Both Project Manhattan and the Project London graphic novel are now available for media reviews and will also be available at Norwescon 34, the Pacific Northwest’s premier science fiction and fantasy exhibition hosted in SeaTac, Wash. April 22-24. The next steps for the books include feature trailers soon available on YouTube, the release of digital (both) and audio (Project Manhattan) versions, and global distribution via Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.
About Project Manhattan
Authored by writer Caleb B. Wheeler, the Project Manhattan prequel novella is the first installment of the story that culminates in the Project London film. A 15-page preview is currently available for everyone on the Project London website.
The book’s story is set World War II, when an orphaned alien race comes to Earth offering advanced, power-shifting technologies to the side they believe will win the war… in exchange for a place to live. The ominous, catastrophic devastation it creates during the war leads to the development of even more powerful, mind-boggling weapons. Many began questioning the motives of these visitors, including some of the aliens themselves. But the real question is where did they come from? And what happened to their home world?
“Project Manhattan is full of imagination and fascinating details,” said Project London Writer/Director Ian Hubert. “Wheeler has created a believable alternate look at one of humanity’s darkest moments, with a vivid piece of work that stands on its own as a fantastic piece of fiction.”
About the Project London Graphic Novel
Artist Branson Anderson created the Project London graphic novel based on Hubert’s screenplay for Project London. Branson was given freedom and license by Hubert and Executive Producers Phil and Nathan McCoy to realign the Project London story into a completely new experience for the printed page. Starting today, a 61-page preview is now available on the Project London website.
“I love that the Project London graphic novel is not a scene-for-scene replay of the movie,” Project London Executive Producer Nathan McCoy said. “As a graphic novel fan, I don’t find much use for books that are frame-by-frame visualizations of a movie. Branson’s novel will be familiar and yet different and very fun.”
About Project London
Project London is a feature length, almost no budget, independently produced and distributed, science-fiction, action-adventure, and effects movie shot entirely in high definition digital video. For more information visit: www.projectlondonmovie.com.
About Spiral Productions LLC
Spiral Productions is a Limited Liability Corporation based in the Pacific Northwest of the United States of America, that produces a wide range of media for corporate and consumer audiences. For more information visit: www.spiralproductions.com.
[tags]scifi, sfx, project london, jen page, science fiction, literature, graphic novels, movies, indie,independent film[/tags]India has asked Pakistan for an update on the whereabouts of two Muslim clerics from Delhi’s Hazrat Nizamuddin Dargah who have gone missing in Karachi, foreign minister Sushma Swaraj said on Friday.
Asif Nizami, 82, and Nazim Ali Nizami, 66, had gone to Lahore on a pilgrimage to the dargah of Khwaja Fariduddin Masud Ganjshakar, popularly known as Baba Farid. Both are members of the Sajjada-e-Nashin (hereditary administrator) family of the dargah.
But the duo went missing after landing in Karachi airport from Lahore, Swaraj said in a series of tweets.
We have taken up this matter with Government of Pakistan and requested them for an update on both the Indian nationals in Pakistan./4 — Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) March 17, 2017
Asif’s family said the two men left for Pakistan for March 6 and had their return flight scheduled on Thursday, which they failed to make. “My father was visiting Pakistan after 35 years. Since he is old, Nazim went along with him. We last spoke to them at 4 pm on Wednesday, when they had visited Baba Fareed’s dargah,” said Amir, son of Asif Nizami.
After visiting Dargah, they had shared their photos on WhatsApp. They were supposed to go to Karachi from Lahore. Asif’s sister lives in Karachi and he was going to meet her.
“We are trying to contact them. We will try to meet the Union home minister and the external affairs minister,” said a relative.
First Published: Mar 17, 2017 10:10 ISTLancaster County may be on the forefront of a worldwide digital revolution of your wallet.Video: Watch Mike Straub's reportAt Lancaster's four54 Grill the payment is cutting edge.The restaurant is the only place in Pennsylvania with a bitcoin ATM.Think of bitcoins as digital cash, no credit cards, no debit cards, so none of that information that identity thieves like to get their hands on. It can be used all over the world without any fees whatsoever for customers or businesses.Eric Grill is the CEO of Coin-outlet, the company behind bitcoin at ATMs.“You're able to do many things with bitcoin that you can't do with traditional currency,” Grill said. “I can send it to China with no fees. I can send it to India, send to Africa without having to pay Western Union fees.”Soon they will place hundreds of the machines all over the world, but Grill lives in Lititz, so thought Lancaster was a perfect place to start.At the machine you can buy bitcoins to use anywhere in the world or sell coins to get physical money. Either way, your personal info is not used, keeping hackers out of the picture.Many top online retailers, like Amazon are accepting bitcoin for payment. It’s also finding increased acceptance in small businesses because owners don't have to pay credit card or bank fees for customer transactions.
Lancaster County may be on the forefront of a worldwide digital revolution of your wallet.
Video: Watch Mike Straub's report
Advertisement
At Lancaster's four54 Grill the payment is cutting edge.
The restaurant is the only place in Pennsylvania with a bitcoin ATM.
Think of bitcoins as digital cash, no credit cards, no debit cards, so none of that information that identity thieves like to get their hands on. It can be used all over the world without any fees whatsoever for customers or businesses.
Eric Grill is the CEO of Coin-outlet, the company behind bitcoin at ATMs.
“You're able to do many things with bitcoin that you can't do with traditional currency,” Grill said. “I can send it to China with no fees. I can send it to India, send to Africa without having to pay Western Union fees.”
Soon they will place hundreds of the machines all over the world, but Grill lives in Lititz, so thought Lancaster was a perfect place to start.
At the machine you can buy bitcoins to use anywhere in the world or sell coins to get physical money. Either way, your personal info is not used, keeping hackers out of the picture.
Many top online retailers, like Amazon are accepting bitcoin for payment. It’s also finding increased acceptance in small businesses because owners don't have to pay credit card or bank fees for customer transactions.
AlertMeDark Souls stands apart from everything else and it's brilliant for it. So when new game director Tomohiro Shibuya said he'd like Dark Souls 2 to be "more straightforward and more understandable" well he sure gave us the willies.
Demon's Souls/Dark Souls director Hidetaka Miyazaki has eased a few of those fears in an interview with Japanese magazine Famitsu (translated by Polygon). He said there was a core experience that needed protecting.
New boss!
"I'm talking about how we think about the difficulty level and how you achieve things in-game, about the concepts behind the mechanics and level design," he said.
"Outside of that core, though, it's better to leave things to the discretion of the director. There's a lot around that core that we need to fix or adjust besides, and individual touches always tend to come out in the world setting and artwork, so I'm not meddling in that very much."
Solitude and desperation are key components of that core, Miyazaki mentioned, and he feels both were expressed in the really-quite-something Dark Souls 2 CGI trailer (below).
One key area of evolution for Dark Souls 2 will be multiplayer. Like Demon's Souls, Dark Souls 2 will have dedicated multiplayer servers - these were dropped for Dark Souls which had a peer-to-peer approach. Their resurrection means Dark Souls 2 can do more.
"Setting up a dedicated server lets you retain your data, making it easier to share it with other players. We'd like to evolve the asynchronous message-oriented online support from the previous game; we're imagining a framework where players are able to directly interact with each other," Shibuya said.
Miyazaki added: "Having dedicated game servers will be the source of a lot of new potential in DS2. There was a lot with the original Dark Souls I wish I could have done if we had the ability to have those servers, so in that way I'm pretty jealous of the new director here.
"The concept behind online play in Demon's Souls and Dark Souls was pretty plain to gamers, so I'm hoping we can evolve on that concept here without removing ourselves too far from it."
Server persistence meant Demon's Souls online worlds could have tendencies, black or white, and they changed depending on how many people where helpful white phantoms or murderous black phantoms. Some portals only worked when a world was a certain tendency, and even the behaviour and loot tables of bosses could change.A man who was sentenced to 20 years jail in Italy on drugs trafficking charges has been living in Dublin and working as a taxi driver for almost eight years.
A man who was sentenced to 20 years jail in Italy on drugs trafficking charges has been living in Dublin and working as a taxi driver for almost eight years.
After a major international manhunt, Yemi Moshood Olatunde (47) was picked up by garda officers from the force's extradition unit and he appeared in the High Court yesterday.
He was sentenced for conspiring with other Nigerian nationals in relation to a multi-million euro cocaine trafficking conspiracy in Naples almost 14 years ago.
But while he has been one of Italy's most wanted fugitives, he has been living in Tallaght under a false name and operating a taxi business as well as raising a young family.
Yesterday Yemi Moshood Olatunde maintained he had been arrested in a case of mistaken identity when gardai detained him on Tuesday.
However, the High Court ruled that fingerprint evidence shows he is the man being sought by Italian authorities. Olatunde's lawyers had argued that the evidence sent by Interpol was inadmissible.
However Mr Justice John Edwards remanded him in custody pending full extradition proceedings after gardai gave evidence that his prints were an "exact match" for the man named on the European Extardition Warrant.
Gardai told the court that Olatunde, of Sundale Parade, Tallaght, Dublin had been living under a number of different aliases in Ireland.
Det Sgt Sean Fallon told the interlocutory hearing that when he was arrested at 12.25pm at Tallaght Garda Station, the respondent insisted he was Roy Yemmy Andrew Aro. His prints were taken and they matched those of Olatunde.
The court heard the respondent had been in Ireland for eight years and had "significant interactions" with the gardai. He had been fingerprinted more than once.
The respondent was adamant he was not Olatunde and had a driving licence and PSV licence under the name of Roy Yemmy Andrew Aro.
He also told gardai he no longer lived in Tallaght and that he had an address in the city centre but refused to provide this address. He said Olatunde was a tribal name but not his.
Kieran Kelly BL, for the respondent, argued that the fingerprint and photographic evidence supporting the European Arrest Warrant had not come through the proper channels.
It came from Interpol in Rome and he argued it should have been submitted by or on behalf of the issuing judicial authority - in this case, the Italian public prosecutor.
Department of Justice extradition officer Barry Crossan said at his request, a lieutenant with Interpol in Rome re-transmitted identification material.
Det Garda Frank Doyle of the fingerprint bureau said he compared the prints furnished by Interpol and they matched those of Roy Yemmy Andrew Aro in the Irish database.
The prints given by the "individual in Tallaght Garda Station" were also an exact match for the Interpol prints. Mr Justice Edwards said he was satisfied that the fingerprint evidence was admissible. The judge remanded him in custody to Cloverhill Prison and adjourned the case to tomorrow.
(The Herald)
Online EditorsIf you haven’t seen any making-of footage from the cinematic, psychological horror game Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, then you’re missing a treat. Much of the behind-the-scenes videos surrounding Hellblade centred on how Ninja Theory, a team of just 20, worked to push the performance capture for the game further for the industry. A studio that has never shyed away from mocap for games like DmC and Enslaved, Hellblade is perhaps the most ambitious game for the company yet when it comes to performance capture.
At GDC 2016, Ninja Theory used live mocap to demo Hellblade in just a few weeks. This June, Ninja Theory took the tech even further by doing a live Q&A session with the voice and mocap actress answering questions on Facebook Live as main character Senua. For the Cambridge-based studio, creating an AAA game was no easy feat – especially as it would be the first time that Ninja Theory would be working on performance capture in-house.
With the help of Vicon, the makers of leading mocap cameras, software and systems, Ninja Theory was able to set up Vicon’s Bonita cameras in one single meeting |
the ability of populist parties to seize power.
Separate from any populist surge, a loss for Renzi may simply be an indicator of his own political missteps.
“The Five Star Movement is just a reflection of the fever of the system. If the system is working well, the fever will go down,” said Massimo Franco, a political columnist for Milan’s Corriere della Sera newspaper.
Even if Renzi pulls off a victory, the populists may have made their mark. Allies say he may use any success to focus closely on the populists’ pet issues.
“We don’t have to be populist, but we have to be close to the people,” said Infrastructure and Transport Minister Graziano Delrio, a top Renzi surrogate. “A lot of people do not feel like protagonists in society, but outsiders.”
Stefano Pitrelli contributed to this report.
Read more:
Today’s coverage from Post correspondents around the world
Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign newsWARRINGTON Borough Council had to disable their Facebook page on Tuesday night after hundreds of people vented their fury over council claims cannabis was stronger than heroin.
The ‘It’s Not Just a Joint’ initiative was launched earlier this week but came under fire after opposition campaigners claimed the council was suggesting heroin was a safer alternative to cannabis.
It is thought more than 450 people commented on the council’s Facebook page before it was taken down.
A statement on the council’s website said: “Due to a high volume of inappropriate comments and posts on the council’s public Facebook page, we have temporarily taken the page down.”
Anger was sparked after the council’s class B drug awareness initiative included the comment: “Did you know that cannabis can be stronger than heroin and cannabis related crime is the most common drug related crime in Warrington?”
Norml UK, a group working to reform cannabis laws, said the claims were ‘irresponsible and dangerous’.
The council posted a message on their Facebook page this morning, Wednesday, asking for 'appropriate comments' which are not 'perceived to promote illegal drug use'.
The post has already received more than 30 comments with some angry the council has not apologised.
A council spokesman said: “Uncertainty has arisen regarding some of the statistical data supporting the campaign.
"In the interests of ensuring robustness, we have decided to review the campaign.”[Welcome author Susan Kushner Resnick, and Host Michael Whitney]
[As a courtesy to our guests, please keep comments to the book. Please take other conversations to a previous thread. – bev]
Goodbye Wifes and Daughters
A coal mine saddled with unsafe conditions. Wealthy mine owners willfully ignorant of safety violations and unventilated toxic gasses threatening miners. And government officials unable to hold the mines to the most basic safety standards. It all led to the deaths of dozens of miners caught in an underground explosion.
But this isn’t the Upper Big Branch Mine in West Virginia. It’s a World War Two era mine explosion in Montana.
“Goodbye Wifes and Daughters,” by Susan Kushner Resnick, is the thorough account of the 1943 coal mine explosion in Bearcreek, Montana that killed 74 miners. Resnick details the events leading up to and after the coal mine exploded, including the lives of the families of miners, the day of the explosion itself, and the aftermath and search for accountability.
While reading “Goodbye Wifes and Daughters,” I kept getting goosebumps, and kept getting angry. To read of the obvious threats to the safety of the miners, to see those in charge of the mine ignore the safety inspector’s recommendations, and to feel the pain of the widows and orphans is quite moving.
To realize that 67 years later, we still haven’t learned our lessons, is just infuriating.
Resnick thoroughly documents the available evidence to bring readers straight into Bearcreek, Montana. “Goodbye Wifes and Daughters” is hardly a dry, historical account of a remote disaster. Resnick brings you into the bloodstream of the town. You meet the miners, watch their love lives develop, and even cheer on the local basketball team.
Resnick then takes you down the deep, dark mine shafts with the miners. She develops the characters into people you think you know. She tells of their habits and their families, what they wear and how they speak. And then she shows you how the miners failed to escape, including the moving segment in which the trapped miners, knowing it’s only a matter of time before they succumb to the thick methane gas, scrawl goodbye notes to their loved ones. “Goodbye Wifes and Daughters,” the notes begin.
I’m excited to introduce Susan Kushner Resnick to the Firedoglake community, and hope to show how the lessons of Bearcreek are so directly tied to the tragedies in West Virginia and Kentucky of the last month. It’s important accounts like these that can bring about needed changes for people who daily put their lives at risk to supply the nation’s energy.It’s been two years since FALLOUT 4 entered the lives of many gamers.
Two years, and it’s still one of the most played games out there. That’s simply because FALLOUT 4 has so much to offer, way more than you’d expect from a video game. I firmly believe that this game can make people question themselves. I say this because two years later I still think about the impact it’s had on me.
What is FALLOUT 4?
FALLOUT 4 is a role-playing game developed by Bethesda Game Studios, the same company that brought us THE ELDER SCROLLS V: SKYRIM and FALLOUT SHELTER. It is an open-world game full of mutated creatures, diverse non-playable characters (NPCs), and extraordinary landscapes.
The game takes places in the post-nuclear city of Boston, Massachusetts where you’ll encounter battered landmarks like Fenway Park. The setting is a significant portion of FALLOUT 4, but its essential details come from the plot. You play the sole survivor of fallout Vault 111 on a quest to find your missing son. In this wasteland, you’ll find just about anything you can think of, whether it be radioactive cows or a boxing glove with nails.
Countless parts of FALLOUT 4 stand out and make it one of the greatest games released in the past few years. Several parts of this game have made me think differently about what it means to be alive. Here are ten ways FALLOUT 4 will make you question your existence:
1. Shows You There’s More to the World Than You Think
The real world as we know it is large, though not everyone gets to experience all it has to offer. I, for one, have not traveled to Great Britain or Japan. FALLOUT 4 may not take you to those places, but it does give you a vast look at post-apocalyptic Boston.
The real Boston doesn’t have large, mutated lake monsters like Swan, but it does have a lot of history. Even though this version of Boston is a wasteland, we can still see the historic structures from a less disastrous time.
A major moment in the game takes place in Boston’s Fort Independence, which is referred to in the game as “The Castle.” In the Castle, you fight off waves of raiders trying to overtake an essential HQ for the game’s heroic soldiers, known as the Minutemen. It’s amazing that a real-life structure is used years in the future as a base of operations. Looking up what Fort Independence used to be truly changed my perspective on how I view in-game structures.
A Monument by a Different Name
“Once a fort, always a fort” should be its motto, but that’s not why this is important. While playing this game, I realized that there is more to Boston then its Sam Adams Brewery and its museums. There’s so much history to that city that I have yet to discover.
Though I’m a Yankees fan and Boston is enemy territory, this game was able to teach me a piece of history I’d not known. Even though Fort Independence may not call out to some people, it did to me. It made me think about the people who built these buildings. About the structures that could replace it in 100 years, or what the landmark may look like if it’s never torn down.
FALLOUT 4 is a game that made me see the history of a city I had no personal connection to. Rather than give me a colorless template, Bethesda gave me a city with meaning and constant growing history.
2. Educated Me on Driving Forces
Everyone has something that drives their actions. For some people, it could be a goal of becoming the next Lebron James. For others, it may be to find the best NYC slice of pizza (with tons of garlic powder please). Most people, though, are driven by their family. I know that if I do something for the people I love, it will make me happy. That is my driving force.
In FALLOUT 4, “family” is also the main character’s driving force. They do whatever it takes to find the son that was taken from them. In the game, you make alliances with three different groups, all with contrasting moral alignments. Joining these groups is done all for the sake of finding your son. Love makes you do crazy things like that, especially love for your own child.
What Matters Most
Searching for a missing child made me question my driving force. Taking this story from the perspective of a driven mother allowed me to step out of my perspective. I was able to see how I’d respond if I were in this sort of scenario.
Personally, I do not have kids, so I wouldn’t understand the pain of losing one’s child. Around the time I was playing this game, I did lose my grandfather though. For months I question why it happened. I thought about the things I never got to say to him. I even wondered if I had made him proud. To me, these are things I’ll never get answers to, but I can make assumptions based on what I did know about him.
FALLOUT 4 helped me cope in ways that I didn’t expect from a video game. It provided my brain with hypothetical moments I’d possibly go through. It helped me understand that loss is inevitable for humans, but it’s also something we can learn and grow from. Through the eyes of a mother looking for her lost son, I was able to understand how my connections with people drive me.
3. Showed Me To Loosen Up No Matter What
While writing the last section, I remembered a pretty humorous part of FALLOUT 4. There’s a side quest in the Far Harbor downloadable content (DLC) that, although dark, is quite hilarious. It takes place at the Cliff’s Edge Hotel, where several wealthy residents reside.
Upon arriving at the hotel, you realize that all the residents had their brains implanted into the bodies of robots. This was done to make them last forever, which sounds like something rich people would actually do. Drama after their implantations brings you here to investigate a Clue-esque murder mystery.
Using robots instead of humans takes away the severity of the mystery, but not in a bad way. I knew that even though this was a serious murder to the residents involved, I could still laugh at how ridiculous the situation was. Here I was, a living person trying to solve the murder of a brain in a jar.
This turned out to be one of my favorite side quests in the game. It made me realize that even the most serious of moments can be watered down into a joke. Not everything in life should be laughed at, but sometimes you do need to take a step back and make light of dark situations. Humor and a good laugh can cure many situations.
4. Taught Me That Communication is Key
Dialogue is an integral part of any game. We live in the golden age of video games where, in almost every conversation, you have to make choices. These choices can lead you on a more accessible path, or they can throw you into a John Wayne-style shoot-off. Bethesda has always done an excellent job of making you truly play a different role.
In FALLOUT 4 you can have companions that help you in your quest. Throughout the game, you find a vast variety of companions, ranging from an Australian cattle dog named Dogmeat to a courageous journalist named Piper. Each partner comes with a different set of beliefs that makes them unique.
What’s important about these sidekicks is that any piece of dialogue can change their perspective of you. My companion was a green Super Mutant named Strong. Like many other Super Mutants, he loved to kill (and bathe in blood I assume). My character Ash was well liked by Strong because I happened to be a cannibal. Strong was never really bothered by my eccentric taste in food. Piper, on the other hand, was less accepting of my human eating ways. After eating several of my foes, Piper became hostile and also turned into my lunch.
Relationships are Worth a Thousand Words
Much like real bonds, not everyone is going to like what you say or do. Depending on how you feel about a person, you’ll communicate and act differently. You may be nicer to someone you care about, or you may go vegan to accommodate your girlfriend better.
FALLOUT 4 made me firmly believe that consistent communication can help foster the bonds we have. You don’t have to try to be someone you aren’t, but by meeting a partner halfway, it may make your relationship stronger. (If your life partner is a cannibal, you may want to seek help from a professional.)
5. It Highlighted Individuality
Everyone has their own style. Whether you’re a beanie bandito like me or someone who loves rompers, personal style is part of us all. FALLOUT 4 allows you to customize your method of choice in almost every way you can imagine.
Customization is Endless
I made my character look exactly like me regarding facial features and hairstyle, but when it came to his clothes, he looked like a maniac. Almost none of his clothing matched in color, and he had a bear mascot’s headgear. In this play-through, characters never questioned why he looked crazy. They never treated him like a psycho just by what he was wearing. Usually, they had to wait until he spoke to find that out.
FALLOUT 4’s customization options never made me feel weird or uncool. Instead, it allowed me to explore what it truly meant to be creative. It gave a sense of individuality that not even reality could provide. Even now this video game makes me question what it means to be an individual.
I’d probably never leave my house with a mascot’s head on, but it at least makes me question why I wouldn’t. Maybe I’ll get laughed at by coworkers if I did, but why does that matter in the real world if it doesn’t work in a fictional one?
6. Made Me Realize How Valuable Time Is
I’ve always found myself to be a bit of a rush god. It just seems more comfortable to carry out plans when everyone is on time and aware of what’s happening. FALLOUT 4 is a game that can take you a whole year or a week to finish depending on how it’s played.
There are plenty of side quests to keep you busy for a year, some that never really end. The map is also extremely large and full of way too many diverse NPCs. I’m beyond the days of being an achievement hunter, so I tend only to do side quests that interest me (which in the case of this game is a lot).
I realized that time in this rundown Boston is what you make it. You could spend hours building settlements for survivors, or you could spend hours killing defenseless settlers. No matter what your interest, you’d be able to do it for as long as you wanted. I vividly remember walking through all of the Commonwealth just because I felt like finding unmarked locations.
After a few hundred hours spent playing, I realized that I could have easily just played the main story and beat it in no time, but because I was invested, I did more than that. I explored, fought, built bonds, and stole coffee pots.
In real life, we use time how we see fit. You could efficiently use your time working all day long, or swimming on the beach. Whatever it is you care about, time is yours to use freely.
7. Explained that Everyone Plays Differently
This section is similar to the last, though I can argue that the last part dealt more with oneself. A reason gamers play games like FALLOUT 4, is to do it in their own way. I loved just to run around and punch things. My brother loved to stay at a distance and shoot enemies from afar. In what he enjoyed through stealth, I enjoyed from full frontal aggression.
It’s hard for everyone to play the same in a game with so many details and side stories. Judging how others play is illogical because there is no wrong way to do it. Watching my brother snipe enemies in a field was frustrating. This was my perception because usually I’d run in there and blow the whole group up; but to him, a clean, slow approach was his fun reason for playing.
The way I played never seemed wrong to him. This taught me that just because we played differently, neither of us wrong in our ways. In life, we all play differently. If you’re a teacher but a friend is a doctor, it doesn’t change the level of value either of you has. It’s just good to know that you’re playing the game of life how you want to.
8. Showed Me Why Hoarding is Bad
If hoarding is a problem, then consider me problematic. While cleaning a few days ago, I discovered a set of Pokemon cards I never recall owning. For years I’ve just kept things because they may one day be worth thousands.
Hoarding is something you can heavily do in FALLOUT 4. You become over-encumbered once you pass the character’s carrying limit. You can’t run, fast travel to old locations, or engage in combat fluidly. In the game, there are plenty of components that are useful for building gear and weapons.
FALLOUT 4 trains you to keep only what you need and plan on using. Why carry 200 ashtrays if you’re not going to use them? This functionality made me realize that the same thing can be said in real life. It’s easier for us to let go of the things we don’t use, instead of stacking them in the corner of the room. You’ll just end up dealing with it in the future anyway.
9. Dissected What It Means to Be Human
One of the most critical aspects of FALLOUT 4 is the use of synthetic humanoids (known as Synths). They’re probably one of the most intricate parts of the FALLOUT universe. Synths are used as a scare tactic because what’s scarier than something that looks and acts like a human would?
This plot point primarily comes up in Diamond City (Fenway Park’s transformed stadium) where you encounter people who are afraid of Synths. The mayor of Diamond City shows aggression towards these humanoids since they can replace humans unknowingly. The threat of replacement is something to fear in FALLOUT 4. It presents a fear that we wouldn’t quite understand. How would we even know what is going on?
This whole dilemma does offer up a philosophical question though. What truly makes us human? At several points, we learn of characters that have been Synths the entire time. We can open up a science textbook to see what humans look like. We can even talk to researchers that have studied humanity. None of that gives us a firm answer on what “being human” truly means.
We’re told that what makes us human is skin, blood, intelligent thought, and a soul. But these Synths act the same, look the same, and think the same. So are they not human even if they’re missing a soul? Now, what about the people who transferred their brains into a robot? Are they no longer human, or are they still human at their core?
So many questions I can’t answer, and that’s what is most important. I’ll never really find out what it means to be human, nor do I think anyone will. FALLOUT 4 taught me never to stop asking questions.
10. It Made Fun… Fun
All in all, FALLOUT 4 is just an enjoyable game. It made me understand so many small complexities of life. I had found a way to cope with loss, I’d learned the history that a city could have, I even questioned what it meant to be human.
As gamers, we expected to get a piece of entertainment that will keep us busy and pleased. To have a game profoundly affect our being is a whole different feeling. It’s incredible for someone to enter a fictional world that leaves you with more questions than answers.
Final Thoughts
FALLOUT 4 will be an important game no matter how many years pass. It will continue to change my life whenever I put in the disc. To anyone who hasn’t played it, I urge you to check it out and see what post-apocalyptic Boston can teach you. Maybe it’ll help you with your latest dilemma or possibly improve your relationships. Perhaps it’ll even alleviate your stress levels. Either way, at least you’ll have a super fun time.In 2007, the Lashkar-e-Taiba planned to attack a conference of Indian defence scientists, held at the Taj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai, but cancelled the plan “due to numerous reasons”, 26/11 scout David Coleman Headley told a special court on Tuesday, the second day of his deposition.
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Headley, deposing via video-link from an undisclosed location in the US, also said he had been instructed by the LeT to shoot videos of Mumbai’s Siddhivinayak Temple and to conduct a recce of all places that were eventually attacked on November 26, 2008.
READ: 26/11 attackers made two failed attempts, lost guns at sea: David Headley
“They had information of some meeting that was going to take place of defence scientists. So at the time, an attack would be conducted,” he said.
WATCH VIDEO: David Headley Timeline
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Headley told the court that a meeting of the LeT — attended by Muzammil Butt, Abu Kafa and Sajid Mir — was held in 2006, where it was decided that he would go to Mumbai and set up an office there.
[related-post]
At the meeting, Headley said in response to questions from special public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam, the LeT had debated whether to attack Mumbai, Delhi or Bengaluru.
On his return to Pakistan from his scouting trips in 2007, Headley gave photos, videos and a GPS machine with locations of targets and various locations in the Arabian Sea to the LeT. The next meeting, he said, was held in November 2007 in Muzaffarabad. At this meeting, he said, Mir and Kafa prepared a “mock up” of the Taj Hotel. They showed Headley pictures of the hotel and asked him questions about it, he said.
“Now they were looking at it with the the view of focusing on the conference rooms,” he said. “My job was done for then. Due to numerous reasons, they cancelled the plan.”
Asked why the plans were shelved, he told Nikam that the reasons were mostly logistical, apart from the fact that the LeT did not know the date of the defence scientists’ conference.
He also said it was due to difficulty in “getting personnel and ordinance to the target location”.
Headley had conducted surveillance of the hotel in April and May 2007, when he stayed there with his third wife, Morocco citizen Fazia.
Asked by Nikam if he was aware of the plan to attack the conference halls before the LeT’s second meeting, Headley said, “Negative. I did not know and took as much (video footage) as I could.”
Headley said that during his visit to Mumbai in 2007, he conducted surveillance of targets including a naval air station, the Taj Hotel, the state police headquarters and Oberoi Hotel. At the end of the day’s proceedings, when his testimony was being read to him for verification, he made an addition to the list: “And Bhabha Atomic Research Centre also, your honour.”
Headley also made a video of Bhagat Singh Marg in Colaba, where one of the 26/11 targets, Leopold Cafe, is located.
Headley said Mir, his main contact in the LeT, also instructed him to “specifically make a video of Siddhivinayak Temple”. According to the original plan, CST railway station, which recorded the highest death toll during 26/11, had been scouted not as a target, but “it was for people who came (the terrorists), for them to leave from there”, Headley said.
Nikam then questioned Headley on the relationship between the ISI and the LeT. Asked about his opinion, Headley said, “My assessment is that they coordinate with each other.” Maintaining that he had no direct knowledge of it and was deposing on the basis of hearsay, Headley told the court that the ISI provides “financial, military and moral support to the Jaish-e-Mohammad, the Hizbul Mujahideen and LeT”.
Nikam then quizzed Headley about his own links with the ISI. “You were also working with the ISI?” Nikam asked. “Yes,” he replied.
Headley told the court that one Major Iqbal, an ISI agent, had told him that he could be used by the ISI in India “to gather military intelligence, to gather some recruits from the Indian Army as spies and to spy on troop movements”.
Headley also told the court that Hafeez Saeed is the LeT’s overall spiritual head, while Zaki-ur Rehman Lakhvi is the outfit’s operational commander for Occupied Kashmir.
Headley said that in his early days with the LeT, he had suggested to Saeed and Lakhvi that the outfit should take the US government to court for declaring it a banned terrorist organisation. Saeed, Headley added, wasn’t very enthusiastic about the idea. Lakhvi, too, was unwilling and said that it would be a very long process and that “he would have to discuss it with the intelligence agency of the Pakistan government, the ISI,” Headley said.
When he was an LeT member, Headley also came in contact with Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Maulana Masood Azhar, who was freed by the Indian government in 1999 in exchange for passengers on the hijacked Indian Airlines Flight 814. In October 2003, Azhar was a guest speaker at a gathering of the LeT in Renala Khurd, where he “made a speech about his incarceration in India and his subsequent release”, Headley said.
Throughout the five-hour deposition, Nikam and Headley were cautiously polite while addressing each other, but the latter lost his cool twice in the final half hour.
The first time was when Nikam asked Headley about his travels with Fazia to Mumbai in 2007. The couple had twice checked into the Taj Hotel and once into the Oberoi Hotel in April and May, but Fazia delayed her return to Karachi on May 3, and checked into the Outram Hotel alone, while Headley stayed as a paying guest in Breach Candy.
“May I ask why you did not comply with your promise to give your wife a 10-day trip?” Nikam asked. Headley shot back, “I don’t remember ever making such a promise. That’s between me and her. We had some arguments. She’s my wife, it is a personal matter.”
Trying to pacify Headley, Nikam said, “I don’t want to annoy you. If it makes you angry, we will move on to something else.”
Nikam’s questioning of Headley’s source of income also riled him up. Telling the court that he had travelled to UAE on May 17, 2007, returned to Mumbai on May 20 and left Mumbai again on June 7, Nikam asked Headley the reason for his visit to the UAE.
Headley replied that he had gone to invest money in property in Dubai. “It appears you were getting a handsome amount,” Nikam said. “Yes, I had a business in America and was getting a handsome amount,” Headley replied.
“So, Mr Headley, were the ISI and LeT making payment to you?” No longer calm, Headley replied, “That’s complete nonsense.”
Caught off-guard, Nikam, said, “This is not expected of you. But if you want to remain rigid on this issue, I cannot say anything.” Headley replied, “Yes, I will remain rigid on this issue.”
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Judge G A Sanap cautioned Headley not to spoil the decorum of the court, and said that if he found any question offensive, he could simply say he doesn’t know. Headley replied, “Sorry, your honour.”
The deposition will continue on Wednesday.NewsPolitics - U.S.
WASHINGTON, D.C., November 4, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) – While all eyes are on arguably the most contentious presidential campaign in U.S. history, other down-the-ballot races are adding to the stakes of the 2016 election.
Aside from the presidency, maintaining majorities in the Senate and the House are crucial to the pro-life movement.
Defunding Planned Parenthood, passing pain-capable abortion bans, and setting a pro-life foreign policy are all at stake. Also key is getting a pro-life majority on the high court in order to overturn Roe v. Wade. Numerous marriage and family issues are in the mix as well.
Canvassers for pro-life Susan B. Anthony List and its super PAC Women Speak Out have knocked on the doors of more than a million people in Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, and Missouri, demonstrating the importance for the pro-life vote in those states.
Tight Senate races are especially key after Republicans gained back the majority in the 2014 election.
North Carolina
North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr, a pro-life Republican, is in a very tight race with Democrat Deborah Ross. A former executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina and a North Carolina legislator, Ross supports government funding of Planned Parenthood and repeal of the Hyde Amendment.
The North Carolina governor’s race is also being closely watched as incumbent Republican Pat McCrory faces a challenge from Democrat Roy Cooper, with most current polls showing Cooper holding a small lead. The state has been the subject of intense scrutiny after passing the HB2 bathroom bill and hit with numerous boycotts as a result. McCrory’s opposition to the original Charlotte ordinance and holding steadfast on the bathroom bill created hostility and has been part of the media focus.
Three Planned Parenthood political groups – the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, Planned Parenthood Votes and Planned Parenthood Action PAC North Carolina – announced in September they planned to spend at least $1 million in North Carolina on advertising to oppose Donald Trump, Burr and McCrory.
Missouri
Pro-life Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt is also in a tight race with Democrat Secretary of State Jason Kander, who is running as a moderate despite having voted against a late-term abortion ban while in the Missouri legislature and having received Planned Parenthood’s endorsement.
Blunt, who joined Iowa Republican Sen. Joni Ernst as top signatories in a July 2015 letter from 50 U.S. senators to HHS Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell inquiring into Planned Parenthood's practices and whether they are in compliance with federal laws pertaining to the use of fetal tissue and partial-birth abortion, also authored the 2012 Respect for Rights of Conscience Act, in an effort to roll back the HHS Contraceptive Mandate.
Ohio
The Senate race between Ohio Republican Rob Portman and Ted Strickland turned early and Portman has a comfortable double-digit lead going into Election Day.
While Portman has a solid pro-life voting record, he lost some conservative support in 2012 after he changed his position to support gay “marriage.”
Strickland is a former congressman and governor who has said he strongly supports legal abortion and that he backs Planned Parenthood.
Florida
The race between Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio and Democrat Patrick Murphy was tight earlier but has begun to look strong for incumbent Rubio, a former presidential contender.
Murphy has a campaign ad that says Rubio’s opposition to abortion exceptions for rape and incest is “reckless.” The challenger supports public funding of abortion and compelling religious employers to provide contraception and abortion coverage in insurance plans. Planned Parenthood has also endorsed Murphy.
Rubio opposes providing abortion for victims of the Zika virus, has said the sciences settled on the question of life’s beginning at conception, and that he is “sickened by the complete disregard for innocent unborn life evident at Planned Parenthood.”
Follow for real-time election night updates. Follow @LifeSite
Pennsylvania
The contest between Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Pat Toomey and Katie McGinty is tight, with McGinty up a couple points over Toomey.
Toomey is pro-life, though he has said he supports abortion exceptions for rape, incest, or the life of the mother.
McGinty, a top environmental aide to Bill Clinton and former chief of staff to pro-abortion Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf, supports federal funding for Planned Parenthood.
Nevada
Nevada Republican Sen. Joe Heck is neck and neck with Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto.
Heck voted to pass the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act and to defund Planned Parenthood, while Cortez Masto supports abortion on demand.
New Hampshire
In New Hampshire, Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte is polling just a few points ahead of Democrat Maggie Hassan.
Ayotte has a pro-life voting record in the Senate and opposes taxpayer funding of abortion, where Hassan supports abortion on demand, federal funding of abortion and opposed parental notification legislation as a state senator.“I’ll tell you a story,” says Druh Farrell, a Calgary city councillor. Before she was elected, she would often walk from her house in Hillhurst, one of Calgary’s oldest neighbourhoods, across the Bow River to City Hall. It’s a 45-minute trek.
“I didn’t see a single person,’’ she said. ‘‘The streets were empty.”
The city’s downtown has long been a place residents drive through, on their way home from work to a house in the suburbs. A series of factors are conspiring to change that: oil-fuelled growth has ended the city’s easy 20-minute cross-town commute; city hall is sitting on billions in debt, largely accrued to support that expansive growth; and an increasingly cosmopolitan workforce is demanding novelties like dedicated bicycle tracks, and access to restaurants and galleries that strip malls generally can’t support.
But as Mayor Naheed Nenshi and his allies try to change Calgary — exemplified by East Village, a government-led experiment in gentrification that will be home to 11,000 residents by 2027 — they are coming up against traditionalists who like the freedom and space of the suburbs (and the developers who build those suburbs). Perhaps more importantly, they are facing down a Calgary cultural attitude that downtown is not where people are supposed to live.
“There’s a mindset against apartments, that they’re not conducive toward family environments, not conducive toward good health. These attitudes die hard,” said professor Max Foran, a sociologist at the University of Calgary and author of several books on the city’s development.
Distrust of higher density living arrangements even extends into the suburbs; Calgary is one of the few major cities that makes it difficult for a homeowner to create secondary rental suites.
“The obstacle is a cultural mentality, it’s not just conservatism. The culture is that, this is the way we do it,” Mr. Foran said.
An oil-and-gas town, Calgary is often called “car loving,” but there are few better options. This is why Calgary boasts the highest monthly parking rate in all of Canada: almost $500 a month, on average, for a space.
That bill has never deterred many from filing in and out of downtown along four-lane-wide roads that efficiently move people in and out of the core like a tidy traffic aorta.
As a result, almost all Calgary’s growth has been at its ever-expanding fringe. In addition to oil, wheat and cattle, Calgary is home to vast prairie fields — cheap land consumed by the acre.
Downtown, though it became home to a city of gleaming towers, has long been left on its own after dark; the city’s destitute congregated in run-down hotels on the east side, and the area turned to seed, further discouraging developers from considering more central projects.
Ms. Farrell says downtown has long been ‘‘a wasteland after 4:30 p.m.”
“At night, the same streets … empty out, and we started seeing an increase in crime and vagrancy because there was no natural surveillance downtown,’’ she said.
The suburbs stretched further outward, and paid the cost. Calgary now faces more than $3.2-billion in debt, largely accrued while building the roads, sewers and water systems needed to support its suburbs.
“If you have a high rise building … sitting on a 180 metre frontage with 210 units, that’s generating huge amounts of tax revenue,” said the city’s planner, Rollin Stanley. “If you take those same 210 units, spread over several kilometres, that means more sewers and roads.”
Calgary approved its latest densification strategy in 2009, but the election of Naheed Nenshi in 2010 marked a shift in the city’s political will to enforce it. During the last election, Mr. Nenshi campaigned on ending the “sprawl subsidy.” Eventually, he wants half of new homes to be built in the city’s core.
Mr. Nenshi has drawn so much ire that suburban builder Cal Wenzel championed a slate of pro-suburban candidates for council in 2013. The mayor was re-elected handily, but at least three more conservative voices were added to council. (Last year, Mr. Wenzel also filed a $6-million defamation suit after the mayor publicly referred to the developer as a “godfather” like figure. The suit is still pending.)
“I guess the issue would be: Are we building and developing to satisfy the market, or are we building to satisfy the plan? Hopefully it would be both. In the best of all worlds, the market conditions are such that the market itself is working in concert with the plan,” said Guy Huntingford, the CEO of the Urban Development Institute — Calgary.
Calgary has an abundance of land, meaning developers can offer people affordable homes, he said: All developers want is balance.
“There are many parts of the world where they have run out of land — look at Vancouver or even Toronto. That’s a different lifestyle. And I think it would be fair to say lots |
his partner, Stephen Chmil, according to investigators and legal documents, broke rule after rule. They kept few written records, coached a witness and took Mr. Ranta’s confession under what a judge described as highly dubious circumstances. They allowed two dangerous criminals, an investigator said, to leave jail, smoke crack cocaine and visit with prostitutes in exchange for incriminating Mr. Ranta.
At trial, prosecutors acknowledged the detectives had misbehaved but depicted them as likable scamps. Reached in retirement on Tuesday, Mr. Scarcella defended his work. “I never framed anyone in my life,” he said.Jeremy Corbyn proposes ban on dividends from companies that don't pay living wages
The left-wing leader of the UK Labour Party has set out a pair of proposed reguations for British limited liability corporations that will challenge their ability to sponge off the tax-payer and enrich themselves and their shareholders in so doing.
Limited liability corporations are creatures of government, a bargain in which the state agrees to immunize the company's owners from the company's debts -- regardless of its wrongdoing -- in exchange for the company's adherence to various regulations.
Corbyn's new policies challenge that in two modest, but important ways. First, any company that didn't pay its employees a living wage would be prohibited from dispersing payments to its shareholders in the form of dividends. A company that relies on a workforce that isn't paid enough to live on is effectively relying on a state subsidy, because those employees will inevitably end up bridging their economic gap through welfare programs of some kind (Walmart is a poster child for this practice, as is McDonald's -- whose HR department offers advice to employees on how to sign on for benefits to keep from starving while working in its restaurants).
Corbyn's no-dividends policy effectively bans companies from declaring a profit that is attained through a direct public subsidy to its workforce. If you can't afford to pay your workers enough to live on, you can't afford to pay dividends.
In addition, Corbyn has proposed a cap on the multiple between a limited liability company's highest-paid, and average-paid employees. The UK has the second-most unequal economy in the G7 (after the USA). In 1998, the gap between the CEO's pay and the average wage in the FTSE 100 was 47:1; today it is 150:1.
Companies would not have to obey these regulations, of course, if they opted not to form as limited liability firms. Their owners could simply assume all the risk for their commercial activity, without the public subsidy of limited liability, and run their companies as they please. But under Corbyn's proposal, companies that wanted the state to give them the privilege of limited liability would bear the responsibility of paying living wages and helping to fight income inequality.
“Another proposal would be to bar or restrict companies from distributing dividends until they pay all their workers the living wage. Only profitable employers will be paying dividends, if they depend on cheap labour for those profits then I think there is a question over whether that is a business model to which we should be turning a blind eye.”
Jeremy Corbyn to confront big business over living wage
[Rowena Mason/The Guardian]How The Catholic Church Documented Mother Teresa's 2 Miracles
Enlarge this image toggle caption Bikas Das/AP Bikas Das/AP
Hundreds of Catholics have been declared saints in recent decades, but few with the acclaim accorded Mother Teresa, set to be canonized by Pope Francis on Sunday, largely in recognition of her service to the poor in India.
"When I was coming of age, she was the living saint," says the Most Rev. Robert Barron, the auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. "If you were saying, 'Who is someone today that would really embody the Christian life?' you would turn to Mother Teresa of Calcutta."
Born Agnes Bojaxhiu to an Albanian family in the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia, Mother Teresa became world-famous for her devotion to the destitute and dying. The religious congregation she established in 1950, the Missionaries of Charity, now counts more than 4,500 religious sisters around the world. In 1979, she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her lifetime of service.
Humanitarian work alone, however, is not sufficient for canonization in the Catholic Church. Normally, a candidate must be associated with at least two miracles. The idea is that a person worthy of sainthood must demonstrably be in heaven, actually interceding with God on behalf of those in need of healing.
In Mother Teresa's case, a woman in India whose stomach tumor disappeared and a man in Brazil with brain abscesses who awoke from a coma both credited their dramatic recovery to prayers offered to the nun after her death in 1997.
"A saint is someone who has lived a life of great virtue, whom we look to and admire," says Bishop Barron, a frequent commentator on Catholicism and spirituality. "But if that's all we emphasize, we flatten out sanctity. The saint is also someone who's now in heaven, living in this fullness of life with God. And the miracle, to put it bluntly, is the proof of it."
Enlarge this image toggle caption Rana Chakraborty/AP Rana Chakraborty/AP
No other Christian denomination posits this notion of an individual in heaven mediating between God and humanity.
"It's not a little supernatural, it's completely supernatural," says the Rev. James Martin, S.J., whose book, My Life with the Saints, recounts his own spiritual journey. "But that's the difficulty a lot of people have with religion. The invitation is to say, 'There's something more than the rational mind can believe, and are you OK with that?' "
Roman Catholic authorities embrace the idea of miracles from heaven with such confidence that they invite skeptics to challenge them. Before candidates qualify for sainthood, the miracles attributed to them must be proven. If someone is suddenly healed after praying to a would-be saint, the Vatican has doctors verify there's no medical reason for it.
A group advocating sainthood for Marguerite d'Youville, a nun who lived in 18th century Canada, for example, sought an alternative explanation for the sudden recovery of a woman with incurable leukemia who had prayed to the nun 200 years after the nun's death. The assignment went to Dr. Jacalyn Duffin, a hematologist at Queen's University in Ontario.
Duffin agreed to do the investigation, but only after warning the group that she was not herself a believer.
"I revealed my atheism to them," Duffin says. "I told them my husband was a Jew, and I wasn't sure if they'd still want me. And they were delighted!"
The group reasoned that if Duffin, as an atheist, found there was no scientific reason the woman should have recovered, who could doubt it was a miracle? In fact, after her investigation of the woman's recovery, Duffin agreed that the woman's healing was — for lack of a better word — miraculous.
Intrigued by the experience, Duffin investigated hundreds of other miracle stories chronicled in the Vatican archives in Rome. She came away convinced that "miracles" do indeed happen.
"To admit that as a nonbeliever, you don't have to claim that it was a supernatural entity that did it," Duffin says. "You have to admit some humility and accept that there are things that science cannot explain."
A few miracle stories in recent years have involved nonmedical situations, such as when a small pot of rice prepared in a church kitchen in Spain in 1949 proved sufficient to feed nearly 200 hungry people, after the cook prayed to a local saint. More than 95 percent of the cases cited in support of a canonization, however, involve healing from disease.
Hard-core rationalists would not be likely to see such cases as evidence of a "miracle," even while acknowledging they have no alternative explanation. Devout Catholics, on the other hand, readily attribute such occurrences to God, no matter how mysterious they may be.
"In a sense, it's a little arrogant of us to say, 'Before I can believe in God, I need to understand God's ways,' " says Martin. "To me, that's kind of crazy, that we could fit God into our minds."
Canonization procedures have undergone a series of reforms in recent years. Pope Francis has instituted changes to make the promotion of a candidate less subject to organized lobbying efforts. In fact, Vatican authorities routinely interview at least a few people who doubt the suitability of someone for sainthood. (Among those contacted during the early stages of Mother Teresa's review was Christopher Hitchens, who wrote a highly critical assessment of Mother Teresa's work, calling her "a fanatic, a fundamentalist and a fraud.")
The miracles requirement has also changed over time. In 1983, John Paul II reduced the number of miracles required for sainthood from three to two, one for the first stage — beatification — and one more for canonization.
Some Catholic leaders have called for the miracles requirement to be dropped altogether, but others argue vigorously against this. Bishop Barron says that without the miracles requirement for sainthood, the Catholic Church would offer only a watered-down Christianity.
"That's the trouble with a liberal theology," Barron says. "It tends to domesticate God, make everything a little bit too neat and prim and tidy and rational. I kind of like how the miraculous shakes us out of a too-easy rationalism. We'll affirm everything great about modernity and the sciences, but I'm not going to affirm that that's all there is to life."
In one sense, the sainthood of Mother Teresa may speak to present-day Catholics in a way previous canonizations did not. Martin, editor of the Jesuit magazine America, notes that in a posthumously published collection of her private journals and letters, Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light, the nun so widely revered for her spiritual purity acknowledged that she did not personally feel God's presence.
"In my soul I feel just that terrible pain of loss," she wrote, "of God not wanting me, of God not being God, of God not existing."
Martin says Mother Teresa dealt with such pain by telling God, "Even though I don't feel you, I believe in you." That statement of faith, he says, makes her example relevant and meaningful to contemporary Christians who also struggle with doubt.
"Ironically," he says, "this most traditional saint becomes a saint for modern times."Scotland Yard has arrested five people under the Computer Misuse Act as part of its investigation into alleged attacks by the Anonymous hacking collective.
The five males - aged, 15, 16, 19, 20 and 26 - were arrested in a series of co-ordinated raids on Thursday morning by detectives from Scotland Yard's Police Central e-Crime Unit (PCeU).
The raids took place in the West Midlands, Northants, Herts, Surrey and London as part of an ongoing investigation into Anonymous. All five unnamed suspects were taken to local police stations for questioning.
"The arrests are in relation to recent and ongoing 'distributed denial of service' attacks (DDoS) by an online group calling themselves 'Anonymous'," a brief statement by the PCeU explains.
The loose-knit Anonymous collective has invited volunteers to download its LOIC denial of service tool in order to swamp targeted sites with junk traffic. The use of the tool took off with attacks against the entertainment industry and organisations, such as controversial solicitors ACS:Law. Much the same approach was applied against financial service organisations, such as Mastercard and PayPal, which suspended accounts maintained by WikiLeaks.
The LOIC does a poor job of preserving users' anonymity, hence the risk for anyone using it that they may come to the attention of local law enforcement agencies. ®5 Effects of a 12-cent Cap on Debit Card Fees
The Federal Reserve is examining a new rule that would cap point of sale debit card fees to 12 cents per swipe. While the reduced fees sound great in theory, there are plenty of unintended consequences that need to be uncovered.
1. Limited transaction amounts – Because of the current percentage-based fee structure, a 12 cent cap on debit card fees could mean that banks allow debit card purchases only on purchases of $50 or less, the maximum customer liability for fraud. Currently, percentage-based fees mean it is just as profitable to protect customers from $1000 of fraud as it is $2 of fraud. Not so much after the switch.
2. New fees on checking accounts – In order to generate the same amount of revenue, banks are pondering new monthly service fees just for having a checking account open. One of the worst possible outcomes here is that some bank customers will close their checking accounts altogether, joining the millions of “unbanked.”
3. Transfer of wealth from poor to rich – The overwhelming majority of the unbanked population are those who have the lowest income. If banks make the switch to flat-rate, monthly fee checking accounts it will be the poor who carry proportionally most of the burden of new fee structures. Today, those who spend the most are the ones who pay the most in passed-on fees. In the future, fee-based checking would mean those with the least amount of money spend the most on fees.
4. Credit comes back – The 12 cent cap would not apply to credit cards, giving banks an incentive to push credit cards over debit cards.
5. Bank revenue plummets – Wall Street has priced in a drop in fee revenue of as much as 60%. Of those hardest hit will be Mastercard and Visa, which derive almost all of their revenue from credit and debit card processing fees.
5.5 New Fees on ATMs – In response to the new law, JP Morgan Chase will be testing out fees of $4 or $5 on various ATMs around the country. The company sees ATMs as one of the few unrestricted revenue sources that allow Chase to derive revenue to subsidize customer account services with revenue generated from non-customer ATM transactions.CLOSE The air quality in India is so bad, its the equivalent of smoking 44 cigarettes a day. Veuer's Nick Cardona (@nickcardona93) has that story. Buzz60
A participant wears a pollution mask as gay rights activists and their supporters march during a gay pride parade in New Delhi, India, Sunday, Nov. 12, 2017. (Photo11: AP)
New Delhi officials will lobby Monday for a plan to ration the use of private cars amid a grimy cloud of pollution so foul that United Airlines has halted flights to India's capital, while many residents wore masks for their Sunday strolls.
Many schools have been closed since the toxic air mass descended on the region almost a week ago. The government has banned most construction and industrial activity. Most trucks and heavy vehicles have been parked. Residents were urged to stay inside and wear masks outside.
"It comes inside the house, even if you close your windows," Shyami Sodhi, a Delhi resident, told Sky News. "It's difficult to breathe."
The city is considering a plan to blast water from fire trucks and water cannons into the air to help wash away the haze.
A pollution crisis is nothing new to the region. The city is teeming with old cars, trucks and motorbikes spewing pollution unimpeded by mitigation technology. Cooking and industrial emissions add to the problem. And in spring and fall, the noxious clouds from trash and agricultural debris burned outside the city can roll in and hover for weeks.
"People at India Gate (memorial) out for a morning walk say it is tough to breathe... and many (are) wearing masks," The Indian Express reported.
Britain's government has issued an advisory to travelers that "severe air pollution is a major hazard to public health in Delhi." Children, the elderly and those with pre-existing medical conditions may be especially affected, the government warns.
More: Smog is so bad in India, Pakistan, motorists can't see to drive
More: People are still cleaning sewers by hand in this country — and they're dying
More: Air pollution high at U17 World Cup in India
United Airlines spokesman Jonathan Guerin said the airline, one of the world's largest, is monitoring advisories as the region combats a "public health emergency."
"United temporarily suspended our Newark-Delhi flights due to poor air quality concerns in Delhi and currently has waiver policies in place for customers who are traveling to, from or through Delhi," Guerin said in a statement.
The plan to temporarily limit private vehicle use to every other day based on odd-even license plate numbers was to go into effect Monday but hit a speed bump when federal environmental officials declined to grant exemptions for women and two-wheeled vehicles. Local officials said the exemptions are crucial, expressing concern for the viability of the overwhelmed public transportation system — and women's safety.
"Odd Even was not to satisfy anybody's ego," tweeted spokesman Saurabh Bharadwaj of the Aam Aadmi Party. "Women being vulnerable cannot be exposed to risks. Delhi Govt Committed to safety and security."
If the exemptions can be secured, the plan should ease traffic a lot and pollution at least a little.
The Indian Meteorological Department said high humidity was contributing to the thick air paralyzing the city but issued a small ray of hope: Light rains forecast for Tuesday and Wednesday might start to dissipate the blanket that has held the region hostage.
Read or Share this story: https://usat.ly/2i8kyWSSINGAPORE - A fresh tender has been called by the Housing and Development Board (HDB) to install solar panels across nine government organisations, said HDB in a press release on Sunday (Oct 16).
The solar leasing tender called on Oct 10 will collate demand for the installation of solar panels across nine government organisations including the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Finance and the State Courts - many of which are participating in the effort for the first time.
At a capacity of 40 Megawatt peak (MWP), this solar tender will see solar panels installed at 636 HDB blocks and 31 government sites located island-wide. These include primary schools, food centres and Tuas Desalination Plant.
The latest effort is part of the Government's push to install solar panels here under the SolarNova Programme led by the Economic Development Board.
Singapore hopes to have solar energy contribute to 5 per cent of its peak electricity demand or 350 megawatt peak by 2020.
This is the second time that a combined solar leasing tender has been called by HDB - the largest stakeholder in the installation of solar panels in Singapore. Last year, HDB had also called for a tender to install solar panels at various sites under the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) and national water agency PUB.
One key distinction from the first tender is that multiple companies may come together to make one bid for the tender.
HDB has committed to progressively roll out 220MWp of solar panels across 5,500 HDB blocks by 2020. With solar PV capacity of 220MWp, 265 gigawatt hours of clean energy can be generated annually - equivalent to powering about 55,000 four-room flats. This means that carbon emissions can be reduced by 132,500 tonnes each year.
This multi-agency solar leasing tender will close on Dec 30, and is estimated to be awarded in the first quarter of next year (2017).
The installation is expected to complete in quarter one of 2019.San Francisco has taken a tentative step toward deciding on whether it will become the first local government in the country to run its voting machines on open-source software.
The notion of shifting away from using proprietary technology sold by private companies to computer code made freely available for anyone to use and modify has been talked about for years. But it’s been getting more attention since the city allocated $300,000 to study the issue.
Last week, Elections Director John Arntz opened discussions with Slalom, a consulting group selected by the city to prepare a detailed report on what San Francisco would face if it decides go to an open-source voting system. The report is expected to be finished by January at a cost of around $175,000.
Proponents of open-source voting systems say local governments using them would be able to hold elections with an unprecedented level of control, transparency and security. It’s a concept that’s gaining wider attention nationwide given the specter of vote tampering that arose during last year’s presidential election.
California Secretary of State Alex Padilla has said he would support an open-source voting system, assuming it could pass the state’s certification protocols. In April, Padilla endorsed the Voting Modernization Bond Act of 2018, which seeks $450 million to upgrade the state’s antiquated voting machines. Some of that money could be spent by county elections officials to research and develop open-source voting systems.
Supporters say open-source systems would be reliable because they can be constantly assessed by a swarm of programmers who can spot bugs and recommend improvements before election day.
“To put it simply, you want to have as many eyes on the code as possible,” said Brent Turner, secretary of the California Association of Voting Officials, a group dedicated to implementing open-source voting systems.
Open-source software could allow the city to more fully understand and adjust how votes are tallied. Currently, vendors of electronic voting equipment provide few details about how their machines operate, claiming those details are proprietary. Governments are also beholden to private vendors if they want to make a change to the software running the machines.
“You’re stuck with whatever they provide,” said Chris Jerdonek, president of the San Francisco Elections Commission and the chairman of the commission’s Open Source Voting System Technical Advisory Committee. “Open-source would give the city an opportunity to say, ‘We want to make a tweak,’ and then they’d be free to do that.”
Open-source proponents also say governments could save money by reducing their reliance on outside vendors. Just how much San Francisco might save isn’t totally clear, but for the past 11 years, the city has spent an average of $2 million annually on its voting equipment, which it buys from Dominion Voting Systems. This year, the city renewed its contract with Dominion through 2018 for $2.3 million.
There are doubters, however.
Many technology and security experts stress that open-source software is not inherently more secure just because a lot of people are looking for bugs and plugging security holes.
“Software designed for inspection tends to be ‘better’ — although transparency does not magically improve security,” said Deirdre Mulligan, an associate professor at UC Berkeley’s School of Information.
And Jack Miller, the chief information security officer at SlashNext, a cybersecurity firm, questioned whether an open-source voting project could attract enough skilled volunteers to police the software code effectively.
But Turner said the term “open source” can be a bit of a misnomer, suggesting that the code is open to inspection and alteration at any time. In reality, Turner said, access to the code could be controlled by the city, even if it remains visible to the public.
“It’s a publicly held code that can be locked down before it’s utilized in a real election,” Turner said. And if hackers do manage to manipulate the code, “with an open-source system, someone will see it and you’ll have all these smarty-pants try to outshine each other to fix the problem. They’re the proofreaders,” Turner said.
Any hope of receiving additional funding to exploring open-source voting will be “fully contingent” on the consulting firm’s findings in January, said Jerdonek, the elections commissioner. The biggest potential roadblock, he said, is getting city officials to take the risk of being the first in the nation to try it.
Dominic Fracassa is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: dfracassa@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @dominic fracassaBEIJING (Reuters) - Thousands of Chinese coal miners marched through the streets of a mining town in northeastern China over the weekend protesting against unpaid wages, as China grapples with rising unemployment due to overcapacity in heavy industries.
A villager moves coal at local businessman Sun Meng's small coal depot near a coal mine of the state-owned Longmay Group on the outskirts of Jixi, in Heilongjiang province, China, October 23, 2015. REUTERS/Jason Lee
The protesters are employees at Shuangyashan Mine, owned by Longmay Group. They held up banners saying: “We want to live, we want to eat,” according to photographs posted on social media.
As China’s economy slows, the government is trying to slash overcapacity in labor-intensive industries like coal and steel but this has prompted fears the country might face its fiercest unemployment pressures since the late 1990s.
The workers claim they are owed unpaid wages and some are angry that their pay has been cut to 800 yuan ($123.19) a month, from 1000 yuan, according to local media reports.
“Thousands of people have been protesting,” an eyewitness told Reuters by phone. The witness declined to give their name for fear of reprisal from the authorities.
“The police have been taking people away,” the witness said.
A statement posted on a Heilongjiang government website on Saturday night acknowledged some employees were owed wages but did not mention the protests.
Reuters was unable to contact Longmay, local police or the Heilongjiang government on Sunday.
A rapid collapse in the prices of oil and coal, two of Heilongjiang’s major industries, and inefficiency and overmanning at state-owned enterprises have compounded problems for the province, Lu Hao, the governor of Heilongjiang, said at a session last week of China’s annual parliament.
The firm said last year that it would adopt a “wartime work atmosphere” to cut its bloated 248,000 headcount by as much as 100,000. It has been making losses since 2012.
Longmay coal miners are reemployed locally and some will be transferred to farming, Lu said, adding that local state farms have cultivated additional land, while the local forest bureau has increased forest land to provide jobs.
“It is most important that we have to train those transferred workers with new skills, create new market opportunities and encourage their willingness to run their own businesses,” Lu said.
“They have expressed their willingness to learn new skills but some are not adaptable, which requires our local governments, party and enterprises to help them to learn new skills and find new job opportunities.”
Sources have told Reuters that China is expecting to lay off 5 million to 6 million state workers over the next two to three years as part of efforts to curb industrial overcapacity and pollution.New York Senator Files Bill to Prevent Future Marijuana Dispensaries
ALBANY, NY — As states continue to work towards reforming marijuana laws, one New York lawmaker has introduced a bill that would prohibit the sale, cultivation, or giving away marijuana for any reason — including the operation of medical marijuana dispensaries that may be authorized by any future law.
Introduced by Senator Greg Ball (R-District 40), Senate Bill 4930, also known as the “Illegal Narcotics Dispensary Ban,” aims to prevent any medical or recreational marijuana dispensaries that may become authorized from current pending, or future, legislation.
“No person shall sell, dispense, give away, provide or cultivate any quantity of marihuana, regardless of the purpose of such sale, dispensing, provision or cultivation, nor shall any person operate a dispensary of marijuana,” the bill reads.
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The filing of the bill comes as a bill that would allow New York residents to use marijuana for medical purposes continues to advance in the New York Assembly.
Unlike Sen. Ball’s anti-marijuana bill, which has no co-sponsors, Assembly Bill 6357, the Compassionate Care Act, has substantial support in the Assembly, with over 60 co-sponsors. An identical companion bill, Senate Bill 4406,was filed in the Senate with over a dozen co-sponsors.
The bills would create a tightly regulated system of medical marijuana supply provided by the very dispensaries that Sen. Ball is trying to prohibit.
Despite nationwide support for marijuana law reform at an all time high, Senator Ball has taken a strong stance against marijuana reform, especially the authorization of medical marijuana in New York.
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In April, following a Just Say Now phone bank campaign, Sen. Ball tweeted “Receiving emails, calls on “Medical” Marijuana…let me be clear: Marijuana is NOT medicine. Period. Next topic…”
Sen. Ball voted against the Marriage Equality Act, which authorized same-sex marriage in 2011, and has expressed strong support for the use of public funds to transport private school students.
According to FollowTheMoney.org, Sen. Ball’s financial contributors include the New York State Correctional Officers’ labor union, the Police Association of Yonkers, the New York State Troopers’ labor union, and the New York State Beer Wholesalers Association. Corporate sponsors include Pepsi Cola Bottling Company, American Express, and Time Warner Cable.
New York residents who wish to contact Sen. Ball can do so here.
Tags: Compassionate Care ActLONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Women will have to wait 217 years before they earn as much as men and have equal representation in the workplace, research said, revealing the widest gap in almost a decade.
Women are paid and achieve just over half as much as men in the workplace, the World Economic Forum said, reporting an economic gap of 58 percent between the sexes.
“In 2017 we should not be seeing progress toward gender parity shift into reverse,” said Saadia Zahidi, WEF’s head of education, gender and work.
“Gender equality is both a moral and economic imperative. Some countries understand this and they are now seeing dividends from the proactive measures they have taken to address their gender gaps.”
It is the second year in a row that the Swiss non-profit has recorded worsening economic inequality, which is calculated by measuring how many men and women participate in the labor force, their earned incomes and their job advancement.
Last year, WEF said women would achieve economic equality in 170 years, down from 118 years in 2015.
No country has closed the pay gap, WEF said, using data from institutions such as the International Labour Organization, United Nations Development Programme and World Health Organization.
Overall, Iceland, Norway, Finland, Rwanda and Sweden ranked highest among 144 nations measured on progress in equality in four areas: education, health and survival, economic opportunity and political empowerment.
Yemen, then Pakistan, Syria, Chad and Iran, ranked lowest.
Women fared much better in education, where equality could be reached within 13 years, WEF said, while closing the gap in political empowerment could take a further 99 years.
“Even though qualified women are coming out of the education system, many industries are failing to hire, retain and promote them, losing out on a wealth of capacity,” it said.
The report estimated that closing the pay gap could add an extra $250 billion to the GDP of Britain, $1,750 billion to that of the US and $2.5 trillion to China’s GDP.WASHINGTON -- Every good idea in American politics eventually becomes a vehicle for corporate lobbying.
When the Obama administration unveiled its "We The People" online petition platform in the fall of 2011, the goal was pretty straightforward: give people an opportunity to petition their government. Once the petition passes a popularity threshold, the administration responds to it.
This resulted in a ton of interesting and thoughtful grassroots messages on public policy. It also opened the Obama team up to a lot of silly trolling -- Build the Death Star from Star Wars! -- and a barrage of ridiculous nonsense from the fever swamps. A petition to "PROHIBIT ANY LAWS MANDATING THE FORCE AND REQUIREMENT OF VACCINATIONS OF ANY KIND" garnered over 132,204 signatures (capital letters are not required by the White House submission form).
But when a petition popped up containing details about payday lending regulations proposed by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, something other than a grassroots goof-off was clearly in the works. The petition -- which has crossed the 100,000 signature threshold mandating a White House response -- reads like a list of industry talking points written from the perspective of an aggrieved consumer.
"These rules will limit our access to payday and other short-term loans and take away our financial freedom," the petition reads. "The rules won’t apply to other forms of credit, so why are we being unfairly targeted?... How we manage our money is our responsibility -- not the federal government’s.... Regulation that makes it nearly impossible for us to obtain or to qualify for a small loan is the same as eliminating these loans."
Thanks to some sloppy website management by the California Financial Services Providers Association, we now know precisely which company was driving the effort. The CFSPA is just one of a swarm of front-groups who go to bat for payday lenders in various realms of public policy. And they posted four documents on the industry's "Petition Plan" to the public section of their own website.
The documents reveal that payday lender ACE Cash Express paid for a "Petition Message Development" to determine the best way to convince its customers to sign the petition. They also show screen shots of the ACE website and email messages to its customers encouraging them to sign the petition.
The CFPB forced ACE to pay $10 million last year for illegal debt collection practices designed to trap payday loan borrowers in a cycle of debt, in which customers take out expensive new loans in an effort to pay off prior loans.
The CFPB's proposed payday lending rules are designed to stop those vicious cycles. If finalized, payday lenders could not issue a customer a new payday loan for at least 60 days after their first loan. Borrowers could not have payday loans outstanding for more than 90 days in a given year. The payday lending industry presents its work as a tool to help people find a way to make ends meet during periods of financial distress.
The ACE Cash Express petition project bombarded its customers with the message "DON'T LET THE GOVERNMENT TAKE AWAY YOUR LOANS" in emails about loan payments, replete with links to the petition. It also included an in-store flier effort to convince customers to sign the petitions.
"While most come to like some of the details such as the 90-day restriction and 60-day moratorium after discussion, these details confuse many customers and distract them from the idea of signing the petition," one of the message development documents explains.
ACE Cash Express and the California Financial Services Providers Association did not respond to requests for comment.
You can view the documents here, here, here and here.Now, Katie Couric may be taking a place next to Brian Williams, as a disgraced, lying fraud, if the Virginia Citizens Defense League has anything to say about it. Falsifying news and anything related to it, is becoming a popular trend among leftist media and Katie has joined the fray in trying to do her part in fighting against the second amendment.
As the producer of an anti-gun documentary, it seems Katie thought she had the right to take liberties with some facts. When she turned her footage over to the editing department, the final product showed completely distorted interviews. The subjects of those interviews are mad as Hell and aren’t gonna take it anymore.
A Virginia gun-rights group is suing Katie Couric and the producers of the documentary “Under the Gun” for $12 million in defamation over an interview that was revealed to have been deceptively edited.
The Virginia Citizens Defense League (VCDL) and two gun-rights activists featured in the film, Daniel Hawes and Patricia Webb, are suing Ms. Couric, who produced the documentary and led the interview in question, as well as director Stephanie Soechtig, Atlas Films and Epix, the film’s distributor.
Trending: CNN Told By South Korean Official: “Clearly Credit Goes To President Trump” (VIDEO)
The suit filed in federal court Tuesday, obtained by BearingArms.com, claimed the producers of the film “intentionally manipulated” footage to make it look like members of the VCDL were stumped when asked about gun background checks.
The lawsuit seeks compensatory damages of $12 million and punitive damages of $350,000 per plaintiff, as well as an injunction against further distribution of the edited footage.
Ms. Couric and Ms. Soechtig faced a wave of backlash this summer after raw audio of the interview between Ms. Couric and the VCDL proved that the group was not accurately portrayed in the documentary. Ms. Couric apologized for the misleading editing, but Ms. Soechtig defiantly stood by her artistic license.
During the interview, Ms. Couric asked members of the VCDL, “If there are no background checks for gun purchasers, how do you prevent felons or terrorists from purchasing a gun?”
The film showed the activists sitting in silence for eight seconds, apparently unable to come up with an answer, before it cut to a different scene. Raw audio of the interview revealed that the activists responded immediately and debated for more than four minutes. Second Amendment supporters expressed outrage over the edit, saying it was done deliberately to embarrass the activists.
Ms. Soechtig responded at the time, “If I wanted to make them look bad, I would have focused exclusively on their radical ideology. But I didn’t do that. I wanted to allow them an opportunity to explain their beliefs. In hindsight, had I known that the NRA would focus on eight seconds of a two-hour film, I might have done things differently. But I made the creative decision and I stand by it.”
At publishing of this post, plaintiffs still claim the documentary still contains inaccuracies and are seeking to shut down its distribution.
Here’s the way the interview REALLY went down and how Couric and Co. manipulated the interview for dramatic effect.
What do you think? Leave your comments below. Should Katie pay up? Should this be a career buster?
Image: Source
H/T: Washington TimesBy Steven Scholl
On Labor Day weekend, I spent four days hanging out with 15,000 Muslims at the Islamic Society of North America’s 49th annual convention in Washington, D.C. As one of the few non-Muslims in attendance, I was able to eavesdrop on hundreds of conversations swirling around me, take in several talks by prominent Muslims and attend author Karen Armstrong’s address to the big donors to ISNA. I wish all America could have listened in on these startling and revealing declarations of faith from the North American Muslim front. I am sure most Americans would have been shocked by the content of the discourse at ISNA.
Shocked, because what Muslims say to each other when they are hanging out together is so radically ordinary.
Let’s start with the theme of the convention: “One Nation Under God: Striving for the Common Good.” How radical is that? There was a strong emphasis in workshops and speeches on how American Muslims can integrate the commandments of the Quran to better serve the poor, the oppressed, those in need within the Muslim community, and in cooperation with interfaith groups to help all people regardless of faith.
Finding common ground to further the common good as faithful citizens was a recurring theme throughout the Labor Day weekend gathering.
The Sanctity of All Creation
I dropped into a talk by best-selling author-scholar Seyyed Hossein Nasr on moral values from an Islamic perspective. |
of sound, to create a modern collaboration made possible by the speed of the Real Internet.
In the meantime, there are always new mixes and mixtures on the way from The Hood, with original works and remixes filling the spaces in-between. A compilation of remixes and original production work dropped in December via NYC clothing label Mishka. And so much more music on the way! All eyes on the Hood.Looking for news you can trust?
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In early 2007, three stoner twentysomethings won a Defense Department contract to supply the Afghan military with $300 million worth of ammunition. “The dudes,” as they came to be known—a ninth-grade dropout, a masseur, and a low-level pot dealer, all with little or no experience but plenty of nerve—had begun bidding on Pentagon arms contracts and winning out over massive international conglomerates. The Afghan contract wasn’t their first, but it was by far their largest. They would have to source thousands of tons of mortar rounds, grenades, rockets, and 100 million rounds of AK-47 ammunition and deliver all of it to Kabul at a particularly fraught time for the Afghan war effort.
Arms and the Dudes publishes June 9. Arms and the Dudes publishes June 9.
To fill the order, though, the dudes secretly repackaged millions of rounds of decades-old, surplus Chinese ammo—illegal under the contract terms—before shipping them to Afghanistan. It was all going fine until they got caught by Pentagon investigators and wound up with their mugshots spread across the front page of the New York Times.
Their story is detailed in Guy Lawson‘s new book, Arms and the Dudes, a wildly entertaining saga with dual narratives. The first involves blackmail, criminals, hustlers, corrupt government officials, and three kids in way over their heads. The other, and for Lawson more important, side of the story, concerns how the Pentagon came to use private contractors like the dudes as proxies—and eventual fall guys—to secure weapons from gray market arms dealers, the only people who could supply what it needed. I caught up with Lawson to talk about Pentagon contracting, weapons proliferation, and the act of “buying up guns and pouring them into conflict zones like it’s gonna solve the fucking problem.”
Mother Jones: One of the takeaways from your book was that pretty much anyone with enough gall can be an arms dealer. How could regular people land these Pentagon contracts?
Guy Lawson: In the beginning you had these no-bid, multibillion-dollar giant contracts going to “death star” corporations like Halliburton and Blackwater. It was a public relations fiasco, and the Bush administration’s reactive way of governing just went and did the opposite. They created rules to favor small businesses with the idea that business can always be more efficient than government, and the competition is inherently a good value. But they didn’t pause to think that the competition is going to be about weaponry, ammunition, guns. The policy decision buried inside the FedBizOpps logic is, “Let’s go cheap and nasty and fast.”
There was never a really serious, thought-out process for delivering arms appropriately.
There was never a really serious, thought-out process for delivering arms appropriately. The competition became among any kind of grifter who could get qualified to deal on FedBizOpps—which really meant getting certain kinds of licensing and minimal background checks, and then having the guts and wherewithal to source this kind of material through the only places you could get it: gunrunners in the Balkans and throughout the former Soviet Bloc.
MJ: The dudes worked with a shadowy Swiss arms dealer who essentially used them as a front to get a slice of the Pentagon contracts. Meanwhile, he was shipping arms to other places where they were allegedly used by militias and warlords. Did the US know?
GL: It had to know. There’s a larger sense of duty here that the United States government owes to civilians in Liberia, the Congo, or children in the Levant. The people the government was dealing with—with the dudes as their scrim of plausible deniability—were the only people who could get what it needed given the circumstances: There were two wars going on. The Bush administration was very belligerent towards China and Russia, the other two main suppliers of this kind of weaponry, so they ruled out that possibility. It devolved into: There was really only one possible place to go.
MJ: You first encountered this story in the pages of the New York Times.
GL: The Times ran a story on the front page, running the mugshots of these two kids as if they’ve fooled the Pentagon, as if the Pentagon had not written rules properly, because, I don’t know, they were negligent? [I thought,] “What if it was Pentagon policy? What if the Pentagon knew exactly what it was doing? What if these kids were just fall guys?”
“The ammunition at the center of this story is almost certainly being used in Syria right now, either by ISIS or Iran-backed Shia forces.”
If you look at the system of weapons procurement, the dudes were doing exactly what the government wanted. The government needed somebody to go in and buy up as cheaply as possible as much ammunition as possible and get it to the war zones. They had to deal with the Swiss arms dealer, the sleazy Albanian government officials, they had to bribe and pay off officials and organized crime figures—all those things were inevitable. It’s like that scene in Casablanca: “I’m shocked that there’s gambling going on in this casino!” That’s the nature of the business.
MJ: Why would the Pentagon prop up dealers believed to be involved in activities that squander our interests in other regions?
GL: It would seem, in retrospect, that there was a kind of malevolence to this, or that the stupidity amounted to bad intention, but I don’t really feel like that. The United States government set out to break the law, and then its own law enforcement agency set out to stop it from breaking the law. Did they care? And who is the “they”? Each person in the chain of command in these various organizations acted with shocking banality—just interested in their own careers, their own aggrandizement, and their own agenda, with no vision of what the stakes are, the purpose of the mission, what success might look like. So how can you possibly succeed?
MJ: What’s the risk of this kind of policy?
GL: Here’s something for you: None of this has changed! The risks are apparent in the headlines every day in Syria, Iraq. Proliferation is proliferation—the idea that you can pour a hundred million rounds of AK ammunition into a war zone with positive consequences strikes me as insane. The Albanian-Chinese ammunition at the center of this story is almost certainly being used in Syria right now, either by ISIS or Iran-backed Shia forces. You know, half the guns that went to Iraq were lost. Lost! This policy doesn’t work. These weapons are doing strategic harm. John McCain was quoted just the other day saying we need to get more weapons into Syria. What bigger favor can we do to kids in the Levant than pouring more fucking guns in there? It’s the age of squander.
MJ: Last month, one of the main US-backed rebel groups in Syria disbanded and joined an alliance of Islamist militias. They’d been one of few groups given TOW anti-tank rockets.
“These guys were incredibly cunning, really smart, and really stupid at the same time. Maybe in that way they’re just like the Pentagon.”
GL: Right. Shit like that happens in war. You have these massive Russian cargo planes touching down on tarmacs laden with weapons. (The biggest weapon of mass destruction in history is the AK-47, not Iranian nuclear weapons.) They arrive with nobody remarking on them and nobody being held accountable for the unintended consequences for a war that looks to be without end. Maybe you have to say: Well, maybe that is the policy: Have them fight each other until they kill each other out. That’s a pretty dark way to look at it, but how else do you explain such an irrational set of actions?
MJ: From your perspective, did the dudes themselves do anything wrong?
GL: Yeah. At least two of them knew that they were right up on the edge of breaking the law. It wasn’t like they were innocents. They were naïve. They were playing a game way too sharply. They tragically misunderstood the world they were dealing with. They didn’t have a clue that they were pawns. I don’t think there’s any question that they were behaving in a greedy, reckless, and irresponsible way, and that at the heart of it they didn’t give a shit about the ammo. These guys were incredibly cunning, really smart, and really stupid at the same time. Maybe in that way they’re just like the Pentagon.
MJ: How many people are out there doing the same kind of thing?
GL: It is a gray business. Buying up munitions from Balkan dealers and manufacturers inherently has a political and criminal dimension to it. If it was General Dynamics doing this thing, would they have had a different way of going about it? Yeah, sure. It would have involved lobbyists in Washington. Would they have “broken” the law? No. But would they have been doing the same thing in substance? Yes. To me the kids are hilarious, crazy, stoners. There’s lots of things about them that are entertaining and I hope people enjoy the book, but underneath it all, there’s an important reality lurking.What do you get when you get someone with a lot of upper body strength and someone who can make flame-element clones of herself? Add a bit of centripetal force, and you get a missile!Originally, this was supposed to be pretty much the same sort of animation, but it would pan to overhead once the spin happens and be a sort of remake of that one part of the Roman Mech fight seen here: static.comicvine.com/uploads/o… Sadly, I couldn't really make that look proper, but I like where this ended up, and I even accidentally invented a new technique. The idea is that, as Blake swings around, she summons a flame Dust clone of herself at the right moment to launch it forward so it'll explode. The name comes from the mission in Metal Gear Solid: V, where you're sent to find, "The Honey Bee," which is a homing missile launcher, and because of the obvious connection with the Bees.This is a bit of an interesting animation because it's actually 90 frames, which is a LOTTT more than usual. I wanted Yang and Blake to spin faster and faster as they kept going, so the first few turns have 3 copied frames, then 2, then finally 1 making it look really fast.Commission Info: reiforce.deviantart.com/journa…SALT LAKE CITY — Who do I vote for to be the next president? It’s a question Americans are asking themselves as each weighs the pros and cons about the respective parties’ nominee.
Is the traditional vote for a Democrat or Republican the right answer or is a third-party candidate the best option for president this election cycle? We’ve seen here in Utah that KSL.com readers overwhelmingly support a third run by former Republican nominee Mitt Romney, but that seems to be a fleeting dream.
Unless something changes from now until the party conventions, it’s looking like Americans will be deciding between Democrat Hillary Clinton, Republican Donald Trump and Libertarian Gary Johnson. Yes, there are other third-party candidates on the ballot, but the aforementioned names are the three with the likeliest possibility of winning the presidency.
So we ask: who, of the above three candidates, would you vote for to be president today? Take our poll below and watch to see how the rest of the KSL.com readers vote.For the first time in more than 35 years, the U.S. military has met all of its annual recruiting goals, as hundreds of thousands of young people have enlisted despite the near-certainty that they will go to war.
The Pentagon, which made the announcement Tuesday, said the economic downturn and rising joblessness, as well as bonuses and other factors, had led more qualified youths to enlist.
The military has not seen such across-the-board successes since the all-volunteer force was established in 1973, after Congress ended the draft following the Vietnam War. In recent years, the military has often fallen short of some of its recruiting targets. The Army, in particular, has struggled to fill its ranks, admitting more high school dropouts, overweight youths and even felons.
Yet during the current budget year, which ended Sept. 30, recruiters met their targets in both numbers and quality for all components of active-duty and reserve forces.
"We delivered beyond anything the framers of the all-volunteer force would have anticipated," Bill Carr, deputy undersecretary of defense for military personnel policy, said at a Pentagon news conference.
The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are considered by experts to be an unprecedented test of the volunteer military's resilience. Its ability to bring fresh recruits into the force is critical not only to increasing the overall size of the Army and Marine Corps, but to ensuring that additional units are available to rotate into conflict zones. Some Army units sent overseas recently have been deployed at less than full strength.
As lengthy, multiple combat tours place U.S. forces under enormous stress, the willingness of young people to enlist has surprised even military leaders, experts said.
The military is suffering "strains that are tragic in personal lives, but institutionally the ground forces have held together and are not broken. They are even recovering a little bit as we speak," said Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.
Still, it is difficult to predict how much stress the volunteer military can take as it navigates uncharted waters, experts said.
"There is no way to tell at what point the Army will break in the sense of mass desertion, or people unwilling to stay in, or not meeting recruiting quotas," O'Hanlon said.
Overall, the Defense Department brought in 168,900 active-duty troops, or 103 percent of the goal for the fiscal year, officials said. It reached 104 percent of the goal for recruitment of National Guard and reserve forces.
The quality of recruits also improved, with about 95 percent reporting that they had received high school diplomas; last year, 83 percent of the Army's active-duty recruits had diplomas, short of the goal of 90 percent. The active-duty Army this year admitted only 1.5 percent of recruits who scored in the lowest acceptable category on the standard qualification test; in recent years, that figure had reached nearly 4 percent.Vice President Jusuf Kalla has reminded mosques to keep the volume of their loudspeakers at a reasonable level so as not to cause disturbances in the wake of a riot in Tanjung Balai, North Sumatra last week following an argument over a mosque loudspeaker.
The riot in Tanjung Balai ended with 12 Buddhist temples burned down and looted, and it all started when a local complained over the sound level of a mosque's speakers near her home, Kalla said on Thursday.
"Speakers' volume must not be too high," he said in his opening speech in an event discussing mosques' roles to prevent deviant teachings in Jakarta as reported by tempo.co.
It was not the first time Kalla, who is also chairman of the Indonesian Mosque Council, urged mosques to lower their loudspeaker volumes as part of efforts to promote peace and harmony.
Indonesia, a democratic country with the largest Muslim population in the world, is also home to the largest numbers of mosques in the world with 800,000 spread nationwide, he said.
He said many mosques recited parts of the Quran over the loudspeaker prior to adzan (call to prayer) for nearly 30 minutes while it would only take less than that amount of time for people to arrive at mosques for prayers.
Eighteen people have been named suspects by local police following the riot last week. National Police chief Gen. Tito Karnavian, meanwhile, has blamed social media messages for inciting the violence. (rin)Recently AMD announced that they reclaimed the speed crown for the world’s fastest single-GPU graphics card with the Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition. The announcement bred a certain suspicion, which we have today confirmed: a leaked BIOS file will change your standard, “old” AMD Radeon HD 7970 almost completely into a Gigahertz Edition GPU.
We say “almost completely” because there are indeed certain hardware differences between the original and Gigahertz editions. The newer cards have improved sensors for more accurate PowerTune adjustments—but that’s the only physical difference. In all other respects, the upgrade should provide the Gigahertz Edition benefits to the older standard 7970 GPU:
A higher GPU clockspeed of 1000MHz, up from the 7970’s 925MHz.
A higher memory clockspeed of 1500MHz, up from the 7970’s 1375MHz.
And PowerTune’s new “Boost” feature, which allows the graphics to dynamically overclock itself up to 1050MHz if the GPU has thermal headroom.
Of course, there’s always a question about the chances of success. That is, most regular HD 7970s will be able to handle the new speeds, but some 7970s in the market won’t be up to the job for DRAM or ASIC reasons.
For those ready and willing to try the BIOS flash, the BIOS file is here—just run it in Windows as an administrator, then reboot. Naturally, the normal disclaimer applies: You are doing this at your own risk. Icrontic cannot be held responsible for this modification and you may very well void your warranty and/or ruin your GPU.
Enjoy going fast(er)!Yeah, I heard the audio of former New Orleans defensive coordinator Gregg Williams urging his players to injure various 49ers before their January playoff game. It’s pretty compelling — not just because he wanted to maim Michael Crabtree and Vernon Davis, and not just because he may have been illegally taped without his consent, but because Williams might be the worst motivational speaker in recent American history. No wonder the Saints lost that game. If that was a sports movie scene, the director would have fired Williams and replaced him with another actor. What a buffoon.
Of course, it’s 2012 — the Year of Internet Self-Righteousness — which means we need to feign disgust, pile on the Saints, argue for Williams to receive the NFL’s death penalty and basically freak out that a football coach would ever do that. So let’s concede the following points. No, you shouldn’t instruct your players to hurt people. Yes, you should be fined and suspended for that. Yes, Gregg Williams came off like an insensitive Neanderthal, and yes, it would be difficult (if not impossible) to take him seriously as a coach again. His professional career is over. The tape is pretty damning. Even if it’s far-fetched that any Saint listened to that speech and thought to himself, Maybe my creepy weirdo of a coach is right, maybe I SHOULD go after Michael Crabtree’s ACL!
But there’s a bigger story here: the laughable notion that anyone can change an ingrained culture of violence overnight. Any parent knows that kids never listen the first time — it takes four or five times, and usually a raised voice or a threat, before they heed your wishes. Players and coaches are wired the same way. The league never turned off its “We’re gonna look the other way, keep being violent and keep those hits coming” switch until the 2010 season, after that infamous October weekend with all the signature hits, when Roger Goodell said, “Oh, crap, maybe I should start fining these guys because the Sports Legacy Institute has accumulated three-plus years of rock-solid concussion evidence and lawsuits are coming. Better later than never!”
And so the league started cracking down. Less than 18 months later, we’re supposed to be baffled and appalled that the Saints would shrug off those warnings, that they wanted to win money for crippling opponents or knocking them out you know, because football players aren’t supposed to think that way or something. (Watching ESPN this morning was pretty funny — it’s like every talking head took an oath to forget the network was running “JACKED UP!” segments a few scant years ago.) My two favorite Patriots victories were Super Bowl XXXVI (over the Rams) and the 2003 AFC Championship (when the defense beat up Colts receivers so badly that Colts GM Bill Polian convinced the league to change the line of scrimmage contact rules the following summer). I am not naive enough to believe that, before both of those games, Bill Belichick didn’t tell his players, “I want you to beat the absolute crap out of (fill in: Marshall Faulk, Isaac Bruce, Marvin Harrison, Reggie Wayne, Dallas Clark, Ricky Proehl, etc.) and make them remember you the next time they go over the middle do whatever it takes.”
Actually, I wouldn’t be surprised if Belichick uttered something more ominous than that. That’s football, a sport in which coaches holler things like, “NOW GO OUT THERE AND KILL THEM!” Do they mean, literally, to murder them? Of course not. It’s just the way these meatheads talk. It’s the language of their barbaric game. Watch this clip, for God’s sake. Normal human beings don’t interact like this. When it came out that Williams (and his players) crossed the line, the Saints became The Scapegoat Du Jour for a league that desperately needed one. In case this wasn’t clear, everyone, the NFL is taking player safety seriously now! Emphasis on the word “now.” It’s a transparent ploy to make up for decades of real negligence, as well as mounting evidence that the next generation of football players (any teenager, basically) can be ruined by one concussion. Meanwhile
1. Football is a really violent sport. There is no right way to play football that doesn’t include the words “exert your physical will.” Every current player grew up hearing instructions like “I want hats on the ball” (translation: “Lead with your head”), “I want guys swarming the ball” (translation: “If your teammates are tackling someone, come flying in as hard as you can and join them”) and “Make them think when they’re crossing the middle!” (translation: “Keep hitting the receivers as hard as you can so that they’ll start thinking about you instead of the catch”). I’m sure they heard even more vicious and inhumane instructions than that. So deconditioning them (and their coaches) is going to take time. We’re going to have some hiccups along the way. Hopefully, Gregg Williams’s bizarre “inspirational” speech that was only missing a stretcher and a metal Hannibal Lecter mask will be the biggest hiccup. But I doubt it.
2. Here’s what I wrote after Goodell belatedly started cracking down (in October 2010): “[He’s] a total hypocrite for pretending to care about the welfare of his players as he’s pushing for an 18-game regular season that would lead to more injuries, more concussions, more collateral damage, more everything. Hey, Roger: If you cared about the welfare of the players, you’d shorten the season to 15 games and add another week of byes. Right? But hey, that would cost owners money. Instead, you’ll continue to position yourself as the Sheriff of Player Safety, puff out your chest, crack down on hard hits and swagger around like you’re Tim Olyphant in Justified.”
Allow me to add the following: When will Goodell admit publicly that he waited waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too long to start cracking down on violence (and the culture behind it), or that he’ll always regret looking the other way as evidence mounted that concussions were infinitely more dangerous than we originally believed? You’re telling me Goodell never watched this Real Sports piece about Chris Nowinski, Andre Waters and concussions in 2007? Come on. The man was three years late. On everything. Maybe that’s not as bad as what Gregg Williams did, but Goodell’s not exactly one of the heroes of this sordid story, either. You looked the other way, Roger. You did.
3. As Peter King wrote in his column this week, the same league that’s making such a fuss about violence ran a show called 10 Most Feared Tacklers on its own network last week. The truth is, the NFL doesn’t know what the hell it wants. It’s the most successful sports league ever; the value of its franchises has never been higher; its television money haul has never been greater. Only there’s an elephant in the room — and it’s not the Williams tape, Bountygate or even the hundreds of concussion-related lawsuits from former players that are coming. If they change how football is played and turn it into a glorified version of the Pro Bowl, there’s a chance people won’t like the sport as much.
So what do you do? You pretend you care. You make an example of the Saints. You crack down on the language of your game. You overreact to cheap hits, and you fine players because sometimes they can’t control their bodies at 18 miles an hour in the split second after an opponent ducks his head. You lean on media cronies and convince them to spin stories your way. You hope and pray nobody notices, and that CTE awareness never moves into the mainstream. But meanwhile, your players are bigger and faster than ever, and they’re colliding at speeds at which human beings aren’t meant to collide.
You’re walking a tightrope, basically. Only one thing can save you: the knowledge that fans won’t really care because of the whole “people just want to eat steak, they don’t care how it’s made” mentality. Sadly, that’s the best thing you have going for you. Before yesterday’s Cardinals-Marlins game, I watched Muhammad Ali (one of my childhood heroes) trembling so severely that he couldn’t throw the first pitch. Poor Ali could only hand the baseball to Miami’s catcher and he could barely do that. Boxing did that to him. He took too many punches; now he’s a quivering mess. I noticed this, digested it and felt absolutely horrible about it.
Yes, I will keep watching boxing.
Which makes me a hypocrite.
That’s what the NFL is banking on these next few years — hypocrisy, basically — as more stories emerge about the tortured lives of retired players. Many of them can’t walk, sit down or remember anything. Some battle debilitating headaches and gulp down pills like they’re peanuts. A few weeks ago, Jim McMahon confessed in an interview that his short-term memory was gone, then admitted he wouldn’t even remember the interview as he was giving it. You hear these things, you sigh, you feel remorse, you forget and then you go back to looking forward to the next football season. Gregg Williams crossed the line; he won’t be there. I just wish someone would decide, once and for all, where that line really is.Waco, Texas (CNN) After the guns fell silent on May 17 -- one of the bloodiest afternoons in the history of American motorcycle clubs -- nine bikers lay dead in a strip mall parking lot littered with weapons.
Many more were injured, bleeding from gunshots and knife wounds. A police officer asked what every other cop there must have wondered at that moment: How many of you are armed?
"I asked anybody who had a gun to raise their hand," Waco Officer Ryan Holt wrote in a police report obtained by CNN.
Nearly everybody did.
As Holt and his fellow officers disarmed the injured bikers, so many guns piled up on the ground that they literally got in the way. SWAT team officers drove a pickup truck to the crime scene "so we could pile the firearms in the bed to try to keep suspects from moving over the top of them," Holt noted in his report.
480 weapons, 177 arrests
In all, police recovered 480 weapons: 151 guns, along with assorted knives, brass knuckles, batons, hammers, and the bikers' blunt objects of choice -- padlocks wrapped in bandanas.
Some 177 bikers were arrested -- so many that they were taken to the Waco Convention Center and held for processing in separate rooms: one for members of the club known as the Bandidos and the other for their rivals, the Cossacks. All were jailed on $1 million bail each and charged with engaging in organized crime activity.
More than five months later, no one has been charged in the deaths of the nine bikers. Police and prosecutors are silenced by a gag order; a grand jury is weighing charges in the case.
After the shootout, 177 people were arrested.
But against a backdrop of official silence, CNN has obtained thousands of pages of documents -- including police intelligence reports, crime scene photos and witness interviews -- as well as surveillance video. These begin to tell the story of how a midday gunfight turned the parking lot of a Waco strip mall into a battle zone.
They also show that tension had been building for months between the two motorcycle clubs.
The oldest club in Texas versus the upstarts
The Bandidos, formed in Houston in 1966, are the oldest, largest and most powerful motorcycle group in Texas with more than 2,000 members, according to the Department of Justice. They have a national presence, particularly in Southern states. The Cossacks formed a few years later but kept a low profile. Now, they're considered an upstart, with about 800 members and, according to police, a strong desire to beef up their presence in their home state of Texas.
Although the bikers insist their clubs are social, even philanthropic organizations, police see both as criminal gangs. Law enforcement officials call them outlaw biker clubs, among the "one-percenters."
That label is derived from a quote that may be apocryphal but is part of biker lore that dates back to the 1960s: Someone supposedly said that 99% of bikers are law-abiding citizens, leaving the mayhem to the other one percent.
Both clubs deny they are involved in criminal activities such as drug distribution. They scoff at the notion that they are gangs in disguise. The Bandidos denied any wrongdoing in a news release after the gunfight. They accused police of mishandling the confrontation and giving the public "a false narrative."
"Members of the Bandidos were not aggressors, did not start the altercation, did not strike first, were not the first to pull weapons, and were not the first to use weapons," the club stated in its news release. "The majority of the Bandidos took cover, and all involvement in the altercation by members of the Bandidos was in self-defense."
What started it?
It's difficult to know for certain who started the mayhem on May 17. A review of the voluminous police file raises some troubling questions and intriguing theories. The witness accounts vary widely, depending on who's talking and what his or her club alliances might be.
Photos: Waco biker shootout: The crime scene On May 17, 2015, a fight broke out between two rival biker clubs in Waco, Texas. CNN has obtained video and images of the chaos during and after the brawl. This surveillance footage shows a biker running inside the Twin Peaks restaurant where the deadly fight took place. Authorities have classified both the Bandidos and the Cossacks as gangs. Hide Caption 1 of 36 Photos: Waco biker shootout: The crime scene Hide Caption 2 of 36 Photos: Waco biker shootout: The crime scene By the time the melee was over, nine people were dead and 177 people were arrested. Hide Caption 3 of 36 Photos: Waco biker shootout: The crime scene The body of a biker is seen in the parking lot. (His tattoos have been obscured in this photo.) The biker club members who began beating, stabbing and shooting each other in a Texas Twin Peaks restaurant knew the police were outside, and they just didn't care, Waco police Sgt. W. Patrick Swanton told CNN at the time. Hide Caption 4 of 36 Photos: Waco biker shootout: The crime scene A Bandidos vest and hat are left behind in a pool of blood. The Bandidos boast a membership of 2,000 to 2,500 across not just the United States, but also 13 other countries, the Department of Justice says. Hide Caption 5 of 36 Photos: Waco biker shootout: The crime scene Law enforcement agents received information that a regular scheduled meeting of the United Coalition of Clubs was to be held at a Twin Peaks restaurant in Waco on May 17. Due to the known growing tension between the Bandidos and the Cossacks, the Waco Police Department coordinated a surveillance and intelligence-gathering operation for this meeting, according to documents from the Waco Police Department and the Texas Department of Public Safety. Hide Caption 6 of 36 Photos: Waco biker shootout: The crime scene Another body lies next to a tipped-over bike. Police officers fired 12 rounds during the deadly shootout, according to the Waco Police Department, which said it had 16 uniformed officers in their vehicles at the time the suspects began shooting. Hide Caption 7 of 36 Photos: Waco biker shootout: The crime scene This violent encounter wasn't the first between the Cossacks and the Bandidos, according to a Waco PD investigator's sworn statement. Members of both motorcycle clubs had previous violent altercations throughout Texas in 2013 and 2015. Several of those involved were arrested at the Waco brawl. Hide Caption 8 of 36 Photos: Waco biker shootout: The crime scene According to a Waco PD investigator's sworn statement, Waco police witnessed the violence erupt that day "swiftly" and law enforcement officers on the scene were fired upon by "individuals involved in the violent altercation" until officers were able to control the scene. Hide Caption 9 of 36 Photos: Waco biker shootout: The crime scene According to witness statements given to Waco Police by a Twin Peaks patron: "Just as we had finished eating I heard 5, 6, or 7 shots from outside of the restaurant. Someone yelled hit the floor, there was constant shots being fired. It sounded like the gunfight at the OK Corral. " Hide Caption 10 of 36 Photos: Waco biker shootout: The crime scene Weapons were found all over the scene, including this gun in the bathroom. Hide Caption 11 of 36 Photos: Waco biker shootout: The crime scene The Waco PD says about 480 weapons were found that day. Hide Caption 12 of 36 Photos: Waco biker shootout: The crime scene Police also recovered an ax, bats, batons, brass knuckles, a chain, clubs, a hatchet, knives, a machete, pepper spray, a pipe, stun guns, tomahawks and weighted weapons. Hide Caption 13 of 36 Photos: Waco biker shootout: The crime scene Police recovered many knives from the scene. Hide Caption 14 of 36 Photos: Waco biker shootout: The crime scene Twelve long guns and 133 handguns were recovered. Hide Caption 15 of 36 Photos: Waco biker shootout: The crime scene A gun is seen in the passenger seat of a car. Hide Caption 16 of 36 Photos: Waco biker shootout: The crime scene Waco PD said that 44 shell casings were recovered from the scene and that 12 of those casings came from the.223-caliber rifles of three SWAT officers, who were in adjacent parking lots.
Hide Caption 17 of 36 Photos: Waco biker shootout: The crime scene This is one of the many weapons recovered. Hide Caption 18 of 36 Photos: Waco biker shootout: The crime scene A gun is inside a motorcycle saddlebag, along with prescription medicine and a water bottle. Hide Caption 19 of 36 Photos: Waco biker shootout: The crime scene Hide Caption 20 of 36 Photos: Waco biker shootout: The crime scene Tensions between the Cossacks and Bandidos had been on the rise for a while. Hide Caption 21 of 36 Photos: Waco biker shootout: The crime scene According to witness statements given to police, a Twin Peaks employee said that prior to the fight that led to the shooting, the Cossacks were attempting to keep their conversation private. "Every time a Twin Peaks girl would go outside they (Cossacks) would get extremely quiet and when we would go back inside they would continue to talk." Hide Caption 22 of 36 Photos: Waco biker shootout: The crime scene The fight broke out at the Twin Peaks restaurant and spilled into the parking lot. The weapons being used quickly escalated from hands and feet to guns. Hide Caption 23 of 36 Photos: Waco biker shootout: The crime scene Weapons are piled up by a barrier in the parking lot. According to one of the first Waco police officers on the scene, it appeared that nearly everybody in the crowd had a gun. Hide Caption 24 of 36 Photos: Waco biker shootout: The crime scene Sixteen uniformed Waco Police Department officers, including members of their SWAT team, witnessed and responded to the melee from the parking lots surrounding Twin Peaks. Police say they responded within 30 to 45 seconds and were fired at by bikers. Hide Caption 25 of 36 Photos: Waco biker shootout: The crime scene Jewelry lies on the asphalt in the Twin Peaks parking lot. The label is derived from a quote that may be apocryphal but is part of biker lore that dates to the 1960s: Someone supposedly said that 99% of bikers are law-abiding citizens, leaving the mayhem to the other 1%. Hide Caption 26 of 36 Photos: Waco biker shootout: The crime scene Seven of the nine bikers who were killed at Twin Peaks were members of the Cossacks. The Cossacks claim around 200 members, mostly in small towns in Texas. According to law enforcement officials, they are one of the biggest outlaw biker clubs in Texas. Hide Caption 27 of 36 Photos: Waco biker shootout: The crime scene This is one of the Bandidos patches from the thousands of evidence photos taken from Twin Peaks. The Bandidos are the biggest motorcycle clubs in Texas, with around 400 members. Hide Caption 28 of 36 Photos: Waco biker shootout: The crime scene An officer from the Waco Police Department discovered blood smeared across the Twin Peaks bathroom floor. Hide Caption 29 of 36 Photos: Waco biker shootout: The crime scene One of the 151 guns found by investigators was in the grass outside Twin Peaks after the fight. Police recovered a staggering 480 weapons from Twin Peaks: 151 guns, numerous knives, brass knuckles, chains, clubs, batons, |
programs in 2009. It's time to discuss and document and disseminate all of the wisdom of the greater Perl community. It's time to talk about modern Perl.A fifth of Japan’s entire population watched recent match against Samoa making it the biggest national viewing audience in rugby history
A record 25 million Japanese stayed up late to watch their team demolish Samoa in their third game of the Rugby World Cup, in the latest demonstration of the country’s newfound love of the sport.
The Brave Blossoms’ 26-5 victory in Milton Keynes on Saturday means Japan – rank outsiders at the start of the tournament – are still in with a chance of making the quarterfinals for the first time in World Cup history.
Japan must beat the USA on Sunday and hope that other results in Pool B go their way, namely a Samoan victory over Scotland this Saturday.
Japan’s match against Samoa was watched by around a fifth of Japan’s entire population of 128 million, and garnered an audience share of 64 percent – making it the biggest national viewing audience in rugby history.
The previous record of 20.7 million was set in 2007, when the French broadcaster TF1 showed England defeat France in Paris in the semi-final of the World Cup.
“This is a significant result for the game in Japan. It shows that the general population there appreciate the sport and the amazing performances of their national team over the past few weeks,” said World Rugby chief executive Brett Gosper.
“Their style of play has really caught the imagination of rugby fans around the world and, as these broadcast numbers indicate, in Japan.”
The boost in interest could not have been better times, as Japan will become the first country outside of the “rugby heartlands” to host the next tournament, in 2019, Gosper added. “It really has given the event a major shot in the arm.”
The team’s surprise victory over South Africa in the opening weekend of the tournament – the biggest upset in the sport’s history – was greeted with disbelief in Japan. That quickly gave way to optimism that the side could make it to the knockout stages.
While rugby’s popularity in Japan has never matched that of baseball and football, the country’s media are finally giving the sport the coverage that fans say it has long deserved.
Japan had only ever won one match at the Rugby World Cup – against Zimbabwe in 1991 – before its 34-32 win over South Africa on 18 September. The Japanese lost their next game to Scotland, but victory over Samoa kept their World Cup fairytale alive.
Their Australian coach, Eddie Jones, described Saturday’s record viewing figures as “incredible, absolutely incredible”.
“That’s just more fantastic impetus as we head to 2019,” Jones said in an interview with Kyodo News. “The team moving forward is important but in terms of achieving a legacy it will hopefully inspire younger players to play and encourage coaches to coach. Hopefully the (Japan Rugby Football Union) will grasp this opportunity with both hands.”
While Japan quickly became every neutral’s favourite team, expat and Japanese traveling fans have won praise for their devotion as they followed their compatriots to Brighton, Gloucester and Milton Keynes, with a second trip to Gloucester this weekend.
The desire to be part of one of the game’s defining moments saw Japanese fans close down an official rugby World Cup merchandise shop after they emptied it of team merchandise.
Gosper said the store in Oxford Street had been unable to cope with the sheer number of Japanese fans snapping up mementoes. He tweeted: “We had to close #RWC2015 official merchandise store on Oxford St yesterday due to overwhelming merchandise demand from the Japanese public.”
Back in Japan, daytime TV presenters marked Japan’s appearance on the world rugby stage dressed in team’s famous cherry-and-white shirt. Ayumu Goromaru, the fullback who contributed 24 of Japan’s 34 points against the Springboks, has been hailed as a national hero, with one website offering parents tips on how to rear a future “Goro”.
Kazue Hattori, a recent convert to the sport, has watched both Japan’s matches since their famous victory over the Springboks. “I went to a rugby sevens tournament once but it didn’t do much for me,” she said. “This has all been a real surprise. I really hope they can progress – it can only be good for the sport in Japan.”
Lori Henderson, the Scottish executive director of the British Chamber of Commerce in Japan, said: “I really hope this will lead to a groundswell in grassroots involvement in rugby. It’s also good to see Japan incorporating foreign-born players into the team. There’s a lesson in that for Japan as it prepares for 2019 … homegrown and foreign players working together to create such great results on the pitch.”Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT) has grown in popularity over the last few years. This growth has occurred without any evidence that HBOT is at all beneficial.
A recent study, published in the journal Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders entitled Randomized trial of hyperbaric oxygen therapy for children with autism, explores this question.
The study was performed by CARD, the Center for Autism and Related Disorders and ICDRC the International Child Development Resource Center. CARD is a very large ABA provider run by Doreen Granpeesheh. Dr. Granpeesheh is also associated with Thoughful House, the Clinic founded by Dr. Andrew Wakefield. Dr. Wakefield, is the prime proponent of the notion that the MMR vaccine causes autism. ICDRC is the clinic run by Dr. Jeffrey Bradstreet, a prominent name in the autism alternative medical community.
As you might surmise from their press release, Center for Autism and Related Disorders Study Finds Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy Ineffective Treatment for Children with Autism, they did not find HBOT to be effective.
Children were given 80 1 hour sessions in a Vitaeris 320 inflatable chamber (a model used commonly in HBOT treatment). 6-10 sessions/week were performed. Children were split into two groups matched by age and number of ABA hours already received. Parameters like supplement use and diets remained unchanged during the time of the study. For the treatment group the chambers were inflated to 1.3 atm, with enriched oxygen air (24-28% O2, compared to 21% for regular air).
The children were given multiple assessments:
All assessments were conducted by trained assessors who were blind to group assignment. To maximize the study’s ability to detect change in any symptom area relevant to autism, a large variety of assessments were used, including the following: the ABC (Aman & Singh, 1994), ADOS (Lord et al., 1999), Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Functioning (BRIEF; Gioia, Isquith, Guy, & Kenworthy, 2000), Clinical Global Impression Scale (CGI; Guy, 1976), Parent Stress Index (PSI; Abidin, 1995), Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT-III; Dunn & Dunn, 1997), Repetitive Behavior Scale (RBS; Bodfish, Symons, & Lewis, 1999), SRS, Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales—Second Edition (VABS-II; Sparrow, Cicchetti, & Balla, 2005), and the Beery-Buktenica Developmental Test of Visual-Motor Integration—5th edition (VMI-5; Berry and Berry, 2004 K.E. Berry and N.A. Berry, The Berry-Buktenica developmental test of visual-motor integration: Administration, score, and teaching manual, NCS Pearson, Minneapolis, MN (2004).Berry & Berry, 2004). The ADOS, BRIEF, PPVT-III, SRS, VABS, and VMI-5 were administered pre and post-treatment. The ABC, CGI, and RBS were administered weekly. The PSI was administered four times, once at baseline, twice during treatment, and once at completion.
The study was relatively small, with 46 participants.
Forty six participants began the study and 12 withdrew, resulting in 18 previous HBOT participants and 16 placebo participants completing all 80 sessions and follow-up measures. The primary reason reported for withdrawal was the travel required to the clinic. One participant in the placebo group withdrew after having a seizure for the first time. Mean participant age was 6.18 (previous HBOT 6.11; placebo 6.25) and mean number of ABA treatment hours per month was 109 (previous HBOT 114.7; placebo 103.3).
I won’t go into details about the specific outcomes, but the conclusion was pretty straightforward: HBOT had no effect.
No significant differences between the previous tHBOT and placebo groups were found on any of the outcome measures. Thus, the results of this study indicate that previous HBOT delivering 24% oxygen at 1.3 atm did not produce a therapeutic effect for the children who participated in our study. Therefore, previous HBOT at this dose is not recommended for the treatment of ASD symptoms.
I found it interesting how they referred to a previous HBOT study by Rossignal (another prominent member of the autism alternative medical community):
The results of this study corroborate the findings of the only other published study on previous termHBOTnext term which included a control group (Rossignol et al., 2009 D.A. Rossignol, L.W. Rossignol, S. Smith, C. Schneider, S. Logerquist and A. Usman et al., Hyperbaric treatment for children with autism: a multicenter, randomized, double-blind, controlled trial, BMC Pediatrics 9 (2009) 10.1186/1471-2431-9-21.Rossignol et al., 2009)—albeit, not the study authors’ interpretations of their findings. In both the Rossignol et al. (2009) study and the current study, both treatment and control groups improved over time, but the difference in improvement between groups appeared insignificant. In addition, the current study employed dependent measures which were far more comprehensive than in previous research on previous HBOT for ASDs, thereby increasing the probability that a therapeutic effect would have been detected if indeed one had been present.
Yes, the current study is consistent with the Rossignol group’s results, just not their interpretation.
Commentary:
There was much discussion and excitement earlier this year when the Rossignol group study came out. Do’C at the Autism Street blog compiled a list of many of the skeptical discussions. There has not been anywhere near the interest in the newer CARD study.
Will this mean the end of HBOT treatments for Autism? I sincerely doubt it. Take a look at Dr. Bradstreet’s website (Dr. Bradstreet being one of the coauthors of the current study showing no effect). The first page of the site still links to the older study by Dr. Rossignol’s group (claiming that HBOT is effective) and not his own study (which shows HBOT to be not effective).
Of course, it is all the more complicated since Dr. Rossignol is also one of the ICDRC doctors. The alternative-medical community is a pretty small pond, isn’t it?
Back to the question: will this mean the end of HBOT in autism? I wish I could make bets this safe. Of course not. No alternative therapy is abandoned. As shown above, one of the authors of this study showing that HBOT is not effective for treating autism and he hasn’t stopped.
AdvertisementsEnough with the Math-Science Mania
I just finished watching President Obama’s State of the Union speech. Regarding education, the President said, “Instead of funding the status quo, we only invest in reform – reform that raises student achievement, inspires students to excel in math and science, and turns around failing schools.”
Do you see a problem with that statement? I do.
For me, the President’s words imply a view of education that values quantitative subjects above all else.
After all, the only subjects he mentioned were math and science – areas that typically get assessed with standardized tests. He didn’t point to topics such as writing, collaboration, languages, and, of particular interest to me, the arts.
I believe that my 30 years of teaching outfit me to say with some authority that the sorts of thinking that students require to be flexible learners and adept problem-solvers aren’t typically being taught in K-12 math and science classes.
They could be, but when school districts’ budgets hinge on how students score on government-mandated math and science tests (as is the case with many schools today), their curricula inevitably become centered on test preparation, which can foster anti-creative mindsets.
As I see it, creativity gets stifled when children are pressured, above all else, to score well on standardized tests in which they’re rewarded only for getting the ‘right’ answers and picking ‘correct’ responses on multiple-choice exams.
In such school cultures, students start thinking in absolutist, black-and-white sorts of ways, and mistakes become costly: wrong answers lower grades and can even undercut school funding.
Yet we all know that we learn best in environments that encourage experimentation and in which the error-and-revision process can proceed without students feeling shamed.
Sure, math and science skills are essential, but they aren’t the only skills that matter. Nor are they necessarily the most important subjects for students to master. Nor does the study of them have to supplant education in the arts.
In my book, The Musician’s Way, the section titled “Solving Problems” (p. 54-70) points out the limitations of educational models that nurture narrow, convergent ways of thinking.
That is, a math problem will commonly have a single correct answer, but artistic problems and social predicaments can have numerous solutions.
Creative problem-solvers, therefore, think in divergent ways.
For us musicians, our artistic success depends on our ability to recognize, define, and solve problems in the practice studio and rehearsal hall. We have to think both independently and collaboratively. We have to try out various interpretive and technical ideas, weigh them, make choices, go forward, have things not work out, try other ideas, etc. (See my post ‘Constructive creativity‘).
I don’t know about your experiences going to school, but in my math and science classes, little of that sort of creative thinking took place. Instead, problems were set in front of us, and we were all expected to arrive at identical answers.
I’m not suggesting that President Obama believes that we should scrap every subject other than math and science. But when he talks about education and appears to tow the old math-science lines, then I feel obliged to speak out and say that students need a very different kind of education today than the one they’re ordinarily receiving, an education that places arts and creativity at the center.
And the evidence is mounting that kids who receive arts educations out-think those who do not.
For instance, in a 2009 issue of Psychology of Music (37/3), researchers Piro and Ortiz report that second graders who were given twice-weekly piano instruction dramatically improved their verbal scores by the end of the school year compared to a control group that had no music instruction.
Of course, the true value of arts education isn’t its power to help students excel in other subjects. Arts education stands on its own merits, which include its capacity to stimulate creativity and integrated intelligence as well as bring about the beauty, self-actualization, and community-building that result from artistic expression and shared meaning.
In sum, I can’t sit back and let our nation’s leaders promote educational systems that merely aspire to train workers to function in technically demanding jobs.
I hope that you’ll join me in supporting educational systems that promote the sorts of creative, divergent thinking that made America great and that spawned the artists and innovators that we celebrate worldwide.
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Do you believe that our school systems cultivate flexible, creative thinking? In what ways did your schooling help or hinder your creative powers?
© 2010 Gerald KlicksteinMany stars are (in)famous for the lists of must-have items that are to be stocked backstage or in their hotel rooms. During one tour in London, Barbra Streisand demanded rose petals in the toilet and 120 peach-colored towels. Mariah Carey wants gold faucets and new toilet seats installed in her room before she checks in. (We won’t even go into Van Halen’s reputed liquor requirements.) But such demands aren’t limited to those in the entertainment business. Many Foreign Service officers have had to endure visits by high-level officials who have a seemingly endless list of incredible requests. Tom Stern served as Administrative Counselor in Bonn in the mid-1960’s and had to deal with one of the political rock stars of the era, President Lyndon Johnson.
LBJ’s penchant for shower heads was well-known, as shown in this brief Vanity Fair article.
Read about some no-tell CODELs (that’s Congressional delegations) and more No-tell CODELs. Go here to read about how Senator Jesse Helms was convinced that the downing of KAL 007 was a Soviet assassination attempt. Read other Moments on Diplomats Behaving Badly.
A Shower for Those in Power
STERN: While in Germany I had my first experiences with presidential visits. The first visit was President Johnson’s, who came for Chancellor Adenauer’s funeral in 1967, I believe. His visit was sandwiched in between two visits from Vice-President Hubert Humphrey. Humphrey left one day; two days later Johnson arrived. Johnson left after three days and Humphrey came back a couple of days later. It was ten days of continuous circus.
When we planned for Humphrey’s visits, we of course did not know that Adenauer would die and that Johnson would come to his funeral. When we found out the totality of our challenges, I thought we’d never make it. In fact, in retrospect, I now know that it is much easier for a president to visit a country with little or less time for preparations.
Johnson, of course, arrived without being scheduled for any appearance except at the funeral. That was the only thing he was supposed to do. Any other events at that time, at least, would have been entirely inappropriate. He brought with him George Meany, the head of the AFL-CIO, and a few of his immediate staff.
The entourage was of modest proportions because of the nature of the visit and we had no great difficulties accommodating them. Johnson’s private secretary and his two stewards (a man and wife) stayed with him in the DCM’s [Deputy Chief of Mission] house. The rest of the staff we scattered around. There were very few trappings that normally go with presidential visits, except that his bed and his car were shipped ahead.
We did have a small advance team which came a couple of days before Johnson’s arrival. It decided that Johnson would have to stay in the DCM’s house. So overnight, we moved the Hillenbrands out much to their unhappiness. We stored all their valuables.
The advance team instructed us on two requirements: a) that the president’s bedroom had to be completely dark when the President slept (there couldn’t be a ray of light coming through) and b) the shower head had to be 11’6″ high (not an inch higher or an inch lower). The shower head that was there was only 9′ or 9’5″ high.
So first of all, we blackened the room with new shades and some special material on the panes to insure that no light would come through. It was pitch black dark.
That left the shower. This was a much greater problem. The house was approximately fifteen years old and the plumbing consisted of pipes that were made in Germany right after the war and therefore very brittle by this time. We told the advance team that by raising the shower head, we were running the risk of demanding such an increase in water pressure that the pipes might well break. We could just foresee the house being flooded when the pipes finally burst. That would have been bad enough, but to have it happen while a president was occupying the premises would have been catastrophic.
The advance team was not swayed; the shower head had to be raised to the required level. So we did, and presumably the President was happy. Two hours after the President’s departure after three days, the pipes in fact did burst, flooding the bathroom and the room below. By that time, we didn’t care that much; we were worn out from worrying about the event during the President’s stay.
Let Me Eat Cake
I will never forget those three days. As I said, Johnson had nothing scheduled except his attendance at the funeral. Most presidents have trouble relaxing and must be doing something all the time. Johnson was very much like that. We had established a control room in our guesthouse, where I spent most of the three days.
One evening, at around 11 p.m., we received a call from one of Johnson’s staff members: “The president wants to hold a birthday party now for the pilot of his plane. Please send us a cake right now!”
In Bad Godesberg, or even in Bonn, nothing is open at 11 p.m. The Germans rolled up their sidewalks early. No stores would be open; there wouldn’t have been anyone on the streets even. The staffer would not or could not be swayed. He kept repeating that the president wanted a cake and he wanted it right then.
We knew that the handwriting was on the wall and so we called the chef of the American Club and told him to come in to make a cake. Of course, even if he had had all the ingredients, he couldn’t have done it that quickly, but he had a brilliant idea: an ice cream birthday cake. He had enough ice cream in the freezer so that by midnight we were able to deliver a cake with candles. It was a pure coup, never recorded for history.
A Real Classic, Painted Yesterday
We lived through another episode, which history has also never recorded. Johnson decided on his second day in Germany that he wanted to take some German art back to the U.S. as gifts for his Texas friends. Some USIA [U.S. Information Agency] staff members went out to some galleries in Bonn and brought back the best they could find.
It was not great, but at least it could have passed for art. Johnson looked at these paintings and said: “No, no, no, I want real German art!”
We finally figured out that he was referring to paintings of old farmers with their pipes in their mouths, people in lederhosen, women in peasant costumes, etc. Real junk! That was no problem. Those were available for tourists by the hundreds. USIA went down to the Cologne bazaar and cleaned it out.
Johnson was delighted; he picked out 30 or 40 of them; they were just what he wanted. Then he wanted to know something about each artist, because he was convinced that this was valuable artwork done by well-known painters. He insisted that on the back of each picture a short biography be attached so that his friends would recognize the great value of these paintings.
Of course, no one knew anything about the artists. These paintings were thrown together overnight by unknowns and were sold primarily as souvenirs, not as art.
So Fred Fischer, who was McGhee’s special assistant, and I spent the night dreaming up names and biographies for the alleged artists. On the back of each painting we placed a small typewritten note with the name and history of each artist.
I am sure that somewhere in Texas there are a number of paintings, if they haven’t been thrown away by now, by artists from the “Stern School of Hamburg” or the “Fischer School of Bremen.” We made up as many fictitious biographies as needed and Johnson took the paintings with the notations home, as happy as he could be.
The costs, of course, came out of State Department confidential funds, but that was probably the greatest scam I ever participated in.May and June mark a time period on the NFL calendar when players not volunteering to go into their offices makes national news.
One of the highest-profile names to routinely skip voluntary OTAs has been Ndamukong Suh -- whose missed offseason workouts became a yearly occurrence in Detroit from which axe-grinders weaved superfluous narratives.
With a new $114 million contract, however, at least part of the defensive tackle's offseason routine changed.
Suh is in South Beach and participated in the Miami Dolphins' OTAs, which began Tuesday.
Suh was present at the Dolphins' first workout of the season, but had since been absent from voluntary activities. Tuesday's OTA was Suh's first time on the field with new teammates and a new defense.
Thirty-one of 32 teams are holding OTAs this week. Only the St. Louis Rams won't be on the field for voluntary workouts this week. Teams may conduct a total of 10 days of organized team activities over three weeks. No live contact is permitted, but teams can run 7-on-7, 9-on-7, and 11-on-11 drills.
The complete offseason schedule can be found here.
As a fifth reminder, OTAs are voluntary.
The latest Around The NFL Podcast discusses the latest NFL news including Ray McDonald's release, Adrian Peterson's situation with the Vikings and Cam Newton's lofty goals. Find more Around The NFL content on NFL NOW.Movement towards road vehicle automation has been potentially the most revolutionary development in transportation during 2012. Transport research institutes in many countries and several car manufacturers have reported progress. The pacesetter in driverless technology is Google Inc., working through Stanford University's Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.
Google has a fleet of more than a dozen what it calls "self-driving cars" that by August, 2012, had completed some 500,000 kilometres of testing. "They've covered a wide range of traffic conditions, and there hasn't been a single accident under computer control," explained Google's official blog. Other terms used are driverless cars, autonomous cars, robocars, and cybercars. (The term "automobile" is rarely used for road vehicles that don't require a human operator.)
What caught particular attention during 2012 were authorizations to deploy or move towards deploying autonomous vehicles on the roads and highways of six U.S. states (Nevada, Florida, California, Hawaii, Oklahoma, and Arizona), with several more jurisdictions in the U.S. – none in Canada – being approached by Google and other interested parties. Road testing is also being conducted in several European countries, and much relevant work is occurring in Japan, and China.
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There's been opposition to these moves. During a race for the Republican nomination as a candidate for a seat in Florida's senate in the November elections, one contestant's advertisement attacked a rival's support for self-driving cars. This resulted in a media article with the headline: "Florida political ad suggests that self-driving cars will be the death of grandma." The supporter of self-driving cars won the nomination and then the senate seat.
Surveys on attitudes to driverless in North America and Europe suggest an age divide: young people welcome them; older people do not. Here are some typical results, these from a poll of UK adults from a poll conducted for Bosch, a maker of automotive parts:
Per cent agreeing Under 35 Per cent agreeing Over 55 Would feel unsafe being a passenger in a driverless car? 32% 65% Would not consider buying a driverless car? 48% 85% Would enjoy a driverless car as much as driving themselves? 51% 12%
In spite of their relatively strong opposition to driverless cars, older people welcomed having automatic safety features and driving aids in regular automobiles almost as much as younger people (63 per cent vs. 71 per cent).
At the September, 2012, signing of California's bill concerning autonomous vehicles, Google co-founder Sergey Brin said the company "will have autonomous cars available for the general public within five years." The Japanese government has set the goal of having driverless cars on public roads during the early 2020s. Members of the authoritative Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) anticipate that driverless cars will account for up to 75 per cent of cars on the road by 2040.
The technology seems presently ahead of the law, which mostly requires one or more operators to be in a car even though it is driven by a computer, and which does not yet address who would be responsible if a computer-driven car were indeed to cause the death of a grandmother.
My guess is that for insurance and other reasons, autonomous cars will initially be managed by fleet-owners who will use them to provide a taxicab service. You'll order an autonomous taxicab (AT) on your smartphone, specifying destination, number of passengers, and amount of baggage. You'll negotiate exact pick-up and set-down locations with the dispatch computer and the time of pick-up (by spoken interaction or keyboard). An appropriate vehicle will arrive at that time and take you to your destination. When passengers and baggage have been unloaded, the vehicle will be available for a new assignment. For large loads, whether passengers or baggage, two ATs might arrive, linked electronically to travel together to the destination.
Google has hinted that it may see car-sharing as the primary business model for its driverless car technology. The above-noted statement by IEEE members suggested that driverless cars will be much used in car sharing programs. A car-sharing service using driverless cars and an AT service amount to essentially the same thing.
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ATs would be better than the taxicabs we have now in three ways, and worse in one.
They would be better because the vehicles could be more comfortable. Interior space arrangements would match passenger rather than driver needs. ATs could more readily provide passengers with entertainment, communications, and other services.
ATs would be better because the rides would be smoother and speedier. As roads become populated with autonomous vehicles, traffic would become better managed with fewer starts and stops and even changes in speed, resulting in briefer trips.
ATs would be better because the rides would cost less. Today, roughly two-thirds of a cab fare covers the cost of the driver. Autonomous vehicles, when widespread, need not cost fleet operators more than regular automobiles. Fares for ATs could be about a third of present cab fares – even lower if users opted to share with strangers.
ATs would be worse for the user who needs other services a cab driver provides. But an AT fleet operator could provide human assistance for a premium, and could be subsidized for doing so for particular classes of passenger.
The startling advantage of ATs would be their low cost. I estimate that a typical fare structure within an urban area (in today's dollars) could be a $1 hiring charge and then 15 cents a minute and 10 cents a kilometre. Thus, a five-kilometre journey at an average speed of 30 km/hour (i.e., taking 10 minutes) would cost $3 (60¢/km). This would be about the same as transit fare for one traveller and less than transit fare if there were more passengers. A ten-kilometre trip at the same average speed would cost $5 (50¢/km) – less than the transit fare for two people travelling together. Rates could be higher or lower according to the time of day and the size of the vehicle requested.
The per-kilometre rates are instructive when compared with the costs of owning and operating a car, which for cars less than four years old average about 55¢ per kilometre driven. For many – younger people in particular – relying on a well-managed and comprehensive AT service could be more appealing than owning a car, or a second or third car. This would be not only for the lower overall cost of using ATs but also because of their convenience and flexibility. ATs will carry people door-to-door, will not have to be parked, will be available for use by people who cannot or should not drive, and will take the form of a wide variety of vehicles according to demand.
ATs need not be only for urban and suburban areas, although that may be where they are first deployed. A Google consultant has suggested that ATs (or individually owned driverless cars) could compete on journey time and convenience with high-speed rail for trips other than station to station at much lower public cost.
On expressways, driverless cars will be able to be platooned at high speed, bringing energy costs down by about a third. The cost of a five-hour, 500-km, door-to-door AT trip from Toronto to Montreal for one or more people could be less than $85 (assuming the AT could be hired in Montreal before being assigned to a return trip), compared with typical station-to-station costs per person of $50 by bus, $100 by train, and $200 by air. For longer trips, ATs with beds and washrooms could be available at a premium.
In upcoming posts, I'll explore the implications of vehicle automation for car ownership, the auto industry, freight movements, and transit planning, as well as for energy use and the environment.
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Richard Gilbert is a Toronto-based consultant on energy and transportation. These five posts are adapted from his contribution to International Handbook on Megaprojects to be published during 2013, a draft of which is available on request to mail@richardgilbert.ca.Investigators examining explosives found in packages intercepted in Britain and Dubai suspect the material, preliminarily identified as PETN, points not only to the role of an al-Qaeda affiliate in Yemen but to a sophisticated bomb-maker who last year sent his brother to his death in an effort to kill a Saudi prince.
Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri, a 28-year-old Saudi national who is on that country's most-wanted list, secreted a PETN-based bomb in a body cavity of his younger brother, Abdullah, who pretended to be turning himself in. The bomb killed his brother and wounded Mohammed bin Nayef, a top counterterrorism official and Saudi royal.
Asiri, who is based in Yemen, is also believed to have built the underwear bomb that a Nigerian man trained in Yemen attempted to detonate last Christmas Day on a commercial aircraft approaching Detroit. That device also contained PETN, or pentaerythritol trinitrate.
"He is certainly someone we are focused on," a U.S. official said of Asiri.
Both packages were shipped from Yemen, where officials said Saturday that they had arrested a woman suspected of mailing them. Her mother also was arrested.
One of the two bombs mailed from Yemen to Chicago-area synagogues traveled on two passenger flights within the Middle East, a Qatar Airways spokesman told the Associated Press Sunday.
The airline spokesman said a package containing explosives hidden in a printer cartridge arrived in Qatar Airways' hub in the capital Doha on one of the carrier's flights from Yemen, AP reported.
According to the Associated Press report, it was then shipped on a separate Qatar Airways plane to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, where it was discovered by authorities late Thursday or early Friday. A second, similar package turned up in England on Friday.
The airline spokesman disclosed the information on condition of anonymity in line with the company's standing policies on conversations with the media, the AP said. He did not give any timeframe for the two flights in question - the airline operates daily passenger flights from Yemen.
Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh told reporters in the capital, Sanaa, that the United States and the United Arab Emirates had provided information that helped identify the woman who was arrested. She was arrested at her home in Sanaa.
Reuters reported that the woman, who was not named, is a medical student in her 20s.
Yemeni police arrested the woman after tracing her through a telephone number she had left with a cargo company, Reuters reported Sunday.Wow. In the wake of the violent robbery Kim suffered in Paris and Kanye's recent mental breakdown, it was obvious that Kimye was in dire straits. But a divorce?
Kim is apparently the one pushing for the divorce, according to a source described as a "friend" of the Kardashian superstar. The source tells Us Weekly that Kim is also building a case to gain full custody of both of her children with Kanye, their three-year-old daughter North as well as their son Saint, who celebrated his 1st birthday on Monday (Dec. 5).
"It will take some time before she can do anything," says the source, "but she doesn't want to stay married." The report goes on to say that while Kim is being supportive of Kanye amid his mental suffering, she apparently does not want him to be around their children. Her friend states that though Kim still cares about Kanye, she has "felt trapped for a while."
Earlier this week, it was reported that Kim and Kanye had not been living together after Kanye's release from the hospital. Our thoughts go out to everyone in the Kardashian-West clan. Stay with us as more information on the circumstances of their marriage becomes available.This article was written on an older version of FileFront / GameFront
Formatting may be lacking as a result. If this article is un-readable please report it so that we may fix it.
Posted on February 22, 2012, CJ Miozzi ROCCAT Studios Teasing A PC Gaming Peripheral Announcement
In twelve days, ROCCAT Studios plans to wow us with what it believes to be the “smartest way forward” for PC gaming.
A teaser website the company put up asks the question, “Isn’t PC gaming dead?” For years, we’ve been told that PC gaming is dead, when in fact a quick glance at Steam numbers would tell you it’s very much alive.
The website goes on to say,
With all the talk lately, you’d think PC gaming was over. Some say PC gaming isn’t dead, but think they need to breathe new life into it now and then with yet another “groundbreaking” reinvention. But is all that necessary?
Rhetorical questions are a dime a dozen, but ROCCAT finishes by promising an answer:
Soon we’ll tell you what we think is the smartest way forward.
A countdown timer implies the answer will come in 12 days, 6 hours, and 34 minutes — as of this posting.
In the website’s Shoutbox, someone posted the following under the name Razer (censorship our own):
f*** off ****** i decide when gaming is dead and release a expensive laptop
The poster is, of course, referencing Razer’s Blade gaming laptop. As much as I love Razer, gaming laptops isn’t the answer, so I’m eager to see what ROCCAT has up its sleeve.
Any guesses?Metal Rhythm Guitar Part 2
This is part two of my guide through the facets of playing great metal rhythm guitar. In part one we focussed on the importance of getting your palm muting right as well as introducing alternate and down picked rhythms.
This week I would like to share some really useful picking drills that are applicable to tackling every era of metal. Starting with thrash metal pioneers such as Slayer and Metallica, |
Gruden wants out of them. Former offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan is now with the Cleveland Browns, and Sean McVay, who was the tight ends coach now runs the offense. A learning curve is to be expected.
New York Giants: There’s no question, the big problem for the Giants over the past couple of seasons has been turnovers. Last season, the Giants ranked last in the NFL in giveaways (44), which was 10 more than the next two teams (Detroit Lions, Washington Redskins). New offensive coordinator Ben McAdoo now runs the offense and will get his chance to rectify the problem. His first objective will be to help quarterback Eli Manning become more efficient.
NFC North
Green Bay Packers: With quarterback Aaron Rodgers still at the helm of Green Bay’s offense, the unit will be fine. The Packers, instead, have to solve their defense, which ranked 25th in the league last season after ceding 372.2 yards per game. Two additions will help: first-round safety Ha Ha Clinton-Dix can blossom into the roaming leader of the secondary, and defensive end Julius Peppers can help in rushing the passer. Both will need to get used to their new playbooks in the offseason.
Chicago Bears: For once in Chicago, the problem is the defense, not the offense. Specifically, the Bears were atrocious in stopping the run, allowing a league-worst 161.4 yards per game. The franchise addressed the issue in the NFL draft, using its second- and third-round picks on defensive tackles Ego Ferguson and Will Sutton. Chicago also added veteran defensive end Jared Allen. Minicamp will be essential in getting its new pieces acclimated to Mel Tucker’s 4-3 scheme.
Detroit Lions: Jim Caldwell begins his first season as the Lions’ head coach, and has a number of issues to solve. The continued development of quarterback Matt Stafford will be a central focus, but the key issue is fixing the secondary. To help do that, Teryl Austin enters his first season as the Lions’ defensive coordinator, but spent the last three years as the Baltimore Ravens’ secondary coach. He brings expertise in the position and will focus on improving last year’s 23rd-ranked passing defense, which allowed 246.9 yards per game.
Minnesota Vikings: Despite a number of holes, quarterback looms as the biggest for the Vikings. Although the franchise traded back into the first round to draft Teddy Bridgewater, the team is in no hurry to rush him to start. It appears that there will be a three-way competition between Bridgewater, Matt Cassel and Christian Ponder. If one quarterback starts to excel in minicamp, it could shape the rest of the offseason.
NFC South
New Orleans Saints: Will the Saints ever solve their running back problem? Mark Ingram, drafted in the first round in 2011, was supposed to be the franchise back, but he just hasn’t been that. Can Ingram finally blossom into a consistent threat, or will Pierre Thomas continue to be the team’s top rusher? Either way, New Orleans needs to improve on its 25th-ranked rushing offense (92.1 yards per game) from last season.
Carolina Panthers: Cam Newton is one of the most dynamic quarterbacks in the NFL, but he lacked playmakers at wide receiver and long-time Panther Steve Smith signed with the Ravens after Carolina released him. First-round pick Kelvin Benjamin will need to produce. The Panthers also signed wide receivers Jerricho Cotchery, Jason Avant and Tiquan Underwood through free agency. That’s a lot of new targets in one offseason and Newton needs to build a rapport with them starting in minicamp.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers: With coach Lovie Smith in Tampa Bay, the team’s defense should improve. The offense, however continues to be the issue. Although quarterback Mike Glennon showed promise as a rookie last season, Smith brought Josh McCown in during free agency to be the starter. Developing chemistry with first- and second-round draft picks Mike Evans and Austin Seferian-Jenkins is essential, and minicamp gives both quarterbacks their first opportunity to do that.
Atlanta Falcons: Team owner Arthur Blank has repeatedly said he wants the Falcons to be more physical next season. After a disappointing 4-12 campaign last year, it all starts on the offensive line. Atlanta tied for 20th in the NFL last season in sacks allowed with 44. The addition of first-round pick Jake Matthews should also help the Falcons improve on their NFL-worst 77.9 rushing yards per game from last year. Free agent guard Jon Asamoah will also bring a level of toughness the franchise missed last season, but chemistry on a rebuilt offensive line will be important and minicamp is a good place to start developing it.
NFC West
Seattle Seahawks: It’s good to be on top. The Seahawks boast the NFL’s top defense from last season and a first-rate offense and are coming off a Super Bowl championship. That’s why the biggest issue for Seattle at minicamp will be to stay motivated and stay hungry. Because most of the key pieces from last year’s team remain, the opportunity to repeat is there, but it will take a lot of work. Rather than to be complacent with the Lombardi Trophy, Seattle’s main goal is to continue to pursue success, after already having achieved it.
San Francisco 49ers: Chasing the Super Bowl champions, the 49ers have their own set of issues to worry about. The troubling part is that these problems have largely been off-the-field concerns. Talented defensive end Aldon Smith faces possible discipline after his latest legal woes, and franchise quarterback Colin Kaepernick has been mentioned in a police investigation. Starting in minicamp, San Francisco needs to focus on football and eliminate all external issues. The primary objective will be on improving the league’s 30th-ranked passing offense from last season, which gained only 186.2 yards per game.
Arizona Cardinals: Despite being one of the most talented teams in the NFC, the Cardinals missed out on the playoffs last year, partly because of the strength of their division. Arizona was a balanced team in 2013 with no glaring weaknesses, but the franchise needs to set the tone starting in minicamp that their quest for the postseason is more difficult than it is for the rest of the NFL. To help them get there, the primary objective is to bolster a rushing offense that ranked 23rd in the NFL last season and generated only 96.3 yards per game.
St. Louis Rams: Coach Jeff Fisher enters his third season as the Rams head coach and after starting to put his imprint on the franchise, it’s time for St. Louis to consistently compete. It starts with the passing game in 2014. Sam Bradford began to show glimpses last season before tearing his anterior cruciate ligament. The Rams ranked 27th in the NFL last season in passing offense (195.3 yards per game). Wide receivers Chris Givens, Tavon Austin and free agent acquisition Kenny Britt need to help maximize Bradford’s production. With Bradford’s participation in minicamp likely limited, the receivers need to give additional effort to make that happen.Microsoft may have misled millions of Skype users around the world by making claims last year that have since been contradicted by intelligence leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.
National Security Agency documents leaked by Snowden to the Guardian and Washington Post last week have grabbed the attention of Americans concerned over the NSA’s blanketing surveillance of communications involving United States citizens. The NSA is regularly retaining the phone records for millions of Verizon customers, the documents revealed, and a separate program called PRISM allegedly lets federal investigators access Internet use information for customers of the biggest online services. One of those documents, a slideshow examining how the NSA has access to conversations conducted over nine major Internet services, may have caught Silicon Valley giant Microsoft in a lie.
Ryan Gallagher of Slate noted this week that one of the slides cited by the Washington Post was labeled a “User’s Guide for PRISM Skype Collection,” suggesting that the NSA has in place a method for eavesdropping on conversations conducted over the popular Web client acquired in 2011 by Microsoft.
According to the slide, NSA agents can listen in or watch Skype chats “when one end of the call is a conventional telephone and for any combination of 'audio, video, chat, and file transfers' when Skype users connect by computer alone.”
“This piece of information is significant for a number of reasons,” wrote Gallagher, but the most crucial perhaps is how it compares to Microsoft’s remarks last year. As RT wrote in 2012, Microsoft was awarded a patent that summer that provides for “legal intercept” technology that allows for agents to “silently copy communication transmitted via the communication session” without asking for user authorization.
At the time, Gallagher was one of the most critical reporters examining the patent, and grilled Microsoft relentlessly to see if this meant that a program previously considered highly-encrypted and tough to crack could provide a backdoor to government agents at the drop of a hat. However, Skype Corporate VP of Product Engineering & Operations Mike Gillet also explained to ExtremeTech.com that the company was making changes in its infrastructure, but that they were being done to “improve the Skype user experience.”
“Skype rejected the charge in a comment issued to the website Extremetech, saying the restructure was an upgrade and had nothing to do with surveillance,” Gallagher wrote at the time, “But when I repeatedly questioned the company on Wednesday whether it could currently facilitate wiretap requests, a clear answer was not forthcoming. Citing ‘company policy,’ Skype PR man Chaim Haas wouldn’t confirm or deny, telling me only that the chat service ‘co-operates with law enforcement agencies as much as is legally and technically possible.’”
This week, Gallagher revisited the issue and explained how Microsoft’s explanation last year is now under fire thanks to NSA leak. Gallagher recalled that Microsoft was driven to releasing a transparency report last year, in which a significant chunk was set aside solely for details on settling requests for Skype data made by law enforcement.
“The report devoted an entire section to Skype and claimed that in 2012, it hadn’t handed any communications content over to authorities anywhere in the world. Microsoft also said in notes accompanying the transparency report that calls made between Skype-Skype users were encrypted peer-to-peer, implying that they did not pass through Microsoft’s central servers and could not be eavesdropped on — except maybe if the government deployed a spy Trojan on a targeted computer to bypass encryption,” Gallagher wrote.
Now enter the “User’s Guide for PRISM Skype Collection” slide, and the story is much different. “That the NSA claims to be able to grab all Skype users’ communications also calls into question the credibility of Microsoft’s transparency report — particularly the claim that in 2012 it did not once hand over the content of any user communications,” Gallagher wrote. “Moreover, according to a leaked NSA slide published by the Post, Skype first became part of the NSA’s PRISM program in February 2011 — three months before Microsoft purchased the service from U.S. private equity firms Silver Lake and Andreessen Horowitz.”
In a statement emailed from Microsoft to Slate, the company said it “went as far as it was legally able in documenting disclosures in its Law Enforcement Requests Report” and that “there should be greater transparency on national security requests and Microsoft would like the government to take steps to allow companies to do that.”
Microsoft’s statement came the same week that one of their largest competitors, Google, pleaded with the government to let them provide more details in their regular transparency reports published online. In a letter sent to US Attorney General Eric Holder and Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Robert Mueller on Tuesday, Google asked the Obama administration to allow it to share more information.
"Google's numbers would clearly show that our compliance with these requests falls far short of the claims being made," said David Drummond, Google's chief legal officer. "Google has nothing to hide.”
During testimony made Thursday morning before Congress, Mueller said the NSA leaks attributed to Snowden “have caused significant harm to our nation and to our safety” and that the FBI and Justice Department will take “all necessary steps to hold the person responsible.” Meanwhile, US Reps. John Conyers (D-Michigan) and Justin Amash (R-Michigan) plan to propose legislation this week that would require that the government provides “specific and articulable facts” before it requests phone records of US citizens.Yeezy Is More Popular With Adidas Than With Nike
It was center stage at the 2008 Grammy Awards that Kanye West stole the show in the sneaker world, wearing for the first time the Nike shoes he would later disclose in an interview were to be known as the “Air Yeezy.” Photos surfaced of a number of colorways and samples for more than a year until the highly anticipated release in Spring of 2009.
The internally-controversial move by athletic-sportswear brand Nike to create a signature sneaker for an artist was something disruptive by even their own measure. Not since the release of the Nike Air Jordan in 1985 had there been so much noise and anticipation for a product line by the brand amongst sneaker consumers.
The 2009 campaign of three Yeezy releases built tremendous steam with each drop. As the country was pulling itself out of a recession and many sneaker boutiques were struggling just to keep their doors open, the Yeezy was bringing in a new group of customers and sparked a new level of interest in casual footwear.
From the graph below, you can see that with each release of the Air Yeezy, so too did the interest in the line increase. The initial press release caused the first major surge in late March, followed by peak search volume for “Air Yeezy” for the weeks of each release that year in April, May, and June.
Air Yeezy search volume (Apr 2008-June 2009)
Following the successful run of the Nike Air Yeezy in 2009, it became a common joke between ourselves and the people who ran the @NikeSportswear twitter account through direct messages that a sequel would cause havoc. Speculation ran for quite some time, but at last, there were sightings and a confirmed word from Nike that there would be a second edition to the Nike Air Yeezy line – the Nike Air Yeezy II.
Nike Air Yeezy II
Just like with the first Nike Air Yeezy, momentum built and peaked at the time of release in 2012. This time around there was even greater popularity in Google searches by consumers, to a search volume of 181% of the peak of the highest point in 2009. In other words, nearly twice as many searches were conducted for “Air Yeezy” at the time of the release of the Nike Air Yeezy II. The search volume for the term is charted below from April 2008 to June 2012.
Air Yeezy search volume (Apr 2008-June 2012)
Fans of Kanye West received a double dose of Yeezys with the Nike Air Yeezy II coming in two colors simultaneously, but there was a third colorway that released in 2014 that released with no warning, no notice, no release date announcement, and still caused a surge in searches in Google.
Air Yeezy search volume (Apr 2008 – Feb 2014)
There are several factors that must be considered when analyzing the popularity of the Yeezy line when looking at the 2014 “Red October” release. It was well documented by this time that Kanye West was leaving Nike for Adidas. With this imminent move taking place, many consumers stopped searching for a Nike Air Yeezy and instead for a Yeezy product associated with Adidas. Also, as mentioned earlier, the release of the “Red October” Nike Air Yeezy II was done on a calm Sunday afternoon without any prior notice or press release ramping up to the launch, like prior releases of the Nike Air Yeezy line.
Sway Calloway and Kanye West
When Adidas signed Kanye West, it started a new wave of interest in his brand. Comments were made in interviews on radio shows (How, Sway?!) and on stage at performances about the break between Nike and Kanye, along with his reasons for joining with Adidas. But beyond the talk, banter, and shade thrown, the numbers don’t lie that Kanye’s Yeezy brand is more popular now with Adidas than any time he was with Nike.
The line was unveiled officially in early 2015 with an initial release of the Adidas Yeezy Boost 750 in February followed by the Adidas Yeezy Boost 350 and 950 models.
Yeezy search volume (Apr 2008 – Nov 2015)
Kanye’s Yeezy brand is more popular now with Adidas than any time he was with Nike.
There are many factors that must be considered as to why searches are so high for the line. For starters, finding the shoes is a much tougher task than before, with less lead time from announcement to release. Adidas has done a phenomenal job at keeping control of the conversation and leaks of information compared to his time with Nike. Also, with such tight distribution of the line, consumers are left to hunt and chase more for the Yeezy line than with other brands that have expected and anticipated points of distribution. Lastly, Kanye West has more star power behind his brand today, than he ever had while with Nike.
The cultural influence of the Kardashian family is real and should not be overlooked. One can’t deny how much extra exposure to a new market and demographic the family provides. A simple Instagram photo from Kim Kardashian will reach almost twice as many followers (51.9M) as it possibly could with the corporate Nike account (28.6M). With many other stars, celebrities, and artists in the Yeezy camp showing the shoes, never have Yeezy products been so visible on social media.
Despite the talk of how small the sales are of the Yeezy line in comparison to other brands, the consumer demand and interest cannot be denied. Yeezy is at the highest level he has ever achieved and if this momentum continues, the line will pass some major heavy-weights in the sneaker and sportswear business.
“Yeezy” vs. “Jordans” in Google search volume since 2008. Did Yeezy JUST jump the Jumpman? This chart says yes. pic.twitter.com/CsTaRqJ7XD — Nice Kicks (@nicekicks) November 14, 2015
Stay tuned to Nice Kicks for reports in the coming days as we compare the significance of Kanye’s Yeezy line to other big brands in the footwear space.Conclusions. Women who prefer deeper penile–vaginal stimulation are more likely to have vaginal orgasm, consistent with vaginal orgasm evolving as part of a female mate choice system favoring somewhat larger than average penises. Future research could extend the findings by overcoming limitations related to more precise measurement of penis length (to the pubis and pressed close to the pubic bone) and girth, and large representative samples. Future experimental research might assess to what extent different penis sizes influence women's satisfaction and likelihood of vaginal orgasm. Costa RM, Miller GF, and Brody B. Women who prefer longer penises are more likely to have vaginal orgasms (but not clitoral orgasms): Implications for an evolutionary theory of vaginal orgasm. J Sex Med 2012;9:3079–3088.
Results. Likelihood of orgasm with a longer penis was related to greater vaginal orgasm frequency but unrelated to frequencies of other sexual behaviors, including clitoral orgasm. In binary logistic regression, likelihood of orgasm with a longer penis was related to greater importance attributed to PVI and lesser importance attributed to noncoital sex.
Main Outcome Measures. Univariate analyses of covariance with dependent variables being frequencies of various sexual behaviors and types of orgasm and with independent variable being women reporting vs. not reporting that a longer than average penis is important for their orgasm from PVI.
Method. Three hundred twenty‐three women reported in an online survey their past month frequency of various sexual behaviors (including PVI, vaginal orgasm, and clitoral orgasm), the effects of a longer than average penis on likelihood of orgasm from PVI, and the importance they attributed to PVI and to noncoital sex.
Aims. To test the hypothesis that vaginal orgasm frequency is associated with women's reporting that a longer than average penis is more likely to provoke their PVI orgasm.
Introduction. Research indicates that (i) women's orgasm during penile–vaginal intercourse (PVI) is influenced by fitness‐related male partner characteristics, (ii) penis size is important for many women, and (iii) preference for a longer penis is associated with greater vaginal orgasm consistency (triggered by PVI without concurrent clitoral masturbation).
Introduction When women have sex with men, their sexual pleasure is influenced by the male partner's sexual performance, as well as by his physical and psychological characteristics. For example, erectile dysfunction and premature ejaculation by male partners can reduce female sexual pleasure 1-3, especially the likelihood of orgasm from penile–vaginal intercourse (PVI). Research also shows that male traits such as penis size and copulatory vigor are more relevant for women's attaining orgasm from PVI than from other sexual activities. The likelihood of a woman attaining an orgasm through penile stimulation of the vagina without concurrent clitoral masturbation (henceforth, vaginal orgasm) is related to men's erectile function 4 and to duration of PVI, but not to duration of foreplay (in multivariate analyses controlling for both PVI and foreplay duration) 5. Female orgasm during most recent PVI is associated with partner's physical and sexual attractiveness 6. Consistency of female orgasm during PVI is associated with partner's higher body symmetry, a putative anatomical marker of health and fertility, which is correlated with physical attractiveness in humans 7. However, in the same study, body symmetry was not related to a summary measure of orgasmic consistency across all forms of partnered sex 7, indicating that the effect was specific to PVI orgasm. Similarly, consistency of women's orgasm during PVI is predicted by partner's dominance, masculinity, and attractiveness, but these traits did not predict consistency of noncoital orgasm (partnered and solitary) 8. The present study examines the hypotheses that vaginal orgasm frequency is associated with women's reporting that a longer than average penis is more likely to provoke their orgasm from PVI, within the context of an evolutionary view of vaginal orgasm evolving as part of a female mate choice system favoring somewhat larger than average penises. Our theory, linking greater likelihood of vaginal orgasm to having a man with a longer penis, is a special case of the evolutionary view that female orgasm evolved as a mate choice system 9 and is consistent with the view that vaginal orgasm can be a signal of greater fitness of both partners 10. Increasing evidence shows that penis size is important for the sexual pleasure of many women and is arguably more relevant during PVI than during other sexual activities. Masters and Johnson speculated in 1966 that penis size should not predict women's sexual pleasure or orgasm likelihood during intercourse given the vagina's elasticity and its allegedly poor innervation 11 (cf. 12), and although they offered no empirical evidence concerning women's penis size preferences, their claim has been routinely cited as gospel in sex research. However, there is evidence that the entire length of the vagina (and cervix) is well innervated and that (in addition to an overlapping general region) the cervix projects to a different region of the somatosensory cortex than the distal vagina, which in turn projects to a different region than the clitoris 12, 13. In addition, substantial evidence shows that most women care about penis size to some degree and typically prefer a somewhat thicker and longer penis than average. For example, dissatisfaction with partner's penis size was associated with greater risk of female sexual dysfunction among Arabic women having regular coital activity (aged 18–53) 2. In the same sample, 67% reported that penis size was important for sexual satisfaction, with 40% (of that majority subgroup) valuing girth more, 40% valuing girth and length equally, and 20% valuing length more 2. In a sample of coitally experienced Croatian women aged 19–49 years, penile girth was found to be somewhat important for 53% and very important for 22%; penile length was somewhat important for 57% and very important for 18% 14. In a Dutch sample of sexually active women, only 18% reported that penis girth was “totally unimportant” (as Masters and Johnson claimed), whereas 33% considered it important or very important; likewise, only 22% reported that penis length was totally unimportant, whereas 21% considered it important or very important 15. More informative than such studies on the abstract “importance” of penis size are studies on what penis sizes women actually prefer. In three articles, Dixson and collaborators found that women from California (USA), New Zealand, Cameroon, and China rated stylized male figures with somewhat longer than average penises as more attractive 16-18. In a representative Czech sample, 34% of the women with history of orgasm from PVI and enough coital partners to be able to make a comparison reported being more likely to have an orgasm from PVI with a man who has a longer than average penis length 5. An Internet survey of 26,437 heterosexual women found that 94% of women who reported that their current partner's penis was “large” were “very satisfied” sexually, but only 32% of women whose partner's penis was “small” were very satisfied sexually, and 68% of those women wished that their partner's penis was larger 19. In the same article, among 25,594 heterosexual men surveyed, about 45% desired a larger penis, and only 0.2% desired a smaller penis 19. These desires may reflect lessons learned from real sexual experiences with women rather than, as often patronizingly claimed, internalization of culturally arbitrary masculinity stereotypes. The human vagina, cervix, and the exposed clitoral glans have distinct afferent pathways and sensory cortex projections 13; consequently, female orgasms can be triggered in many women by penile–vaginal or penile–cervical stimulation, regardless of superficial clitoral stimulation 20, 21. If vaginal orgasm is favored by greater responsiveness to vaginocervical stimulation, then it seems plausible that women capable of vaginal orgasm would learn to value somewhat larger penises, as these can better stimulate the vagina and cervix. In contrast, among women with lower vaginocervical responsiveness to penile stimulation, the ability to attain vaginal orgasm would be reduced, as would the importance attributed to penis size. This hypothesis received support from the representative Czech sample, in which women who had vaginal orgasms more consistently were more likely to have an orgasm from PVI with a man with a longer than average penis 5. Thus, the objective of the present study is to replicate and extend this finding by examining in a sample from a different country whether greater frequency of vaginal orgasm is associated with greater likelihood of reaching orgasm from PVI with men with longer than average penises. In addition, if penis size is relevant for vaginocervical response, but not for clitoral glans response, we hypothesize that orgasmic frequency provoked by superficial clitoral stimulation will be unrelated to women's rated importance of penis size. Finally, if preference for a longer penis is driven by greater vaginocervical sensitivity, then one might infer that women who reach orgasm from PVI more easily with longer penises value PVI relatively more and value noncoital sex relatively less. We also test these hypotheses.
Method An online survey was advertised primarily in Scotland with potential respondents being informed that it was part of a study intended to better understand women's sexuality and inform ways of helping women to achieve their sexual potential (the issue of penis size was not mentioned in the advertisements for the study). The advertisement of the survey occurred primarily in Scottish universities (and to a lesser extent among students and staff of universities of other parts of the United Kingdom and North America). As part of the informed consent procedures, participants began responding only after reading that anonymity and confidentiality were assured, as well as being informed that they should answer the survey without anyone seeing or discussing the answers. The study was approved by the University of the West of Scotland Ethics Committee. The present data set has yielded several publications on the psychological, behavioral, and anatomical correlates of female sexual function 22-24. The quality of sexuality data collected by online surveys and by in‐person surveys appears to be similar 25. The present sample consists of 323 coitally experienced women. Exclusion criteria were being coitally inexperienced and responses suggesting a high risk of misreporting, as indicated by scores above the 86th percentile on the short version of the Marlowe‐Crowne Social Desirability Scale 26 (see below). The effect of penis size on the likelihood of having an orgasm from PVI was assessed by the question “All things being equal, are you more likely to have an orgasm from penis‐in‐vagina intercourse with a man who has a somewhat larger than average penis length? (Assume that average erect penis length is the length of a £20 note or any U.S. dollar bill).” Possible answers were a) more likely to have an orgasm with a longer penis, b) no difference—I orgasm equally well with long or average penis lengths, c) less likely to have an orgasm with a longer penis, d) I do not (or do not often) have an orgasm from intercourse, or e) I have not had enough penis‐in‐vagina intercourse partners to make a comparison. A dichotomous variable was created with those answering b and c being collapsed in the group for whom large penis size was not important for the likelihood of attaining orgasm from PVI vs. those who responded that penis size was important (answer a). Those with category d or e responses were excluded from further analyses related to size preference, leaving N = 160 for such analyses. The banknote size question was previously used in the cited Czech study which found that greater vaginal orgasm consistency was related to preference for a longer penis (a 145‐mm‐long Czech banknote size was given as the size reference) 5. The £20 note is 149 mm long and U.S. dollar bills are 155 mm long. Studies of normal men's erect or stretched flaccid penis length usually find means between 120 and 167 mm 27. Importance attributed to PVI and to noncoital sex was assessed by the following questions: “How important to you are the following activities (rate them from 1 = least important to 10 = most important)? a) penile‐vaginal intercourse, b) other sexual activities.” The 13‐item short form of the Marlowe‐Crowne Social Desirability Scale 26 was used to exclude participants (above the 86th percentile) especially likely to misrepresent their sexual behaviors and preferences. The reliability of this short form (0.70) was shown to be similar to that of the full scale (0.75) 26. Moreover, a validity study showed that a mock job interview increased its scores in a Chinese sample 28. Participants reported how many days they engaged in the following sexual behaviors and how many days they had orgasms from each of them in a recent representative month: PVI without additional simultaneous clitoral stimulation, PVI with additional simultaneous clitoral stimulation, clitorally focused masturbation (except vibrator), vaginally focused masturbation (except vibrator), masturbation with vibrator (alone or with a partner), clitorally focused manual stimulation by a partner, vaginally focused manual stimulation by a partner, receiving oral sex, and anal sex. Clitorally focused masturbation, vaginally focused masturbation, oral sex, and anal sex were differentiated as occurring with or without PVI in the same day 22, 23, 29, 30. This sexual behavior questionnaire and previous versions in other languages 31-33 have been used in studies demonstrating predicted differences between sexual activities. Recall and diary measures of sexual behavior frequencies in a previous version were strongly correlated 33. Statistical Analyses Univariate analyses of covariance were used to compare women who reported that they were more likely to attain orgasm from PVI with a longer than average penis to women for whom penis size was not important, with respect to frequencies of various sexual behaviors including orgasms from each behavior. Binary logistic regression (backward conditional) was used to compare women who reported that they were more likely to attain orgasm from PVI with a longer than average penis to women for whom penis size was not important, with respect to rated importance of PVI and rated importance of noncoital sex. Partial eta coefficients are measures of effect size comparable to Pearson's product‐moment coefficients, and for the sake of clarity in comparing results, they are presented for the analyses of covariance. All statistical analyses were performed with SPSS, version 17 (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA).
Results Table 1 provides details of participant demographic details, and Table 2 provides details of past month sexual behavior frequencies. Table 1. Participant demographics M (SD) or % Age (years) 25.89 (7.85) Place of origin Scotland 73.1 Other United Kingdom 8.0 Other Europe 7.7 United States 7.7 Canada 0.9 Rest of the world 2.5 Occupation University student 70.8 Employed full time 20.5 Employed part time 7.5 Self‐employed 0.3 Unemployed 0.9 Table 2. Past month sexual behavior frequencies Mean (SD) PVI (without simultaneous clitoral stimulation) 6.41 (6.67) Vaginal orgasm 3.72 (5.85) Masturbation during PVI 6.19 (6.94) Masturbation orgasm during PVI 4.76 (6.12) Clitorally focused masturbation 6.77 (7.91) Clitorally focused masturbation orgasm 6.32 (7.78) Vaginally focused masturbation 2.37 (4.82) Vaginally focused masturbation orgasm 1.74 (4.33) Vibrator use 2.79 (5.08) Vibrator orgasm 2.69 (5.06) Clitorally focused manual stimulation by partner (with same day PVI) 5.67 (6.53) Orgasm from clitorally focused manual stimulation by partner (with same day PVI) 4.45 (6.00) Clitorally focused manual stimulation by partner (no same day PVI) 3.17 (5.02) Orgasm from clitorally focused manual stimulation by partner (no same day PVI) 2.42 (4.65) Vaginally focused manual stimulation by partner (with same day PVI) 4.40 (6.22) Orgasm from vaginally focused manual stimulation by partner (with same day PVI) 2.87 (5.34) Vaginally focused manual stimulation by partner (no same day PVI) 2.04 (4.33) Orgasm from vaginally focused manual stimulation by partner (no same day PVI) 1.20 (3.18) Oral sex (with same day PVI) 4.13 (5.44) Oral sex orgasm (with same day PVI) 3.38 (5.30) Oral sex (no same day PVI) 1.80 (3.69) Oral sex orgasm (no same day PVI) 1.36 (3.17) Anal sex (with same day PVI) 0.50 (1.58) Anal sex orgasm (with same day PVI) 0.31 (1.57) Anal sex (no same day PVI) 0.16 (1.07) Anal sex orgasm (no same day PVI) 0.14 (1.51) Table 3 displays women's ratings of how penis size influences the likelihood of achieving orgasm from PVI; among the 160 women qualified to judge size effects (because they have had PVI‐induced orgasms and enough partners to make informed size comparisons), 33.8% report that they are more likely to have orgasms with longer penises, whereas 60.0% report that size makes no difference, and 6.3% report that they are less likely to have orgasms with longer penises. Table 3. Women's reports on how penis size influences the likelihood of reaching orgasm from penile–vaginal intercourse (PVI) Total sample Subsample qualified to judge penis size importance % (N = 321*) % (N = 160) More likely to have an orgasm with a longer penis 16.8 (54) 33.8 (54) No difference—equally likely of having an orgasm with a longer and average penis 29.9 (96) 60.0 (96) Less likely to have an orgasm with a longer penis 3.1 (10) 6.3 (10) Never (or not often) had an orgasm from PVI 29.0 (93) Not enough PVI partners to make a comparison 21.2 (68) Table 4 displays the descriptive statistics of the demographics of the subsample qualified to judge the importance of penis size for orgasm from PVI. Table 4. Demographics and importance of sexual behaviors of the subsample qualified to judge the importance of penis size on the likelihood of reaching orgasm from PVI (N = 160) Age (years), mean (SD) 26.58 (8.0) Place of origin (%) Scotland 70.6 Other United Kingdom 10.0 Other Europe 6.9 USA 9.4 Canada 0.6 Rest of the world 2.5 Occupation (%) University student 66.3 Employed full time 24.4 Employed part time 8.8 Unemployed (benefits) 0.6 Importance of sexual behaviors, mean (SD) Importance of PVI 7.67 (2.64) Importance of noncoital sex 7.41 (2.19) As shown in Table 5, women who report that they are more likely to reach orgasm from PVI with a longer than average penis report having more vaginal orgasms within a previous month compared with women for whom penis size is not important for PVI orgasm. Notably, the groups do not differ in the frequencies of clitoral orgasm, orgasm induced by vaginal masturbation, or any other sexual behaviors. Table 5. Univariate analyses of covariance comparing those women who are more likely to orgasm from PVI with a longer than average penis to those women who are not more likely to orgasm from PVI with a longer than average penis regarding frequency (days in a previous month) of sexual behaviors More likely to orgasm from PVI with a longer than average penis M (SD) Not more likely to orgasm from PVI with a longer than average penis M (SD) F df Partial eta Sexual behavior frequencies PVI 8.76 (7.98) |
been left asking why this region has missed out “again” after the city, the East Coast and the entire eastern corner of the island were left off a wall map erected at a hostel at Christchurch Airport. During a sales trip to Christchurch, earlier this week, Wright’s Winery grower Geoff Wright saw a wall map, described as “at least 10 feet tall” in the shared common room of the Jucysnooze backpackers hostel.
The map pointed to several key towns, indicating for what the region was best known. But there was no mention of Gisborne or East Cape. A number of other areas of the country were also missing.
“Gisborne is a significant historical site as the first landing site for Captain Cook, Europeans, the chardonnay capital of New Zealand, best surfing beaches and it feeds New Zealanders from our fertile soil.”
Mr Wright said he was “a little bit surprised" that Gisborne did not feature. The hostel, which featured sleeping pods, also had families staying at the time and catered for Gisborne’s “target market”.
Jucy Group head of marketing Katy Medlock said no offence had been intended and pointed out that other well-known places were not included on the graphic.
“We’re lucky to live in a country like New Zealand that has so many hotspots for visitors to visit. Gisborne is already incredibly popular with our customers and also the Jucy crew, but it seems this time we were a little too spoilt for choice as to what we could squeeze on to the map.”
She invited people to comment on the Jucy post on the Wrights Vineyard and Winery Facebook page and comment with their favourite or secret Gisborne tips, to go into a draw to win a five-day car or camper hire.
“We want to know what you would have liked the map to include.”Jose Gonzalez, 36, was released from a California prison after serving 17 years for murder, under a new plan to reduce massive prison overcrowding there. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
After California’s prison population reached the crisis stage of overcrowding — with some prisons at 300 percent capacity — the state in 2011 began to parole thousands of inmates to their original counties. Within 15 months, more than 27,500 inmates had been “realigned” from state prisons to county jails or to parole in what was called “an act of mass forgiveness unprecedented in U.S. history.” This led to the understandable fear that suddenly returning thousands of convicts to the streets would cause a spike in crime.
It hasn’t happened.
Two detailed studies that examined crime in California, including one released last week by the journal of the American Society of Criminology, found that when considering the patterns of crime nationally and in California between 2010 and 2014, there was little or no deviation in the crime rate after the mass prisoner release. The new study, “Is Downsizing Prisons Dangerous?” by criminology professors Jody Sundt, Emily J. Salisbury and Mark G. Harmon, found that auto theft did rise somewhat in 2012 and 2013, but by 2014 it had fallen back to the norm.
“An astounding 17 percent reduction in the size of the California prison population,” Sundt’s study concluded, “had no effect on aggregate rates of violent or property crime.” The study said that California’s initial, full-throated embrace of incarceration as a means to fight crime, such as the notorious “Three Strikes” law, “may affect crime, but it does so at a high social, human and economic cost and is far less cost-effective than alternatives. Moreover, there is now evidence that prison populations can be safely reduced without harming the public.”
“Mass incarceration” has become one of the key topics in the ongoing dispute about justice reform in America. The U.S. has more inmates per capita than any other country. We have more jails than colleges. And California took its drastic steps only after ordered to do so by the Supreme Court. But since the initial realignment, California voters also approved Proposition 47, which reclassified many drug and property crimes from felonies to misdemeanors, further lightening the load on the state prison system. The fact that these studies are not finding a severe, or any, impact on crime after a mass release of prisoners adds a significant piece to the conversation about how America handles incarceration.
Sundt said in an interview Tuesday that there had not been any reports of a particularly horrible incident by a parolee from the realignment plan, which could have caused a backlash against the program. “People are really scared to make policy changes,” Sundt said, “because it just takes one horrific case” to create a new controversy.
[California undertakes an unprecedented experiment in mass forgiveness]
The policy change of reducing overcrowding was mandated by the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled in 2011 that California’s prison system amounted to “cruel and unusual punishment” and required the state to reduce its overall population from 181 percent of capacity to 137.5 percent in two years, or about 33,000 inmates. The California legislature then passed a “realignment plan” which applied only to a certain set of prisoners: those convicted of non-violent, non-sex-related and non-serious crimes.
Prisoners in the “non-non-non” group could be returned to their original counties for either time in the county jail or parole, and those who had committed violent crimes while younger than 23 could be considered for parole. Those on parole or probation would have their supervision times shortened to a maximum of six months, and parole violators would go only to jail, not back to prison. (Jails are different from prisons, and the terms are not interchangeable. Jails are run by counties or smaller municipalities and designed to hold only those awaiting trial and those sentenced to a year or less of incarceration. Prisons are run by states and intended to hold those convicted of felonies with more than a year of incarceration.)
Both a 2013 study by Magnus Lofstrom and Steven Raphael from the Public Policy Institute of California and the new Sundt study found a marked increase in auto theft after the mass releases, of as many as 130 incidents per 100,000 residents in 2012, or a 13 percent rise. But the rate rose by only 66 incidents in 2013, a seven percent rise, and no increase by 2014.
But for violent crime, “there is no evidence that the Realignment Act had an immediate effect on violent crime rates,” Sundt wrote. In 2013, as compared to 2010, there was a negligible increase in violent crime – murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault – and in 2014, realignment was associated with a decrease of about 9.5 incidents per 100,000 residents.
Within 15 months of California passing the realignment law, savings from the reduced prison population totaled $453 million in 2012 alone, state statistics show, and “there was no adverse effect on the overall safety of Californians,” Sundt wrote.
Why didn’t crime go up? “We cannot know from this study,” Sundt wrote, “if the null findings are attributable to effective community interventions, local law enforcement, wiser use of jails, diminished returns on incarceration, or some other factors.” Sundt said in an interview that California’s legislature gave counties wide latitude in how to handle their returned prisoners, either by putting them on probation or keeping them in the county jail, and “that provided some protection for the policy makers to avoid the celebrated case that would hurt them.” Some argued that it gave county sheriffs too much power because some made decisions on whom to release and whom to keep in jail.
Sundt wrote that more money should be appropriated to study which initiatives and programs were most effective in keeping offenders from re-offending, in order to do a meaningful evaluation of “one of the largest and most dramatic public safety reforms in U.S. history.” The Sundt study also recommended that more be done to divert mentally ill offenders from the prison system, and that California, which had the highest rate of auto theft in the U.S. between 2010 and 2013, take more steps to reduce that crime.
Here’s the new Sundt study:Mats Sundin. Doug Gilmour. Darryl Sittler. Wendel Clark. The Team Sundin lineup for Sunday’s Hockey Hall of Fame Legends Classic was a Leafs fan’s dream. There were 1970s icons such as Lanny McDonald, crowd favourites such as Darcy Tucker and franchise-best players such as Borje Salming, the Leafs most prolific-scoring defenceman.
Former Maple Leafs captains Wendel Clark, left, and Doug Gilmour represented Team Sundin in the Hockey Hall of Fame Legends Classic. ( David Cooper / Toronto Star )
The good-natured game, marked by loose rules and playful on-ice banter at the Air Canada Centre, ended in a shootout after two periods. The team captained by 2012 Hall of Famer Joe Sakic was up by one as Sundin took his final shot, for a potential goal that the referee cheekily deemed to be worth two points. But after a miss from the former Leafs captain, the game ended with a 14-13 win for Team Sakic. Seeing a team lose while wearing Leafs jerseys might have stung for fans, but only barely. The score really didn’t matter, fans said the real magic came from seeing legends back on the ice.
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“We get to see Sundin skate,” said Leafs fan Madison Erhardt, who grew up watching the Leafs’ all-time leader in both goals and points. “That’s all that matters.” “Sundin, Clark, Roberts. I love that era,” said Dave Lamontagne, who came down from Port Perry for the game with his 8-year-old daughter Annie, a self-described Phil Kessel fan. Before all the spectacle of the game, there was a heartwarming tribute to the legendary Pat Burns, a posthumous 2014 inductee into the Hockey Hall of Fame. Burns, who coached the Leafs, Montreal Canadiens and Boston Bruins, passed away in 2010 after a lengthy battle with cancer. Cheers rang out through the ACC as a montage of the NHL’s only three-time coach of the year played on the jumbotron. During a pre-game ceremony for all six of this year’s inductees — who also included Rob Blake, Peter Forsberg, Dominik Hasek, Mike Modano and Bill McCreary — Burns’ son Jason accepted his father’s Hall of Fame blazer.
“It’s a great honour,” Jason Burns said, amid a standing ovation from the crowd. A few minutes later, retired NHL referee Ron Hoggarth kicked off the game by razzing the Toronto crowd. “Your worst nightmare — I’m back!” he roared.
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Team Sundin wore jerseys modelled after Leafs sweaters from 1949, the year of one of their Stanley Cup wins. Team Sakic, featuring the likes of Rob Blake, Peter Stastny, Nick Kypreos and Paul Coffey, wore striped-sleeve jerseys based on Hall of Fame artifacts from the 1930s and 1940s. The whole game was heavy on scoring, light on defence and full of surreal plays from rosters filled with legends on the ice. Some players passed on wearing helmets, while others took midgame breaks to toss shirts into the crowd. There were plenty of magical moments for Leafs fans, including Team Sundin’s third goal courtesy of three former captains — Clark scored it, with assists from Gilmour and Rick Vaive — and a goal from Sittler that was met with big cheers throughout the ACC. After the game, Sundin said it was great fun being on the ice with that legendary lineup. “To join all the legends and Hall of Famers and be part of it yourself, with guys like Darryl Sittler and all of these older players... is a great experience,” said the 2012 Hall of Fame inductee.
Read more about:As he was hurtling into orbit, Cosmonaut Gherman Titov had the distinct feeling that his body was cartwheeling through the air. It started as soon as Vostok 2 separated from its booster and he was thrust into weightlessness. “I felt suddenly as though I were turning a somersault and then flying with my legs up,” he said later on. In reality, there was no cartwheel – the feeling was simply an illusion, something akin to an out-of-body experience.
For many astronauts, these sensations tend to stop after a couple of days in space, but others suffer the discombobulating feelings throughout their trip. “I knew I was standing upright… and nevertheless I felt upside down, despite the fact that everything was normally oriented around me,” is how one astronaut described his experience on the Spacelab space station.
And disorientation is not the only strange experience faced by astronauts. Space travel can also cause distorted vision and duller thinking, and might even influence mood. These mind-bending consequences are sometimes known as the “space stupids”, and could potentially put future missions in jeopardy. So what is the solution?
At least some of the skewed perceptions of astronauts can be blamed on the stress and loneliness of space travel. A crew on the Salyut-5 space station once reported an acrid, toxic smell – leading them to return home early – but although the real reason is still not clear, some psychologists have suggested that it was a hallucination caused by the pressures of the mission.
But many of the strange illusions are caused by something that is even less easy to escape: the simple lack of gravity. Without the weight of the body to give it cues, the brain becomes easily confused about its orientation, causing, for instance, the uncanny feeling that you are permanently upside down or Titov’s strange sensation that he was spinning through space.
Cosmic confusion
To get to the bottom of those feelings, one of the first questions is to find out what level of gravity is necessary to align our sense of orientation and keep it stable. Would we feel the same effects on another planet like Mars, for instance? That could be crucial to know if we are ever to set up home elsewhere in the solar system.
Early experiments had suggested that the threshold was very low – much less than the gravity found on the Moon. Yet observations of moon walkers would suggest otherwise; it was surprisingly common for those pioneers to take one small step for man, only to fall flat on their faces (see video, below).
Of course, it can’t be easy to manoeuvre a bulky spacesuit across the rocky landscape. But Laurence Harris at York University in Canada believes that the strange sense of orientation could, at least in part, contribute to their accidents.
Last month, Harris and colleagues published a clever experiment that attempted to work out exactly what level of gravity is necessary to give us a sense of orientation. The team asked their subjects to lie in a spinning “centrifuge” that seems to pull the body towards its centre – giving the illusion of a gravitational pull. As the volunteers took the stomach-churning ride, he then asked them to judge the alignment of a letter that would appear as either “p” or “d” depending on which direction they felt was up. From this he found that about 15% of the Earth’s gravitational pull (0.15g) was needed to give a definite sense of up and down.
Crucially, the gravity of the Moon falls almost exactly on that threshold – potentially explaining why astronauts still found it difficult to align their bodies and stop themselves falling over. But it was good news for future missions to Mars – at about 0.4g, it comfortably exceeds that threshold and shouldn’t lead to the same feelings of disorientation.
Travel between the planets, where the pull of gravity is much weaker, could be trickier, however. The brain does seem able to acclimatise to the low-gravity environment and learn to use visual cues instead of gravity for orientation – for instance, learning that one surface is the floor, and one is the ceiling. But according to reports from Apollo astronauts, and those living on space stations like Spacelab and the ISS, it doesn’t take much to throw it into disarray, even after months in space. We are so used to seeing humans standing with their feet on the floor, for instance, that the sight of a crewmember floating upside down is enough to give the illusion that the whole cabin has suddenly spun upside down. Similarly eerie sensations can also come when an astronaut moves out of a module and then re-enters at a later point. “They come into the module and it looks completely new again,” says Harris. Or in the words of a Skylab astronaut interviewed by MIT researchers: “I whistle through the docking adapter and into the command module and zingy! All of a sudden it’s upside down.”
The feeling is apparently far more intense than simply standing on your head or viewing a photograph the wrong way around: it can be like entering a mirror universe where everything feels familiar and yet uncannily different. Sometimes, the resulting disorientation was even enough to make the astronauts vomit.
Poor vision
Even without the full-blown feeling that everything had turned upside down, low gravity can lead to more general cognitive problems and distorted perception. Gilles Clement at the International Space University in Illkirch-Graffenstaden, France, for instance, has found that objects appear shallower and distances appear shorter to astronauts on the International Space Station. And various experiments have suggested that astronauts have trouble with simple mental tasks – such as imagining the rotation of different objects – perhaps because our imagination works by comparing the movements with the position of our own body.
The consequences could be serious. “You hear that people sometimes get lost on the space station,” says Harris. “And that could be an important safety issue if they are trying to find an escape pod, for example.” Some astronauts have also reported it creating extra risks during delicate technical missions: causing them to pull switches in the wrong direction, thanks to the confusion, or leading them to misjudge the speed of an approaching vehicle during docking.
So what is the solution? It is possible that some kind of device – like a pair of smart goggles – could help the astronauts to work out where they are and which direction they are facing. Alternatively, it could just be a question of some clever interior design. “The best way is to provide consistent visual cues. For example, to paint one surface brown and get everyone to agree to orient with that as "down". And you could maybe hang some pictures, especially with strong orientation cues – or movies of waterfalls,” says Harris. “These may not be totally frivolous suggestions when it comes to long distance missions.”
Marc Dalecki – also at York University in Canada – recently put some subjects through a “parabolic” flight that creates the sensation of weightlessness for short periods of time. He found that visual cues orienting the subjects were enough to reduce the problems with mental rotation in microgravity. So perhaps some clever decor that helps orient an astronaut really might be able to clear up some of the space stupids.
Even so, Dalecki points out that we are still a long way from understanding the full consequences of space missions – given the limitations of the current research. “It is difficult to form strong conclusions,” he says. “These are just first small steps.” Certainly, there are many more mind-bending effects of space to explore. Even something as simple as face recognition can depend on our sense of up and down, and might be influenced by microgravity.
And that’s not to mention the potential effects on our mood. There is some evidence that the vestibular system – which responds to movement and gravity – is linked to the areas of the brain that control our emotion. What we don’t know yet is how this might affect the well-being of astronauts. There is also some evidence that space travel changes the amount of blood flowing to the brain, potentially dulling wits more generally.
Future generations
Eventually we may even need to consider the way low gravity effects children born in space. “Will their spatial abilities and neural coding be fundamentally different than ours. Or will they – like today’s astronauts – still show evidence of their terrestrial evolutionary heritage?” wrote Charles Oman at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2007. “Perhaps one day future astronaut-researchers will discover the answers.”
For Harris, a greater understanding of our brains in space is of the utmost importance. “It’s clear that many more aspects of cognition in low gravity need to be investigated, especially when we are planning long flights to Mars where people will be in low gravity for months on end,” says Harris. “It would be dangerous to embark on that without a much greater database of findings.”
If you would like to comment on this, or anything else you have seen on Future, head over to our Facebook or Google+ page, or message us on Twitter.Fredy Builes / Reuters People celebrate the signing of a historic ceasefire deal between the Colombian government and FARC rebels at Botero square in Medellin, Colombia, June 23, 2016.
HAVANA, Aug 24 - Colombia’s government and leftist FARC rebels unveiled a final peace deal on Wednesday to end a 50-year-old guerrilla war, one of the world’s longest conflicts which took the resource-rich country to the brink of being a failed state.
The two sides said they had reached an agreement to end the conflict and build a stable peace, in a joint statement read out by representatives of Cuba and Norway, who are mediators in the talks.
The historic agreement foresees the demobilization of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), whose cocaine-funded rebels fought the government in a war that killed at least 220,000 people. Tens of thousands disappeared and millions fled their homes because of the violence.
The deal, opposed by two former Colombian presidents, still needs to be voted on in a referendum and signed.
U.S. President Barack Obama spoke by phone with Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos on Wednesday to congratulate him on finalizing details of a peace agreement to end the country’s 50-year-old guerrilla war with FARC rebels, the White House said.
“The president recognized this historic day as a critical juncture in what will be a long process to fully implement a just and lasting peace agreement that can advance security and prosperity for the Colombian people,” the White House said in a statement.
Earlier on Wednesday, Colombia’s President Juan Manuel Santos said a big announcement was very close.
“May this country that you are imagining, that you are painting, become reality,” he said at the Bogota launch of a children’s art competition called “Depict a Colombia in Peace.”
“A country where children can grow without fear and with hope for the future,” he added.
The FARC said the countdown had begun to a final deal.
“I want to share with you from here in Havana the great satisfaction we feel to have reached this point,” said Rodrigo Londono, or Timochenko, the top leader of Marxist-inspired guerrillas.
FARC negotiator Pastor Alape tweeted overnight that “the days now are hours” until peace starts to take shape.
Most opinion polls suggest Colombians will back it. Still, Santos, who has staked his legacy on peace, will have to fight hard for a “yes” given fierce opposition from powerful sectors of the country who think the only solution is to crush the FARC militarily.
“A positive vote once seemed like a slam dunk,” said Tom Long, International Relations lecturer at Reading University.
“But opposition from former presidents (Andres) Pastrana and (Alvaro) Uribe will force Santos to campaign hard for the accord.”
A previous round of talks, under Pastrana between 1999 and 2002, collapsed after the guerrillas hijacked an airplane.
ADALBERTO ROQUE via Getty Images Members of the Colombian government's and FARC leftist guerrilla's delegations and guarantors for peace talks attend a press conference at the Convention Palace in Havana, on August 12, 2016.
BOON FOR BUSINESS
An agreement with FARC does not guarantee an end to violence that began as a peasant revolt. Talks between the smaller, leftist National Liberation Army and the government recently stalled, while gangs born out of right-wing paramilitary groups are reported to have taken over some of their drug trafficking routes.
But an agreement is a prerequisite for peace. A ceasefire has already sent violence to its lowest level in decades.
The improved security should boost investment and tourism and could open up development in rural regions of the emerging markets darling, analysts say, estimating a 0.3 percent to 1 percent increase in economic growth.
“If you have an improvement in overall security, foreign and national investment increases,” said Sabine Kurtenbach at the Hamburg-based GIGA research institute.
Key to securing a sustainable peace is that the extra growth benefits Colombia’s poorer, rural areas, analysts say.
The FARC was born, like many other Marxist-inspired peasant insurgencies across Latin America in the 1960s, out of frustration with deep socio-economic equalities.
Funded by cocaine and kidnappings for ransom, it grew to a 17,000 strong force operating across vast swaths of Colombia.
While other Latin American insurgencies had been crushed by right-wing governments or convinced to join conventional politics by the 1990s, the FARC was still going strong.
This only started to change when Uribe in 2002 launched a U.S.-backed counterinsurgency campaign that killed many FARC leaders and reduced its ranks to an estimated 7,000 fighters.
Uribe says the government is giving in to “terrorism” by negotiating with the FARC and granting it a degree of amnesty. His party, Colombia’s main opposition group, announced earlier this month it would back a “no” vote in the plebiscite.Get the latest news and videos for this game daily, no spam, no fuss.
Following a tease yesterday, Square Enix today released a CG movie for Final Fantasy XV titled "Omen."
The short film, which is around 4.5 minutes long, was produced by Digic Pictures (the team that worked on Kingsglaive) and is inspired by Final Fantasy XV. It's a pretty gripping video and it raises a few questions. "How many must die before you are satisfied?" a voice says at one point. Check it out above.
The video is described by Square Enix as being a "nightmare" for main character Noctis. It shows an "omen" for Noctics' father, King Regis, of what may happen to the world if he continues down his path.
"A rapidly shifting world, enemies that appear endlessly, gradual loss of abilities…" reads a line from the video's description. "And a madness that brings harm to the beloved fiancee."
GameSpot recently played through the first 15 hours or so of the game ahead of its release for Xbox One and PlayStation 4 on November 29. You can read our full impressions here.Payday 2's annual "Crimefest" event was supposed to be a free-to-play celebration of the popular cooperative shooter. So when this year's event required players to pay real money to unlock some random loot drops, many players weren't happy.
Last week, Starbreeze Studios (parent of Payday 2 developer Overkill Software) announced it was "join[ing] the Steam economy" with a "Black Market" update. That update introduced randomly dropped safes that required the purchase of a $2.49 drill to open up. Those safes contain new weapon skins, some of which come packed with special gameplay modifications and stat boosts, and all of which can be sold and traded through Steam's marketplace.
A popular Reddit thread titled "fuck you overkill" summed up the reaction to this move from many Payday 2 fans, with many commenters tagging the game with the dreaded "pay-to-win" label. "So I bought the game, bought all the DLC they kept rolling out, bought the optional extra to support the game during hype train so that we'd all get something for free," user Tobax wrote in the thread. "And now get told I have to buy 'drills' to unlock the microtransaction safes to get 'cosmetics' which insanely also gives stat bonuses... yeah thanks a lot."
Frustrated players also flooded Steam's user reviews with negative takes on the move. "Well what can I say. I got 1200h+ Hours played... But adding Stats to tradeable Skins is a way to even stop me from playing," Steam user Armin wrote.
Many users found the microtransaction move especially galling given Overkill producer Almit Listo's previous statements decrying the business model. "We've made it clear that Payday 2 will have no microtransactions whatsoever (shame on you if you thought otherwise!)" he wrote on the Steam forums two years ago when discussing pre-order bonuses for the then-upcoming game.
Now, nearly a week after the Black Market update, Starbreeze and Overkill seem to be responding to that fan outrage by walking back their plans a bit. The "Day 6 Crimefest" update makes drills part of the game's random loot drops, meaning players can get those weapon skins from safes through the course of normal gameplay. While drills can still be purchased directly and traded through Steam, there's now a way to access the sought-after items without shelling out real money.
That's a welcome sign from a developer that seems tuned in to the desires of its biggest fans. Even if we accept the fact that microtransactions have become entrenched in the business plan of practically every big-budget game, paying for that kind of content should always be considered optional for dedicated players. Whether that means that paid items are purely cosmetic or unlockable by spending enough time playing the game itself is up to the developer.Yesterday we reported that Trump was finally marching through Wisconsin and meeting its citizens en masse. Despite the picture painted daily by the corrupt Mainstream Media, Trump is a likeable, down-to-earth ordinary guy, who has a sense of humor and deals in common sense. The more people ‘meet’ him at his rallies, the more they warm to him. I use the word ‘meet’ deliberately, because his rallies feel like he and the audience are meeting each other and getting to know each other. No other current politician has this gift.
Only the mentally deranged and the morally dishonest can listen to him, have contact with him or watch his rallies, and then claim that he is a dictator-in-waiting, a war-monger, a racist, a woman-hater or a fool. Despite his wealth, his unusual achievements and his flamboyant hairstyle, he is clearly, in almost all respects a very ordinary man-of-the-people. There is not a scrap of reason to doubt that he loves his country.
I write all this to put in context an American Research Group Wisconsin opinion poll just released that puts him on 42%, Cruz on 32% and Kasich on 23%. This poll contradicts several polls taken over the previous week that has Cruz 10% and more in the lead. The ARG poll is based on a small sample but its past forecasts in other States has been reasonably good. Nevertheless this one, suggesting a big turnaround in a small period of time, is being treated with skepticism.
If it is near correct, the only explanation is that Trump is now busy meeting the people of Wisconsin, finally raising the flag of Nationalism and lifting the spirits of Wisconsin’s Nationalists.
One of the weaknesses of Conservatism when combined with devout Christianity is that it can breed timidity, over-emphasize conformity and foster extreme narrow-mindedness. Trump’s hairstyle, three marriages, earthy and sly humor, and extrovert character has certainly offended some of those Conservatives who would never go in a bar, swap a suggestive joke or take a chance on anything.
Those in the MSM and those who inhabit the treacherous upper echelons of the Republican Party have been very busy playing on the prejudices of Conservatives and Christians by painting Trump as a coarse, low-life who has made a fortune by shady deals. No doubt they have struck a chord and the evidence can be seen on Conservative blogs where some say they would never vote for him because of his character. The reality seems to be that apart from the three (uncomplaining) wives, he has led a sober, diligent life, has a quick brain and good off-spring.
A website visitor sent us the following list of Trump’s Presidential qualifications. We can add two more. He is not a career politician and he is not a lawyer.
Obama is against Trump…
The Media is against Trump…
Establishment Democrats are against Trump…
Leftists are against Trump… Liberals are against Trump…
Establishment Republicans are against Trump…
The Pope is against Trump…
The UN is against Trump…
The EU is against Trump…
China is against Trump…
Mexico is against Trump…
Soros is against Trump…
Super PAC’s are against Trump…
Black Lives Matter is against Trump…
Neocons are against Trump…The Pope is against Trump…The UN is against Trump…The EU is against Trump…China is against Trump…Mexico is against Trump…Soros is against Trump…Super PAC’s are against Trump…Black Lives Matter is against Trump… MoveOn.org is against Trump… Best Qualifications Ever!!! And bonus points!!!
Cher says she will leave the country…
Cyrus says she will leave the country…
Whoopi says she will leave the country…
Rosie says she will leave the country…
Sharpton says he will leave the country…
Gov. Brown says that California will build a wall… Friends, we need to get Trump elected!!!!!Paul Bradley by
J
ustin Trudeau is a man of the people. This in itself, cannot be questioned. What can be questioned, however, is whether or not our current Prime Minister is a man of the Canadian people.Barely four months into a four-year term, Justin Trudeau has quickly established himself as the most atypical prime minister in Canadian history. Only Justin's father, former Liberal Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, comes close — although Trudeau Sr. was subtle enough to hide his lack of respect for general public opinion. Justin Trudeau, however, has all the subtlety of a sand blaster. Oblivious to the desires of the general public — at least the ones born and raised upon Canadian soil — Trudeau the younger is brazen in his quest to redefine our society based upon little more than subjective feelings and personal moral standards.Whether playing global ambassador to U.N. leader Ban-Ki Moon, international playboy to Melinda Gates, or speaker du-jour at Revival Of The Islamic Spirit conferences, Justin Trudeau is all about the other. Unfortunately for 35 million Canadians, they are not part of the "other" — they are part of Canada — the entity our pin-up Prime Minister appeared to care about previous to winning the last federal election.Since that time, Justin and his Liberals have broken just about every major campaign promise made while running for office. Deficit projections, marijuana legislation, refugee quotas — you name it and the Liberals have broken it.It is difficult to pinpoint exactly what is on Justin's mind at any given time. In fact, the only thing we can be sure of is what is not on his mind — namely, millions of "generational" Canadian-born citizens, who just happen to comprise the largest demographic segment within our nation. Even more curious is his complete disregard for our English and French Canadian heritage Thus far, Justin has yet to publicly reference or acknowledge the two founding peoples of our country. Perhaps he believes that if he ignores them long enough, they will go away.This politically unprecedented dynamic is worth exploring. After all, who ever heard of a leader of a country who does not, at least from time to time, make positive reference to the history and heritage of his nation?Not our Justin. He has no time for such trivialities. Indeed, Justin Trudeau is all about the global — and he has the spending habits prove it. An analysis of his first 100 days in office reveal that within this time period the Liberal government handed out $527 million dollars to Canadian interests, and a whopping $4.8 billion to foreign interests.This brings forth several key questions — who exactly is Justin Trudeau working for? Why is he giving away billions of our tax dollars to foreign nations, particularly of the non-democratic variety? Without doubt, most Canadians would agree that spending even a portion of these billions on domestic issues such as homelessness and child poverty is preferable to handing the money to foreign governments.Has Justin heard of a recent report stating that 2250 homeless military veterans are currently walking our cold Canadian streets? Perhaps this tidbit was overlooked at the last Liberal Caucus meeting — the agenda being full up with top priority items such as free food, shelter, education and medical care to non-Canadian victims of the Syrian refugee crisis.Considered from an historical perspective, one wonders what our political leaders of the past might have had to say about Justin's unique style of decision-making. What, for example, would former Liberal prime minister and occultist MacKenzie King think about Trudeau's international indulgences? In keeping with King's interest in the world beyond, perhaps Canadians should pull out their collective ouija boards and try to find out. How about salt-of-the-earth Presbyterian PM John Diefenbaker? Granted, we live in very different times, however does this validate Justin's fervent dedication to all-things-global and a corresponding antipathy toward all that is traditionally Canadian? How about that grand old man of medicare, former Saskatchewan Premier Tommy Douglas? Yes, he may have founded universal medicare, but would he be on board with young Trudeau's agenda to universalize our entire nation?It is doubtful that any mature statesman, past or present, would admire the singular political stylings of Justin Trudeau. His political world is an anomaly- unique in all of Canadian history, and he has only been doing the job for four months.On the day of October 19, 2015, 6.9 million Canadians voted for the Liberal party, while 5.6 million voted for the Conservatives. Yet, considering the brand of leadership thus far employed, it is easy to conclude that neither block of voters matter one iota to Justin Trudeau.Within any Western country other than one saturated with political correctness, this simply would not stand. In a healthy democratic nation, Justin Trudeau's foreign lottery give-away program would be considered a colossal misappropriation of tax-payer funds. Yet, due to a comprehensive, decades-long program of enforced diversity, Canadians have developed an inability to see the national forest through the multicultural trees.Yes, Justin Trudeau is a man of the people — as long as the people are globalist billionaires, non-Western diplomats and foreign politicians. For the rest of us, however — namely, 35 million Canadian citizens — we are once again second-class citizens to a first-class political opportunist by the name of Trudeau.As we noted earlier today, Samsung has announced that the Galaxy Note 4 and Note Edge were to be released around October of this year.
Now, Dropbox has announced that they are partnering with Samsung to allow users of Samsung devices, including the Galaxy Note 4, to have additional access to Dropbox. Those who purchase a Samsung Note 4 and use Dropbox for the first time will get 50 GB for 2 |
ing
It’s never explicit in the film, but you seem to want Americans in particular to realize that this can happen anywhere, that a violation of human rights anywhere is a violation of human rights everywhere.
Evgeny Afineevsky
Well, I think we in the West take too many things for granted. We don’t cherish basic rights and values in the way that we should. We rarely reevaluate what we have on our own table. As a filmmaker, I’m incredibly fortunate to have the freedom of speech; it’s what allows me to tell this story. The Syrian people have no such right. They’re living in a dictatorship. They’re suffering and dying from hunger, while we watch TV and throw bread in the garbage.
I hope this movie gives people something to think about. Maybe it reminds them of what we have, of how we’re living. My ultimate hope, of course, is that it will change some hearts and souls.
Sean Illing
I watched this film, and I was overwhelmed with rage and grief. I imagine other people will feel the same way. What do you want them to do with that rage and grief?
Evgeny Afineevsky
I just want people to set aside their biases and look at this situation with clear eyes. The Syrian refugees who are trying to seek shelter are not terrorists; their lives have been destroyed. If people are feeling anger and grief, then they should express that to their government. Ultimately, it’s the people who will influence the government. It has to start there. But nothing substantial can happen without government action. The nations of the world will have to end this war — we all know that. If they don’t, the suffering will persist.
If we want the refugee problem to go away, we have to end this war. The war is the source of the problem; it’s why people are fleeing their homes. Syrians want Syria back. If this war ended tomorrow, 99 percent of them would go home and rebuild their country. So let’s help them do that.
Let us put an end to these atrocities."LGBT rights in Ireland" redirects here. For Northern Ireland, see LGBT rights in Northern Ireland
Attitudes in Ireland towards lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people are regarded as among the most liberal in the world.[1] Ireland is notable for its transformation from a country holding overwhelmingly conservative attitudes toward LGBT issues to one holding overwhelmingly liberal ones in the space of a generation.[2] In May 2015, Ireland became the first country to legalise same-sex marriage on a national level by popular vote. The New York Times hailed the victory as putting Ireland at the "vanguard of social change".[3] Since July 2015, transgender people in Ireland can self-declare their gender for the purpose of updating passports, driving licences, obtaining new birth certificates, and getting married.[4] Both male and female same-sex sexual activity have been legal in the state since 1993. Government recognition of LGBT rights in Ireland has expanded greatly over the past two decades. Homosexuality was decriminalised in 1993, and most forms of discrimination based on sexual orientation are now outlawed. Ireland also forbids incitement to hatred based on sexual orientation.
In 2015, a survey of 1,000 individuals in Ireland found that 78% of people were in support of same-sex marriage and 71% of people thought that same-sex couples should be allowed to adopt.[5] A 2013 survey showed that 73% of Irish people agreed that "same-sex marriage should be allowed in the Constitution".[6][7] Earlier, a 2008 survey showed that 84% of Irish people support civil marriage or civil partnerships for same-sex couples, with 58% supporting full marriage rights in registry offices. The number who believed same-sex couples should only be allowed to have civil partnerships fell from 33% to 26%.[8] A March 2011 The Sunday Times poll showed support for full civil marriage rights at 73%.[9]
In July 2010, the Oireachtas passed the Civil Partnership and Certain Rights and Obligations of Cohabitants Act 2010, recognising civil partnerships between same-sex couples. The bill passed all stages in the lower house (Dáil), without the need for a vote, and by a margin of 48 votes to 4 in the upper house Seanad (Senate). The bill was supported by all parties, although individual politicians have criticised the legislation.[10] Since the civil partnership legislation has been fully enacted and implemented from the start of 2011,[11] gay and lesbian couples have been able to register their relationship before a registrar.[12] The bill was signed by President Mary McAleese on 19 July 2010.[13] The Minister for Justice signed the commencement order for the act on 23 December 2010. The law then came into force on 1 January 2011. Due to the three-month waiting period for all civil ceremonies in Ireland, it had been expected that the first civil partnership ceremonies would take place in April.[14] However, the legislation does provide a mechanism for exemptions to be sought through the courts, and the first partnership, which was between two men, was registered on 7 February 2011.[15] The first publicly celebrated Irish civil partnership under the Act took place in Dublin on 5 April 2011.[16] On 6 April 2015, the Children and Family Relationships Bill 2015 was signed into law, amending (among other acts) the Adoption Act 2010, to enable same-sex couples to jointly adopt children and stepchildren.[17]
In June 2017, Leo Varadkar was appointed as Ireland's Taoiseach (Head of Government), and thus became the fourth openly gay head of state/government in the world.[18]
Legality of same-sex sexual activity [ edit ]
Same-sex sexual activity was decriminalised in 1993. This was the result of a campaign by Senator David Norris and the Campaign for Homosexual Law Reform which led to a ruling in 1988 that Irish laws prohibiting male homosexual activities were in contravention of the European Convention on Human Rights. The Campaign for Homosexual Law Reform was founded in the 1970s to fight for the decriminalisation of male homosexuality, its founding members including Senator Norris and future Presidents of Ireland Mary McAleese and Mary Robinson. Prior to 1993, certain laws dating from the nineteenth century rendered male homosexual acts illegal. The relevant legislation was the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act, and the 1885 Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, both enacted by the Parliament of the United Kingdom before Irish independence, and having been repealed in England and Wales in 1967, Scotland in 1980 and Northern Ireland in 1982.
In 1983, David Norris took a case to the Supreme Court seeking to challenge the constitutionality of these laws but was unsuccessful. In its Norris v. Attorney General judgement (delivered by a 3–2 majority), the court referred to the "Christian and democratic nature of the Irish State" and argued that criminalisation served public health and the institution of marriage.
In 1988, Norris took a case to the European Court of Human Rights to argue that Irish law was incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights. The court, in the case of Norris v. Ireland,[19] ruled that the criminalisation of male homosexuality in the Republic violated Article 8 of the Convention, which guarantees the right to privacy in personal affairs. The Oireachtas (Irish Parliament) decriminalised male homosexuality five years later, when the Minister for Justice, Maire Geoghegan-Quinn, in the 1992–1994 Fianna Fáil—Labour Coalition Government included decriminalisation with an equal age of consent (an equal age of consent was not required by the ECHR ruling) in a bill to deal with various sexual offences. None of the parties represented in the Oireachtas opposed decriminalisation. Coincidentally, the task of signing the bill decriminalising male homosexual acts fell to the then President of Ireland, Mary Robinson, an outspoken defender of gay rights who as a barrister and Senior Counsel had represented Norris in his Supreme Court and European Court of Human Rights case.
Apology [ edit ]
On 19 June 2018, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar issued a public apology to members of the LGBT community for the suffering and discrimination they faced from the Irish state prior to the legalisation of homosexuality in 1993. Speaking to the Oireachtas, he said:
Today the people I want to pay a special tribute to are the unknown heroes, the thousands of people whose names we do not know, who were criminalised by our forebears... What we can say is that we have learned as a society from their suffering. Their stories have helped change us for the better; they have made us more tolerant, more understanding and more human.
Justice Minister Charles Flanagan also issued an apology to members of the LGBT community who suffered as a result of the criminalisation of homosexuality, saying:
I extend a sincere apology to all of those people, to their family, and to their friends. To any person who felt the hurt and isolation created by those laws, and particularly to those who were criminally convicted by the existence of such laws.
Recognition of same-sex relationships [ edit ]
Civil partnerships [ edit ]
Prior to the legalisation of same-sex marriage, civil partnership was permitted. The Civil Partnerships Bill 2009 was presented to the Cabinet on 24 June 2009 and was published on 26 June 2009.[20] Although most LGBT advocacy groups cautiously welcomed the Government's legislation, there had been criticisms of the proposals. One major criticism stated that the legislation effectively enshrined discrimination in law insofar as separate contractual arrangements with greater privileges continued to exist for opposite-sex marriages concurrent to lesser arrangements for those wishing to take out civil partnerships. In particular, the denial of the right to apply to adopt to couples with a civil partnership had been cited as particularly discriminatory.[21][22]
The bill passed all stages in Dáil Éireann on 1 July 2010 with cross-party support resulting in it passing without a vote,[23] and passed by a margin of 48 votes to 4 in the Seanad (Senate) on 9 July 2010.[24] It granted same-sex couples several rights then only granted to married couples, but did not recognise children raised by same-sex couples as being their children. Irish law only allowed gay people to adopt children as individuals, while allowing same-sex couples to jointly foster. It also granted cohabitants, both gay and straight, who have lived together for at least five years limited rights in an opt-out scheme where a former partner could apply to court on the breakdown of a relationship to make the other former partner provide financial support to him/her. The bill was signed into law by President Mary McAleese on 19 July.
The ability to enter into a civil partnership ended on 16 November 2015.[25]
Marriage [ edit ]
Same-sex marriage is legal in Ireland, following approval of a referendum on 22 May 2015 which amended the Constitution of Ireland to provide that marriage is recognised irrespective of the sex of the partners.[26] The measure was signed into law by President of Ireland Michael D. Higgins as the Thirty-fourth Amendment of the Constitution of Ireland on 29 August 2015.[27] The Marriage Act 2015, passed by the Oireachtas on 22 October 2015 and signed into law by the Presidential Commission on 29 October 2015, gave legislative effect to the amendment.[28][29][30]
Same-sex marriage became legally recognised in Ireland on 16 November 2015 and the first marriage ceremonies of same-sex couples occurred on 17 November 2015.[31][32]
Background to legalisation of same-sex marriage [ edit ]
The Irish courts first dealt with the case of same-sex marriage in the case of Foy v. An t-Ard Chláraitheoir & Ors.[33] In that case, Dr Foy was a transgender woman and sought a finding that she was born female but suffered from a congenital disability and claimed that the existing legal regime infringed her constitutional rights to marry a biological man. In support of her claim, she relied on case law from the ECHR. Judge McKechnie J noted that in Ireland it is crucial that parties to a marriage be of the opposite biological sex. The judge noted that Article 12 of the ECHR is equally predicated. Accordingly, he found that there was no sustainable basis for the applicant's submission that the law which prohibited her from marrying a party of the same biological sex as herself, was a violation of her constitutional right to marry. The judge concluded that the right to marry is not absolute and has to be evaluated in the context of several other rights including the rights of society. Therefore, the state is entitled to hold the view which is espoused and evident from its laws.
The Irish Supreme Court returned Foy's case to the High Court in 2005 to consider the issues in light of the Goodwin decision of the ECHR.[34][35] Foy had also issued new proceedings in 2006 relying on a new ECHR Act, which gave greater effect to the European Convention on Human Rights in Irish law. The two cases were consolidated and were heard in April 2007. Dr Foy stressed the Goodwin decision where the European Court of Human Rights had found that the UK had breached the rights of a transgender woman, including her right to marry. McKechnie J was very reproachful of the Government in his judgment and asserted that, because there is no express provision in the Civil Registration Act, which was enacted after the Goodwin decision, it must be questioned as to whether the State deliberately refrained from adopting any remedial measures to address the ongoing problems. He emphasised that Ireland is very much isolated within the member states of the Council of Europe with regards to these matters. The judge concluded that by reason of the absence of any provision which would enable the acquired identity of Dr Foy to be legally recognised in this jurisdiction, the state is in breach of its positive obligations under Art 8 of the Convention. He issued a declaration that Irish law was incompatible with the ECHR and added that he would have found a breach of Dr Foy's right to marry as well if it had been relevant.[36]
Fine Gael,[37][38] the Labour Party,[39] Fianna Fáil,[40] Sinn Féin,[41] the Socialist Party,[42] and the Green Party[43] all support the right of marriage for same-sex couples.
The new Fine Gael-Labour Government agreed to establish a Constitutional Convention to consider same-sex marriage among other things.[44]
On 2 July 2013, the Constitutional Convention delivered the formal report to the Oireachtas, which had four months to respond.
Marriage Equality referendum [ edit ]
On 5 November 2013, the Government announced that a referendum to allow same-sex marriage would be held in the first half of 2015. On 19 February 2015, Taoiseach Enda Kenny announced that the Marriage Equality referendum would take place on Friday 22 May 2015.[45] The referendum passed by large majority and added the wording "Marriage may be contracted in accordance with law by two persons without distinction as to their sex" to the Irish Constitution.[46]
Adoption and parenting [ edit ]
Irish adoption law allows for applications to adopt children by married couples, cohabiting couples or single applicants. The legalisation of same-sex marriage in Ireland, in conjunction with the passage of the Children and Family Relationships Act 2015 and the Adoption (Amendment) Act 2017, means that same-sex couples are in law permitted to adopt.[47]
A single gay person or one partner of a couple may apply and a same-sex couple may submit a joint application to foster children. Additionally, lesbian couples have access to IVF and assisted insemination treatment. In January 2014, Government Minister for Justice and Equality Alan Shatter announced that the Government would bring in laws by the end of the year to extend guardianship, custody, and access rights to the non-biological parents of children in same-sex relationships and children born through surrogacy and sperm and egg donation.[48]
On 21 January 2015, the Government announced that a revised draft of the Children and Family Relationships Bill would give cohabiting couples and those in civil partnerships full adoption rights. The bill was set to become law before the May same-sex marriage referendum.[49] The bill was published on 19 February 2015, ratified by both houses of the Oireachtas by 30 March 2015 and was signed into law on 6 April 2015.[50][51][52][53] Key provisions of the Act (including spouses, stepparents, civil partners and cohabiting partners being able to apply to become guardians of a child) went into effect on 18 January 2016.[54] Portions of the Act allowing for full adoption rights have not yet come into effect.[55]
On 5 May 2016, James Reilly, then Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, announced that the Irish Government had approved the publication of the Adoption (Amendment) Bill 2016.[56] The bill would amend the Adoption Act 2010 and the Children and Family Relationships Act 2015 and give legislative effect to the Thirty-first Amendment of the Constitution of Ireland (the children referendum). The purposes of the bill are to allow children to be adopted by their foster carers, where they have cared for the child for at least 18 months, and to allow two people regardless of marital status to adopt children, thus granting married same-sex couples the right to adopt. The bill also allows for the adoption of a child by civil partners and cohabiting couples and gives children a greater say in the adoption process, among many other reforms to the adoption system.[57][58][59] The bill passed the Dáil on 30 November 2016,[60][61] and received approval by the Seanad on 13 June 2017. The bill was signed into law by President Michael D. Higgins on 19 July 2017, becoming the Adoption (Amendment) Act 2017.[62] The commencement order was signed by the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Katherine Zappone, on 18 October and the law went into effect the following day.[63][64]
As of 2019, there is no law allowing female same-sex couples to be automatically recognised on the birth certificates (and passports) of their children.[65] In January 2019, the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection, Regina Doherty, announced that the Government has published the Civil Registration Bill 2019. The bill will allow lesbian couples who have had donor-assisted children to register as their parents. At present, birth certificates issued in respect to children of lesbian couples only allow for the recording of the biological mother's details. Under the changes, parents may choose the labels "mother" and "father" or instead the term "parents", meaning that the non-biological mother would be able to legally register. It is expected that the bill will be brought before the Oireachtas in early spring.[66][67][68]
Discrimination protections [ edit ]
Discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is outlawed by the Employment Equality Act, 1998 and the Equal Status Act, 2000. These laws forbid discrimination in any of the following areas: employment, vocational training, advertising, collective agreements, the provision of goods and services, and other publicly available opportunities.[69][70] Additionally, while gender identity is not explicitly included in these two acts, it has been interpreted as being covered under the category of sex and disability.[71]
The protections provided remain uneven. As pointed out at page 26 in "Review, the Journal of the Public Service Executive Union, July/August 2014", Section 81E (5) of the Pensions Act 1990 prevents pensioners, who retired more than one year before the Civil Partnership Act, 2010, from challenging the refusal of a survivor's pension for their civil partner.[72]
Despite the passage of the Marriage Equality Amendment, the Labour Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Brendan Howlin, told the Dáil that he will not allow, for example, a gay man, who opted not to give a (meaningless) pension benefit to his wife in 1984, the right to opt to give a pension benefit to his husband in 2015 the first opportunity he could have done so. This would remain the case even if the gay man paid the same pension contributions as his heterosexual colleague. This decision was condemned in a leading article and opinion piece in the Irish Examiner on 24 June 2015 as being contrary to the spirit of the Marriage Referendum but remains government policy.[73]
The Prohibition of Incitement to Hatred Act, 1989 outlaws incitement to hatred based on sexual orientation. The penalties for violating this law are sentenced up to a fine not exceeding £1,000 or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 6 months or to both on the first offense, or on conviction on indictment, to a fine not exceeding £10,000 or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 2 years or to both.[74]
On 3 June 2015, the Government Cabinet debated the Employment Equality Amendment Bill 2015. The amendment would remove the provision in the Employment Equality Act allowing religious run schools to dismiss teachers and staff on the sole basis of their sexual orientation and/or gender identity.[75][76] On 11 July 2015, the bill passed the lower house.[77][78] On 9 August 2015, the bill passed the upper house. On 16 August 2015, the Irish President signed the bill into law. The legislation went into effect immediately.[79]
Gender identity and expression [ edit ]
On 19 October 2007, Dr. Lydia Foy won her case in the High Court which ruled that the failure to allow her to obtain a new birth certificate recording her gender as female was in breach of her rights under the ECHR.[80] The Government appealed this decision but dropped its appeal in June 2010 and stated it would introduce legislation in the future.[81] A new Government took office in February 2011 and following the report of an advisory committee in July 2011, the Minister responsible announced that the Government would introduce gender recognition legislation as soon as possible.[82] No legislation had been introduced by February 2013 and Dr. Foy commenced new legal proceedings seeking to enforce the decision made by the High Court in 2007.[83][84] In June 2014, a gender recognition bill was announced and in September 2014, the Government stated that it will be published by the end of the year.[85] The bill was introduced on 19 December 2014.[86] On 15 July 2015, the Gender Recognition Bill 2015 with major amendments passed both houses of the Oireachtas and President Michael D. Higgins signed the bill into law on 22 July 2015.[50][87][88] Ireland and a few other countries have all removed medical criteria from the gender identity legal recognition process. The law came into effect on 8 September 2015.[89]
Conversion therapy [ edit ]
Conversion therapy has a negative effect on the lives of LGBT people, and can lead to low self-esteem, depression and suicide ideation.
In March 2018, Senator Fintan Warfield (Sinn Féin) introduced a bill to the Irish Senate to ban conversion therapy on LGBT people. Under the proposed bill, individuals found guilty of performing conversion therapies could be fined up to 10,000 euros and face up to a year in prison.[90] The bill does not ban practices that provide assistance, acceptance and understanding to LGBT youth or people otherwise questioning their sexuality.[91]
The legislation has received the support of the Irish Council of Psychotherapy and many politicians and lawmakers. Some politicians further described conversion therapy as the gay equivalent of female genital mutilation.[91]
The bill passed its second reading in the Seanad Éireann on 2 May 2018.[92]
Sex education [ edit ]
The current sex education classes in Ireland have been described by many students and teachers as "archaic", "inadequate" and "biased", as well as "largely religious based", with reports of non-virgin students being humiliated, and LGBT issues rarely even mentioned.[93][94] In April 2018, the Dáil Éireann approved the Provision of Objective Sex Education Bill 2018, in its second reading, that would modify Ireland's sex education classes. The new classes would cover issues such as consent, the use of contraceptives, abortion, LGBT issues and sexuality.[95][96]
Blood donation [ edit ]
In January 2017, the Irish Blood Transfusion Service (IBTS) replaced a lifetime ban on donations from males who have ever had anal or oral sex with another male with a 12-month ban. This followed intense campaigning on the issue by activists over a number of years, including a judicial review challenge to the policy in the Irish High Court.
On 27 July 2015, Tomás Heneghan, a 23-year-old University of Limerick student and journalist from Galway began a legal challenge in the High Court against the permanent deferral imposed on MSM donors.[97][98] He argued that the questionnaire and interview process used by the IBTS does not adequately assess the risk of disease transmission posed by his donation. He claimed this is in breach of EU law. He said that both failed to consider the length of time between a donor's last sexual experience and the end of a "window period" in which infections are sometimes not detected. Heneghan's previous sexual activity posed no risk of infection, according to HSE-approved advice and he said the service had no evidence upon which it could legitimately impose a lifelong ban on him donating blood.
Following several adjournments of the case to allow the blood service and Department of Health to examine and develop the donation policies, in late June 2016 the Irish Blood Transfusion Service recommended that the lifetime ban on MSM be reduced to a 12-month ban. Later that week, Minister for Health Simon Harris agreed to the recommendations and announced the reduction would take place. However, no timeline was initially reported for the implementation of the new policies.[99]
On 26 July 2016, Heneghan dropped his High Court challenge against the service as an end to the lifetime deferral on MSM blood donors had been announced in the interim.[100] Heneghan then wrote about his experiences of challenging the ban in a number of national media outlets.[101][102] He also appeared on TV3's Ireland AM show to speak about his case.[103]
On 2 October 2016, it was reported that Minister Harris would implement the new policy from 16 January 2017, almost seven months after he announced the policy change.[104]
On 16 January 2017, Heneghan (now 25) attended a blood donation clinic in D'Olier Street, Dublin and became the first man who has had sex with another man to donate blood openly in the Republic of Ireland since the lifetime deferral policy was first introduced in the 1980s. However, he also criticised the new 12 month deferral policy on MSM and called on Ireland's Health Minister to initiate a review of the IBTS and replace the 12 month deferral period for MSM with no deferral or a 3 month deferral on all donors following sexual intercourse.[105][106][107][108]
Previously, in August 2013, Heneghan had alleged that the Irish Blood Transfusion Service had discriminated against him despite his assertion that he had never had oral or anal sex with another man.[109]
Living conditions [ edit ]
Participants at the 2015 Dublin Pride parade
Ireland is notable for its quick and drastic change in attitudes and public perception toward LGBT people, homosexuality and same-sex relationships. Up until the 1970s, the climate for LGBT people was one of high homophobia and public antipathy. LGBT individuals would mostly either stay in the closet, move to England or commit suicide. In the 1970s, small LGBT groups began to emerge and organise politically. Among them was the Campaign for Homosexual Law Reform, founded by David Norris. The death of Declan Flynn, a thirty-year-old gay man, on 10 September 1982 led to Ireland's first LGBT public march, held in Dublin's Fairview Park. Over the following years, LGBT groups and activists began to slowly enter the public eye and raise awareness of their cause and movement, In 1993, Ireland officially decriminalised homosexuality, celebrated as a landmark victory by LGBT groups, which had filed suit up to the European Court of Human Rights to struck down the ban. By the early 2000s, societal attitudes were becoming increasingly more accepting. Anti-discrimination laws covering sexual orientation were enacted, civil partnerships were legalised in 2011, granting same-sex couples several legal rights, and transgender transition laws were relaxed, allowing transgender people the right to change their legal gender on official documents. In May 2015, in a historic vote, the Irish people voted to legalise same-sex marriage, becoming the first country in the world to legalise it through a public vote. Societal change towards the LGBT community has been attributed to, among others, a decline in Catholicism in Ireland, which was previously "omnipotent" and played a big influence in both public and private life.[110]
Opinion polls have shown raising levels of support for LGBT rights and same-sex marriage. According to a 2012 poll, 73% of Irish people agreed that same-sex marriage should be legalised.[7] The 2015 Eurobarometer found that 80% of Irish people supported same-sex marriage. 15% were opposed.
Numerous LGBT events and venues can be found throughout Ireland. Dublin Pride is an annual pride parade held on the last Saturday of June in the capital city of Dublin. It is Ireland's largest public LGBT event. In 2018, an estimated 60,000 people attended.[111] Other events include the Dublin Gay Theatre Festival, the GAZE International LGBT Film Festival Dublin and Mr Gay Ireland. Outside of Dublin, there are also visible, albeit smaller, LGBT scenes in Cork, Galway, Limerick, and Waterford. There are various gay or gay-friendly pubs, restaurants, clubs, bars and saunas all over Ireland.
Summary table [ edit ]
Same-sex sexual activity legal (Since 1993) Equal age of consent (17) (Since 1993) Anti-discrimination laws in employment only (Expansion: including schools and hospitals run by the religious orders) (Since 1998) (Since 2015) Anti-discrimination laws in the provision of goods and services (Since 2000) Anti-discrimination laws in all other areas (incl. indirect discrimination, hate speech) (Since 1989) Anti-discrimination laws concerning gender identity (Covered under "sex" and "disability") Recognition of same-sex couples (e.g. civil partnership) (Since 2011) Same-sex marriages (Since 2015) Stepchild adoption by same-sex couples (Since 2016) Joint adoption by same-sex couples (Since 2017) LGBT people allowed to serve openly in the military (Since 1993) Right to change legal gender (Since 2015) Access to IVF for lesbians (Since 2000) Automatic parenthood on birth certificates for children of same-sex couples (Pending) Commercial surrogacy for gay couples (Altruistic surrogacy proposed. Commercial surrogacy outlawed regardless of sexual orientation) Conversion therapy banned on minors (Pending) MSMs allowed to donate blood / (Since 2017, 1 year deferral period)
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]MORE uninsured drivers involved in crashes live in Bradford West than anywhere else in the UK with a level more than twice the national average, according to a parliamentary advisory group report.
The report also highlights Bradford East as the second-worst constituency - out of 632 - in the country for the number of pedestrians injured in road accidents.
Bradford East was also fourth in the list of the number of child pedestrians injured and fourth on the list for uninsured drivers involved in crashes.
The Dashboard research was commissioned by the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety (PACTS) to give MPs specific information about their constituency.
Bradford West Labour MP Naz Shah described the results as both disappointing and disturbing.
“I think there are many factors that contribute to this and more needs to be done to educate everyone about the dangers of driving without insurance," she said.
“I have concerns that the high cost of insurance will be a contributing factor in the reason drivers are uninsured.
"While this does not excuse the decision of people to drive without insurance in any way, we have to recognise that the district is in the top ten of highest average insurance costs for a year at nearly £900.
"The Government has recently taken steps to try to bring down the cost of insurance again, including launching a consultation on a raft of new measures.
“I met with Aviva Insurance last week and will be meeting with others to see how we can get insurance costs falling in Bradford West.”
The Bradford South constituency was found to be 16th in the list for the number of pedestrians injured in road accidents.
Bradford South Labour MP Judith Cummins said: “One child being injured is one child too many and that’s why I’m campaigning for harsher sentences for dangerous drivers where children are involved.”
David Davies, executive director at PACTS, stressed that the figures in the report were compiled in relation to the address of the driver involved, not where the crashes occurred.
MORE TOP STORIESYU+ME: dream started in 2004...
as a webcomic. It was originally planned to be 100 pages, but over the course of six years, turned into an 847 page saga that spanned genres and turned them on their heads. It ended in 2010, but people continue to go back and reread the archives.
"It was all a dream..."
The classic but cliche ending to a story, I always thought it would make a better middle than an end. What happens to the person who discovers everything they had disappeared when they woke up? There's so much more story to tell. Paired with a desire to see LGBT/female characters in stories that don't revolve around their gender/orientation, I ended up with a surreal adventure story about love and friendship and courage. It's funny, it's dramatic, it's trippy, and if you read between the lines, quite frightening at times.
The comic changes art styles many times. Watercolor, oil, collage, even clay puppets make an appearance.
I've printed the series before in six slim volumes, but the cost for me, and for readers, isn't cost-effective the way I've been doing it, a few small runs at a time. Printing two large omnibi would cost less than the six smaller volumes, both for me to print AND for you to buy.
Omnibus 1 contains everything from part one of YU+ME and is in black and white, and omnibus 2 is part two and in color. Both volumes contain extra comics that never appeared on the web, including a second 10-page epilogue at the end of the second book. Many pages in book one were redrawn nicer than the web versions. Including all the extras, the books end up with nearly 1000 pages between them!
This is the only run I will do of these books.
Once they're gone, they're gone. The number ordered will largely depend on the number of Kickstarter backers, plus a bit more for the future. You'll have a chance to get them if you don't back this KS, but you won't have a guarantee.
Extra features:
Book 1: Brand new cover. Short bonus stories "Fiona's Dreams," "Don's Story," and "Fixing It," (Cass's story). Also, a good 50% has been redrawn and is much nicer looking than the web versions.
Book 2: Brand new cover. Short stories "Jake and James do an action dream," "The New Conscience," and the special second epilogue with Jake and Don.
The T-Shirt:
Still a work in progress, but this is the main part of it. Depending on how many people want it, I might add more colors of ink to it. So this reward has its own stretch goals! 50 shirts, I do two colors. 75 shirts, I do three colors. 100 shirts, I do four colors.
This is the only run I will do of this shirt.
Stretch goals:
$35k: I'll draw a new 22-page chapter, set during the three years wandering through Nod with Fiona, Mary, Don, Lucy, and Clandestine Jones. This will be put in book 2.
$50k: I'll draw TWO new chapters set during the three years wandering.
$100k: I'll make a pitch to turn it into a cartoon. It's worth a shot, eh? I worked in TV for nearly a decade and won an Emmy, so it's not out of the realm of my abilities, and if enough people like this to pledge $100k, that'd be enough to make the time spent putting this together (and quitting my day job to do it) a practical thing to do. I already have an outline written for a potential series and I think it's pretty cool. A retelling of the comic with a few different twists and turns.Stylia Kampani did everything right, and she still doesn't know what the future holds for her. The 23-year-old studied international relations in her native Greece and spent a year at the University of Bremen in northern Germany. She completed an internship at the foreign ministry in Athens and worked for the Greek Embassy in Berlin. Now she is doing an unpaid internship with the prestigious Athens daily newspaper Kathimerini. And what happens after that? "Good question," says Kampani. "I don't know."
"None of my friends believes that we have a future or will be able to live a normal life," says Kampani. "That wasn't quite the case four years ago."
Four years ago -- that was before the euro crisis began. Since then, the Greek government has approved a series of austerity programs, which have been especially hard on young people. The unemployment rate among Greeks under 25 has been above 50 percent for months. The situation is similarly dramatic in Spain, Portugal and Italy. According to Eurostat, the European Union's statistics office, the rate of unemployment among young adults in the EU has climbed to 23.5 percent. A lost generation is taking shape in Europe. And European governments seem clueless when they hear the things people like Athenian university graduate Alexandros are saying: "We don't want to leave Greece, but the constant uncertainty makes us tired and depressed."
Instead of launching effective education and training programs to prepare Southern European youth for a professional life after |
. But to pull a “Free as in freedom” card in this argument is a cop out and ignores the financial relationships driving these decisions. I assure you that while Adobe [hearts] Apple, they definitely don’t [heart] you or at least they’re not thinking of you in this equation.
via IntoMobileUFC mixed martial arts event in 2011
UFC 138: Leben vs. Muñoz was a mixed martial arts event held by the Ultimate Fighting Championship on November 5, 2011 at LG Arena in Birmingham, United Kingdom.[2] The event aired on the same day, via tape delay, on Spike TV in the United States and live on Sportsnet in Canada. The event was the second that the UFC has hosted in Birmingham, the first was UFC 89 back in 2008 also featuring Chris Leben in the main event.
Background [ edit ]
After several tentatively scheduled 2011 events [4] at various locations around the United Kingdom did not materialize, including Glasgow, Liverpool, London as well as a planned return to Ireland, it was expected that the organization would not hold an event in the area during 2011.[5]
The main event was the first non-title five round fight in the history of the UFC.[6]
Mark Scanlon was expected to face James Head at this event.[7] However, Scanlon was pulled from the bout and replaced by promotional newcomer John Maguire[8] Then, on September 28, Head himself pulled out of the fight due to an undisclosed injury and was replaced by Justin Edwards.[9]
Pascal Krauss was expected to face John Hathaway at this event.[10] However, on August 30 Krauss pulled out of the bout citing a shoulder injury, and was replaced by Matt Brown.[11] Then on October 17 it was announced that Hathaway was forced to withdraw from the bout due to injury as well. As a result, Brown was pulled from the event and will face Seth Baczynski at UFC 139.[12][13]
Phil De Fries was expected to face Oli Thompson at this event. However, on October 17 it was announced that Thompson was forced to withdraw from the bout due to injury. De Fries fought Rob Broughton at this event instead.[12]
Anthony Njokuani was scheduled to fight Paul Taylor on the main card. However, Taylor sustained a whiplash injury during a minor traffic collision on November 1 forcing him from the bout. Due to insufficient time to find a replacement, Njokuani was moved to a future card, while a prelim fight between Cyrille Diabate and Anthony Perosh was promoted to the main card.[14]
This event averaged 1.8 million viewers on Spike TV.[15]
After the event Chris Leben tested positive for illegal substances and was subsequently suspended for a year.[16]
Results [ edit ]
^ This bout aired on the broadcast following the Muñoz vs Leben bout. ^ This bout aired on the broadcast following the Perosh vs Diabaté bout.
Bonus awards [ edit ]
Fighters were awarded $70,000 bonuses.[17]
Fight of the Night: Brad Pickett vs. Renan Barão
Knockout of the Night: Che Mills
Submission of the Night: Terry EtimJets prospect Logan Stanley has surgery; could miss up to four months
We had seen Logan Stanley around the MTS Centre the last few days and I had read a Windsor Spitfires tweet that he was out with a lower-body injury. Turns out he had a torn meniscus in his right knee which required surgery according to the team web site:
General Manager Warren Rychel has announced defenceman Logan Stanley will miss about four months after having surgery to repair a torn meniscus in his right knee. The injury occurred during the club’s 4-3 shootout loss in Kitchener back on January 17th. Rychel says the surgery, which took place today in Winnipeg, puts Stanley’s availability for the 2017 Mastercard Memorial Cup (May 18th to 28th) tournament in doubt.
You can read their full release here.
Not great news for the Jets prospect defenceman that the team selected in the 1st round of the 2016 NHL Entry Draft (18th overall) back in Buffalo last summer. The Jets signed the tall prospect to a three year entry level deal back in December. In 35 games with Windsor this season he has four goals and 13 assists.ISLAMABAD: Pakistan is eyeing formal induction of the newly-launched JF-17B dual seat fighter jet by April 2017, the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) announced on Wednesday.
Production of the first JF-17B was initiated by Pakistan and China during a joint ceremony at Chengdu Aerospace Corporation. The jet is set to make its maiden flight by the end of this year, the PAF said.
The dual seat aircraft will enhance training value and operational capability, Air Marshal Muhammad Iqbal said at the ceremony. He also thanked Chinese leadership for their continuous support in the design, development and manufacturing phases of the JF-17 development project.
Chinese leadership paid tribute to PAF authorities for operationalising the aircraft and expressed their resolve to continue support for development work of JF-17 project.
The JF-17 Thunder's operational history
The JF-17 Thunder, a single-engine multi-role fighter jet, and was jointly developed by China and Pakistan. Development on the aircraft started in 1999, and the maiden flight was conducted in 2003.
The initial Block 1 JF-17s were received in 2007, with production of the upgraded Block 2 JF-17s started in 2013. The upgraded models have upgraded avionics, air-to-air refuelling capability, data link, enhanced electronic warfare capability and enhanced load carrying ability.
The JF-17 can be equipped with air-to-air and air-to-ground ordinance. The aircraft mounts both short-range infra-red air to air missiles along with longer ranged radar-guided BVR missiles, an essential capability for a frontline interceptor.
Read: Pakistan's tool of war: PAF's rolling thunder
The aircraft can carry 8,000lbs of ordinance on seven external hardpoints, which is an adequate amount of ordinance for any mission profile. The JF-17 enhances the much needed capability of the air force in beyond visual range (BVR) engagements.
The JF-17 is a capable platform, and is on its way to form the backbone of the PAF. It was reported that between 250 and 300 aircraft will be inducted into the air force in order to phase out the ageing fleet of some other aircraft models that are still in operation.
For the Pakistan Air Force, the JF-17 fills the gap that had arisen due to an ageing inventory, which was further impacted by sanctions placed on the country following the nuclear tests in 1998.A new chain called Wok Box, which one could (and in fact will) call Canada's version of Pei Wei, is coming to Dallas. The first location will open this fall in Las Colinas, at 7600 MacArthur Blvd. Wok Box is a pan-Asian concept with Asian dishes from more than 10 countries.
"We have plans to open five locations around Dallas-Fort Worth in the next 12 months," said CEO Lawrence Eade.
Wok Box was founded in Edmonton, Alberta, in 2005, and has 70 restaurants worldwide. The first outlet in the U.S. was in Oregon, which opened in September 2012; a second opened in Scottsdale, Arizona, in February 2013.
Wok Box serves cooked-to-order noodle, rice and curry dishes. The kitchen "feature" is sizzling woks, where the food is prepared in front of the customer. At Pei Wei, the woks are behind the counter, not in front. So you can see the difference there.
The pan-Asian spread includes Chinese dumplings; Indian samosas; Korean kim chee; Vietnamese pho; Mongolian beef; and noodles à la teriyaki, spicy Thai and Hong Kong spice. Have we reached 10 countries yet?
The menu feels like an updated version of Pei Wei; by "updated" we mean it has a banh mi sandwich. Pei Wei needs to get on the stick with the banh mi. Wok Box also accommodates the special-diner brigade: those who avoid consuming MSG, those who are gluten-free, low-carb and vegan.The Capital. Image: Wikimedia
Over the last four years, Congress developed a reputation for institutionalizing an "anti-science" attitude. During the 112th and 113th Congresses, the label was typically applied to its Republicans, who controlled the House of Representatives, and typically because of their propensity to dismiss climate change science. Typically, but not only—misinformed musings about women's reproductive processes, support for creationist education, attempts to remove the peer review process at the National Science Foundation, and efforts to roll back funding for research programs also ignited the ire of the science-loving public.
It's climate change that figures most prominently, though. An incredible consensus of scientists—97 percent of climatologists working in the field, according to one peer-reviewed survey—agree that greenhouse gas emissions produced by humans are warming the globe. A significant majority of congressional Republicans have consistently disagreed, and, succumbing to genuine scientific ignorance or mere political expedience, have vocally denied the science outright. Some ventured to call climate change a hoax, others falsely and repeatedly claimed the science simply wasn't settled.
In 2010, political historian and journalist Ronald Brownstein noted that "it is difficult to identify another major political party in any democracy as thoroughly dismissive of climate science as is the GOP here." Eileen Claussen, then the president of the Pew Center for Global Climate Change, told Brownstein that there is "no party-wide view like this anywhere in the world that I am aware of." (Now, some contenders may have emerged.) The House grew so hostile to climate science and environmental regulations that Democrats drew up a report, backed with a mountain of vote-count evidence, to try to demonstrate that Republicans were leading "The Most Anti-Environment House in the History of Congress."
But until 2015, Republicans only controlled the House. The Democratic Party's slim majority in the Senate served as a check on its climate change-dismissing twin. While the science-challenged House succeeded in blocking any significant legislative efforts to reduce US carbon emissions, that was essentially all it did: lock President Obama's environmental agenda in a stalemate.
After the sweeping Republican victory in November, which wrested the Senate from Democrats, both of the House's legislative branches are now controlled by politicians who either willfully ignore, disavow, or deny outright some of the best-supported science produced in the modern era. The notion can still seem bizarrely dissonant—we're in a new scientific renaissance; we're on the verge of 3D-printing human organs, we're landing probes on comets, and the GOP's party line is to entirely disregard the legion of scientists who point out that our greenhouse gases are trapping excess heat.
Science denial was wrong then, as it is now, but it was not as obviously and egregiously wrong-headed.
The paleoclimatologist Michael Mann, whose work has been instrumental in reconstructing past climate records, and who has been a favorite target of climate denier attacks, says anyone who holds science in high esteem should probably be actively worried about this 114th Congress. He is.
"As a nation, we have always led the world when it comes to technological innovation and scientific progress," Mann told me. "Our quality of life has benefited greatly from our commitment to unfettered scientific exploration. Now, with a Congress that is firmly controlled by those who possess an antipathy toward science, all of that is threatened. It is a matter for great concern among all of us."
You'd be hard pressed to find another time in modern history when scientists were so under siege, Mann said. Or, for that matter, when both branches of Congress were controlled by politicians so contemptuous of science.
"Well, on one level there is a precedent," the Harvard science historian Naomi Oreskes told me in an email, "which is when the Republicans controlled Congress in the 1990s and scuttled Kyoto. In that sense, this is deja vu all over again."
"On the other hand," Oreskes continued, "the situation today is much worse than in the 1990s, and much less excusable. This is because while at that time the science was coming together, it was not as iron-clad as it is now. In the 1990s, scientists had already come to consensus that climate change was real and anthropogenic, but there was still a lot of debate about the timing, the likely severity, etc. Science denial was wrong then, as it is now, but it was not as obviously and egregiously wrong-headed. Now climate change is well underway, the science is as good as science gets, which makes it that more obvious that the denial is denial (as opposed to confusion, lack of understanding, etc.)"
That explicit brand of denial is prominent in the party's new Senate leadership. Many of the men—and they are all men—who are now stationed in the nation's most influential science posts each exhibit views that can be considered science-illiterate at best, and at worst, outright hostile to modern scientific inquiry.
***
A Congress of Denial
Senator Ted Cruz. Photo: Gage Skidmore, Flickr
"The last 15 years, there has been no recorded warming," Ted Cruz (R-TX), the new chairman of the Science, Space, and Competitiveness subcommittee, recently told CNN. "Contrary to all the theories that—that they are expounding, there should have been warming over the last 15 years. It hasn't happened." Except, of course, that it has. 2014 was the hottest year on record, according to satellite data.
Cruz's appointment made headlines, primarily because worried NASA-watchers noted that he has voted to reduce the agency's funding, questioned the value of its non-space programs, and once did permanent damage to its ongoing research by successfully advocating for the government shutdown. And, of course, because he does not believe in climate change, a phenomenon the agency has documented at length. Cruz has already hinted that he wants to refocus NASA solely on space, and away from what he calls "political distractions extraneous to NASA's mandate," leading some to speculate he's eyeing gutting its earth science budget.
Marco Rubio (R-FL), who now chairs the subcommittee that considers ocean and air issues and controls the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the organization that monitors the climate, also doubts that climate change is real. "I do not believe that human activity is causing these dramatic changes to our climate the way these scientists are portraying it," Rubio said in a 2014 interview with ABC.
James Inhofe (R-OK), the man now in charge of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, is perhaps the most flagrantly and unabashedly opposed to mainstream science of all. Far beyond merely doubting its existence, he calls global warming the "greatest hoax ever perpetrated on mankind."
And that's just in the Senate. Over in the newly reshuffled House of Representatives, Jim Bridenstine (R-OK), a man who once actually demanded Obama apologize to the state of Oklahoma for funding climate change research, has been appointed the chairman of its Environment subcommittee. That subcommittee is a part of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, the organ that oversees scientific matters on the other side of the legislative divide. Its members, new and old, are also profoundly ignorant of science.
The defenders of tobacco never controlled both houses of Congress. They did not have political leaders who made it a point of pride to reject well-established science.
In fact, after Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO) delivered his infamous biology lesson on "legitimate rape" in 2012, I was compelled to list, in detail, the myriad ways the House Science Committee had science backwards.
Now Akin is gone, but many of its other members persist: Lamar Smith (R-TX), the committee's climate change-denying chairman, continues to lead the committee, and continues denying climate change. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) is still convinced that global warming is "bogus." James Sensenbrenner (R-WI), who once said that he personally believes that "solar flares are more responsible for climatic cycles than anything that human beings do," continues to regard climate change as "propaganda."
Meanwhile, the sitting chair of the space subcommittee, Steven Palazzo (R-MI), led a charge to cut $650 million worth of NASA's earth science programs, as well as its asteroid research funding. All told, he proposed $1 billion worth of cuts to the already contracting agency.
According to the Center for American Progress, 56 percent of the Republicans in the 114th Congress have publicly dismissed or denied climate change. Broken down, 72 percent of Republican Senators deny climate change, as do 68 percent of the new Senate and House leadership, and 62 percent of the members of the House Science Committee. By way of comparison, 83 percent of Americans believe in climate change, according to a December 2014 poll.
***
The Road to Denial
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Image: Gage Skidmore
How can that possibly be? How can so many public leaders, seeking to govern a rich, technologically advanced, thoroughly modernized nation, who are at least intelligent enough to run a savvy campaign to get themselves elected, be so confounded by what amounts to very basic science? How have we come to see the rise of what may be the most anti-science Congress in recent history?
Oreskes says that this strain of science denial originated as a political strategy much like the one Congresses past deployed to shield tobacco companies from the powerful, emergent consensus in the medical establishment that cigarettes caused lung cancer. She authored a book, Merchants of Doubt, that "showed how the strategy of denial came from the tobacco industry, and was applied to acid rain, ozone, etc."
"In that sense," she said, "this is old news. However, what is really terrifying about what is going on now is this: In the case of tobacco, the industry was in sustained denial for decades."
The fossil fuel industry, a major Republican donor, has a vested interest in preventing or delaying restrictions on carbon pollution, the necessary step to combatting climate change. Oil giants like Exxon and industry groups like the American Petroleum Institute have spent a fortune lobbying Congress to oppose climate measures and, as with the tobacco fights, funding pseudoscientists and front groups to seed doubt about climate change in public forums. Thus, Republicans often renounce scientific findings in order to justify advocating coal, oil, and gas interests, as when they call for clean air protections to be struck down, or for the construction of a tar sands oil pipeline like the Keystone XL.
"This is an overall, leadership-led agenda," David Goldston, the director of Governmental Affairs for the Natural Resources Defense Council, told me. "And that agenda explicitly involves trying to undermine a wide range of environmental protections. They've been very explicit that they want to block any and all action on climate change." Congressional Republicans, from the leadership down to the rank-and-file, have clearly demonstrated they will deny science in order to justify doing so.
"There were politicians from tobacco states who defended the industry (and Jimmy Carter notoriously said that they were going to make 'even safer' cigarettes)," Oreskes said, "but the defenders of tobacco never controlled both houses of Congress. They did not have political leaders who made it a point of pride to reject well-established science. Our political leaders never defended tobacco disinformation in this systematic and sustained manner that the Republican leadership has defended fossil fuel disinformation."
Physicist and climate expert Joe Romm, who runs Climate Progress and served as an advisor on Showtime's global warming series A Year of Living Dangerously, echoes Oreskes' analogy.
"Scientists are now as certain that humans are the primary cause of climate change as they are that smoking is harmful to your health," Romm told me. "The hammerlock science deniers have on the Senate and House shows that the political strength and disinformation campaign of the fossil fuel industry is of a vastly greater scale than the tobacco industry's ever were."
Now, there are certainly a number of Republicans (and some Democrats) who genuinely do not believe that climate change is real, as opposed to those who knowingly distort scientific truths expressly for political purposes. Some, like ex-Congressman Paul Broun, do appear to believe that biblical truths render the concept of anthropogenic warming impossible, and others have no doubt sincerely let political ideology blind them to scientific fact.
They could do a bill that says NASA shouldn't be doing climate work.
Research published in November 2014 in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology concluded that "in the case of climate change, Republicans are especially skeptical of the relevant science, particularly when they are compared with Democrats." The researchers found "that this phenomenon is often motivated. However, the source of this motivation is not necessarily an aversion to the problem, per se, but an aversion to the solutions associated with the problem." Resistance to environmental regulations and carbon pricing probably come first, in other words, and the climate denial follows, not the other way around.
So it likely is with the party as a whole. In 2005, the conservative columnist David Brooks wrote that, "Global warming is real (conservatives secretly know this)." Shortly before that, the infamous Luntz memo leaked, which was meant to advise Republicans on opposing climate measures, and noted explicitly that "the scientific debate is closing [against us] but not yet closed." The room for reasonable doubt was shrinking, and Luntz suggested Republicans—who at that point were reluctantly agreeing with the science (even George W. Bush pledged to fight climate change in a State of the Union address)—fabricate some of their own. "Therefore, you need to continue to make the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue in the debate."
Republicans took his advice, to spectacular effect, and, after years of repeating 'the science isn't settled' like a mantra on campaign trails, and with the help of fossil fuel industry contributions, a phony 'climategate' scandal, and a Tea Party caucus intent on maintaining ideological purity, willing to punish candidates who endorse climate science, the party eventually convinced itself of the veracity of its own cynical anti-science proclamations.
***
Coping Mechanisms
The Keystone Pipeline, waiting to be assembled. Photo: Shannon Patrick, Flickr
So, it's 2015, and Congress is more awash in climate change denial than it ever has been.
"One really has to go back to the dark era of Lysenkoism in the Soviet Union, where scientists were jailed if they disagreed with the party line on matters of science, to find an analogue for what we are facing here today," Dr. Mann said. He should know. Republicans opened an "investigation" into his research—ostensibly in relation to the phony hacked climate email scandal—in a move that fellow scientists saw as a disturbing indication that unfavorable science could be put on trial. The investigation, of course, never uncovered any evidence of wrongdoing.
But it raises the question: What kind of damage could a science-averse Congress do?
"They'll go after the smog rules. They want to block the ability of the president to declare national monuments," NRDC's Goldston said. "Not like they're proposing alternatives, but it's clear they want to block the rule the EPA has put out to protect and strengthen the Clean Air & Water Act."
"The way they're going to be most damaging is going to be through spending bills," Goldston said. "They're going to try to load up the spending bills with riders." In the now-Republican controlled Appropriations committee, Republicans can roll back research and regulatory budgets. The EPA especially is under the crosshairs, as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has explicitly said getting the agency "reined in" is a "top priority. But what will happen in the science committees is open to speculation.
"They could do a bill that says NASA shouldn't be doing climate work," Goldston said. "There's been a movement by a couple of these individuals to take NASA out of the Earth Sciences altogether. There's been a greater tendency to single out climate research than there has been before."
Belligerent committee leaders may pose some problems to science agencies, he said. "Cruz," for instance, "can use his position in problematic ways, including pushing bills that may be damaging. But the greatest danger resides in the overall leadership-driven plan."
And that includes dismantling the Obama administration's carbon pollution regulatory regime, the first nationwide effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. To guard his climate legacy against Congress, Obama may be forced to keep his veto pen inked. The president has already hinted he'll use it if Congress succeeds in passing legislation to approve the Keystone XL.
This is a mistake the Republican party has made repeatedly. They think that by attacking the environment they can get broad agreement.
Still, even as climate denial reaches its apogee in Congress, there are signs that this historic science-forsaking frenzy may be on the wane. A majority of the public strongly believes that climate change is happening, and most believe that it is caused by humans. The same is true even of Republican voters, a new Yale poll shows, providing even further evidence that it is the donations-soliciting party leadership that outspokenly denies climate change, not its science-literate constituents. The notion that climate change is a hoax was voted "lie of the year" by PolitiFact readers.
This shifting attitude may be why industry-friendly candidates had to resort to the now-infamous "I'm not a scientist" dodge on the 2014 campaign trail, in order to avoid incriminating themselves as dullards to an increasingly climate-observant public. And Republican Senator Mark Kirk (R-IL) was forced to say not only that he was sorry, but to stress that yes, he actually believed in manmade climate change to appease his voters, who made a stink when he claimed that global warming wasn't caused by humans, and that Greenland had been melting long before the Industrial Revolution.
The ultimate test of this Congress's dedication to science illiteracy could come as soon as next week, when the Senate may be forced to vote on an amendment to the Keystone bill, offered up by Bernie Sanders (D-VT), which would require senators to publicly state whether or not they believe the scientific consensus that human activity is warming the planet.
Climate change is well-accepted by the American public, and the Senate risks embarrassing itself by denying the science so directly and so squarely on the Congressional record. Such a vote would reveal just how disconnected the party is from the mainstream.
"This is a mistake the Republican party has made repeatedly," Goldston said. "They made it in the 80s. They made it in the mid-1990s. They think that by attacking the environment they can get broad agreement, both within their congressional members, Senate and House, and with the broader public. And, what has happened every time, they find out that they were wrong. This is not a good political issue. And they're making that mistake again."
The question is whether they're making it fast enough. Congressional Republicans have proven remarkably resolute in their capacity to deny climate science, even as public opinion the world over shifts around them. This year, the international community has its best chance yet to draft a treaty to reduce global carbon emissions—and this Congress will almost certainly prevent the US from signing. Couple that with likely-to-shrink budgets for science programs, an incipient assault on environmental protections, and continued hostility toward climate scientists, and educators, students, researchers, and, sure, any member of the public that enjoys the fruits of scientific research had best brace themselves for the tenure of the most science-allergic Congress in decades.
"The President and indeed all Americans must be vigilant if we are to ensure that the pro-pollution, anti-science forces do not succeed in destroying a livable climate," Romm said.While the US spin machine hurls accusations about Russian election meddling, it’s worth nothing the US is a seasoned pro at interfering in elections.
Ask an average American who makes a habit of following government-mouthpiece corporate media about interference in national elections and you’ll likely elicit a nebulous response concerning Russian hackers and a plan to install Donald Trump in the White House — but you probably won’t hear a single syllable pertaining to United States government’s actual attempts to do the same.
On Monday, FBI Director James Comey confirmed for the first time publicly the bureau is officially investigating hotly contentious allegations of Russian meddling in the U.S. election — but, even if proven true, such geopolitical escapades better characterize the routine behavior of accuser than of accused.
“The F.B.I., as part of our counterintelligence effort, is investigating the Russian government’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 president election,” the director announced, adding the bureau would conduct a probe to discern whether Trump’s associates had contact with Russian officials.
Despite that the U.S. has hypocritically exerted influence over foreign elections in all corners of the globe — in fact, it has arrogantly done so a whopping 81 times between 1946 and 2000, alone — with just one-third of those operations undertaken overtly.
For months, mainstream media parroted murky accusations hurled by politicians — keen to point a finger of blame for the apparently stultifying victory of a former reality television host on someone — that The Russians had somehow surreptitiously undermined the election-centric foundation of American Democracy.
While that has yet to prove true, this new Red Scare constitutes a duplicitous attempt by the pot to call the kettle … an election meddler.
Researcher Dov Levin of Carnegie Mellon University’s Institute for Politics and Strategy — an expert on the topic at hand — discussed the lengthy but incomplete list of times the U.S. government has interfered in other nations’ elections with NPR’s Ari Shapiro.
Asked for examples where this tampering tangibly altered results, Levin stated,
“One example of that was our intervention in Serbia, Yugoslavia in the 2000 election there. Slobodan Milosevic was running for re-election, and we didn’t want him to stay in power there due to his tendency, you know, to disrupts the Balkans and his human rights violations.
“So we intervened in various ways for the opposition candidate, Vojislav Kostunica. And we gave funding to the opposition, and we gave them training and campaigning aide. And according to my estimate, that assistance was crucial in enabling the opposition to win.”
Levin reiterated the more blatant methods with which the U.S. asserts dominance — through the overt coups or all-out regime changes branding the nation a notorious interventionist — are not among the list of the 80-plus attempts to manipulate the electoral outcome.
As for the issue of pot versus kettle, Levin explained that — although Russia and other powerful nations indisputably employ similar tactics — the United States has been quite prodigious in its effort.
“Well, for my dataset, the United States is the most common user of this technique. Russia or the Soviet Union since 1945 has used it half as much. My estimate has been 36 cases between 1946 to 2000. We know also that the Chinese have used this technique and the Venezuelans when the late Hugo Chavez was still in power in Venezuela and other countries.”
As sanctimonious U.S. politicians cry foul about The Russians, it would behoove the new McCarthyites to reflect on the nation’s sticky imperialist fingerprints around the globe — like that time in 1996, when the United States undertook an extensive, secret operation to ensure the presidency of Boris Yeltsin.
That is, of course, former President Boris Yeltsin — of the Russian Federation.
By Claire BernishThe city of Toronto is taking the owner of a short-term house rental to court, charged with violating a zoning bylaw. This is the first time that the city’s licensing department has taken action in the booming area of short-term vacation rentals.
5 Glenelia Ave. was the site of a shooting this month while it was being rented out as a short-term vacation property. ( Richard Lautens / Toronto Star )
The house in question is on Glenelia Ave., in the Bayview Ave. and Cummer Ave. area, which was the scene of a shooting earlier this month. Residents of the quiet Willowdale neighbourhood have been complaining for more than a year about noise, garbage and, on occasion, wild parties. The city’s municipal licensing and standards department laid one charge against 2391324 Ontario Ltd., the numbered company that owns the property. The offence dates back to last October, but the case only had its first appearance on Tuesday at the Toronto East Court on Markham Rd., but was put off to a later date.
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Under an old North York bylaw, it states short-term home rentals must be seven days or more. A call placed to a number listed for the house rental for comment was not returned. If convicted, the penalty could be $50,000, though a justice of the peace, who would hear the case, could issue a conviction with no penalty, essentially a suspended sentence. City spokeswoman Tammy Robbinson said there are no convictions on record specifically related to a short-term home rental or tourist home under the North York bylaw. City council has approved a harmonized bylaw, bringing together the hodgepodge of different bylaws that existed before amalgamation, but it is under appeal before the Ontario Municipal Board. That means, in some cases, both bylaws apply.
Robbinson added that there are no other outstanding charges related to other short-term home rentals in the city. But the growing popularity of online rentals such as Airbnb, which estimates that Toronto hosts have welcomed 219,000 visitors in the past year alone, raises concerns about the need for regulating these services. Airbnb says it has 6,800 hosts in Toronto.
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The MaRS Solutions Lab was hired by the Ontario government to develop a strategy for regulating the sharing economy. It will be issuing recommendations later this week that will look at home rentals as well as the controversial UberX service, where ordinary drivers use personal vehicles to ferry passengers around. Councillor David Shiner, who represents Willowdale, argues police and municipal licensing and standards officials need to work together to put a stop to these home rentals, pointing out residents had complained about noise hours before the shooting took place on March 20. “It’s a very unfortunate situation,” he said, adding the police had been called, partygoers were told to quiet down, but the party continued until the gun violence occurred. “People shouldn’t have to put up with this.” Shiner noted that even though a charge was laid last year, the case only had its first time in court on Wednesday, and was put off. The councillor said the house on Glenelia Ave. is clearly an illegal use, given licensing officials have found listings online. “It is an illegal use. The court system is too slow,” he added. In a statement, Airbnb said the home where the shooting took place was not booked through Airbnb on the night of the incident, but it “proactively removed the listing immediately following the occurrence.” Airbnb added: “It is important not to forget how rare these types of incidents are, and the millions of safe stays that are enjoyed every night by guests and hosts who share their homes.” Related: Ontario vows to work with Airbnb to collect taxes END With files from Jennifer Pagliaro Correction – March 30, 2016: This article was edited from a previous version that mistakenly said MaRS Solutions Lab was hired by the city of Toronto to develop a strategy for regulating the sharing economy.Please enable Javascript to watch this video
MIDDLEBURG HEIGHTS, Ohio -- The father of two 14-year-old students at Middleburg Heights Junior High School in Ohio says he was angry when they showed him a photo they snapped of their algebra lesson from earlier this month.
"Tony can send 5 texts and 3 nudes in 19 minutes. He could also send 3 texts and 1 nude in 9 minutes. How long would it take him to send one text and one nude?" It reads: "Tony can send 5 texts and 3 nudes in 19 minutes. He could also send 3 texts and 1 nude in 9 minutes. How long would it take him to send one text and one nude?"
"We addressed the teacher and kind of clarified exactly what happened, and in this case provided what we thought was the appropriate consequence, which was clarification that that was inappropriate," school superintendent Michael Sheppard told Fox 8.
Sheppard says the math teacher, Daniel Rapp, was issued a written reprimand.
"He's a good teacher, and just in this case used the inappropriate word," said Sheppard.
The superintendent says the school district conducted a complete investigation into the matter. The father who contacted Fox 8 says he believes the discipline is too lenient, given the sexual nature of the math lesson.
"You have to look to see if it is out of character or not, and in this case, it was something that happened that was just obviously not acceptable from the school district's perspective and that's why we took it, looked at it very seriously and provided the appropriate consequence," said the superintendent.
Fox 8 requested Daniel Rapp's personnel file, but officials said they could not make it immediately available. The superintendent did reveal that the teacher had a similar reprimand in his file.
Fox 8 was unsuccessful in reaching Rapp for comment. The superintendent says Rapp remains in the classroom and he considers that matter over.So I had some downtime recently and decided to spend it doing what I used do as a kid, put together a model. I’m not an expert modeler and I don’t do models very often, so when I do, I look for ones that are unique. Models where I can’t find any alternatives for. I was drawn to the NX-01 Enterprise refit done by Polar lights, found on Amazon for under $30 here. Released back in 2013, this 1/1000 sale ship is a snap-it-together, or glueless style based on the ship from the Star Trek show Enterprise. You have three options of builds with this kit: the default Enterprise seen in the show, Columbia with very slight part variations and decal changes, and what is seen |
the exact same hospital. The town votes, traditionally, somewhere between Labour and Lib Dem, but opted to leave the EU. There's a political discrepancy there, but one you can perhaps expect from a town that had the industry sucked out of it 20 years ago (the destruction of the Dema Glass chimneys was a public spectacle, and there's something dark in the fact that the town was invited to cheer as its last drops of industry were exploded in front of it), replaced Royal Mail buildings instead. Chesterfield is very white (94.9 percent by the last census) with small Italian and Polish communities in between, but for some reason there is always, always, a town-wide rumour about plans to build a mosque. Have you heard about the mosque? I have heard about the mosque. What do you think about the mosque? Well. Remember the shellshocked look of the woman down the road the day an Indian family moved in next to her? That gives you a weathervane on how they feel about mosques.
My dad and I used to take a lot of walks when I was a kid. Dad used to march, rather than stroll, hands wedged in an old blue body warmer: we used to take this meandering route down, away from my house, crossing a bridge over an A road – bridges always freaked me out, the height and the roar beneath them – then down towards a canal path, where we would pass patches of stinging nettles and dock leaves, and wild garlic and discarded tires, and climb up through a gap in an old wire fence and cross a weird pavement-less road to get to another bridge, which I remember as a five-year-old being the tallest thing on the entire planet. Walked up it again recently. It's well small. Kids are idiots.
Dad was a landscape photographer, so supposedly these walks were for him to go and find inspiration, to take beautiful vista-like shots of rolling green hills and lush grass, but honestly it was also because the path backed on to the golf course and he could trawl through the bush with a pitching wedge for lost balls. We were a pretty poor family, and dad used to undulate in and out of work – mainly out – and he would spend long, stretching days unemployed in the field behind our house, patiently pitching golf balls he'd found on our walks up high into the pale blue sky, down into a bucket. The field was the same one that, littered with dog shit and old cider bottles, our primary school would have occasional sports days, and I always remember kids stood behind me, watching from a distant as my dad smoked a roll up and played golf, whispering, "who is that man?"
At the end of our walks we would find our way back to dad's car, a 20-year old maroon Volvo called Ruby, parked at the top of Tapton House, and I would challenge him to a race: him and Ruby, a car, vs. me, a tiny child. I would run until I panted and turned pink, always winning, somehow, gloating at the bottom of the hill after another pelting win. (It only struck me when I was about 16 that, obviously, he was easing off the gas and that I, a child, could not outrun a car).
Every Friday at about 6.30PM, I would phone an order up the road to Torino's for a half tuna-sweetcorn, half mortadella pizza, then go and collect it – sat nervously on shiny vinyl seats inside while already-drunk people from the pub across the road would come and loudly order chips to sop up the WKDs – then slink home to eat the entire thing on my own, cross legged in front of Robot Wars. It was my routine, my ceremony.
I went to a secondary school called Brookfield, which apart from a logo change and a few more fences, hasn't fucking changed one bit. Everyone thinks their secondary school is the best, and mine was no different: our direct rivals were Newbold, across town, who scored slightly lower than us in test results. In the middle of town, by the football ground, was St. Mary's, which tested higher. Also there was Parkside, who are scum. There was once a plan to merge Brookfield and Parkside, diluting our perfect Brookfield minds with unruly Parkside scum. The parents were outraged. The teachers were outraged. The playground was alight with the buzz of conceptual gossip. That was a big winter of letters to the Derbyshire Times.
In sixth form we were allowed to leave the school at lunch time and on breaks, so we would flock en masse to Henstock's, where they did chip cobs for £1 and sausage cobs for £1.20 (you could not get a sausage and chip cob). It was a fun place to go because the people working there – a woman in a tabard and a man who looked like an Elvis impersonator who occasionally stomped from a backroom with a big scoop of chips and gloweringly put it in a heater on the side then fucked right off again – quite openly hated all the school kids in their bakery. But I never saw anyone else apart from school kids in there, ever. So it was a fine-edged balance: they needed us – we kept the lights on, we paid their rent – but they hated us too.
A few years ago they put a statue of George Stephenson outside the station and even though he is blatantly holding a tiny steam-chimney locomotive it really, really looks like he's flipping off the entire town instead. I don't know why they decided to do this.
A guy I used to know used to only go to this fish and chip shop and this fish and chip shop alone because, he alleged, you could go in there and ask for 'n— and chips' and they would smirk and then make you a portion of vinegar and chips, geddit, which you would then have to salt yourself, and I don't know at all if this is true but i. Chesterfield is the exact sort of town where a racist fish and chip shop might dwell offering entirely migrant-unthreatened white people a space in which to say n— and ii. if you were going to open a racist fish and chip shop, you would definitely call it 'Union Jack'. I went there once and the chips were exactly adequate.
Just behind the main centre of town is Queen's Park, a community centre with halls and a gym and the pool everyone learned to swim in. Behind there is the park proper, which has the kind of pagodas teens with multi-coloured fringes learn to smoke in, and a pond with ducks and goslings, and a miniature train that loops the park all summer. One year my mate got a job driving that train and it turned him into this weird local hero – he had this harem of giggling teenage girls who used to congregate near his train shed to get a look of him on his breaks – because that's what it takes to make you notable in Chesterfield. A 30-minute tutorial on how to drive a mini-train and a basic CRB check and you too can be a rockstar.
This Greggs is open until 3am on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights, and I think that is brilliant.
This is the market, which was formed in 1204. The market has three moods: during the day, when it is a sort of humming hubbub, where you can buy fresh fruit and veg and weird damp curtain fabrics and sweets and rugs and bric-a-brac and always, for some reason, one of those stalls that sells gnarly-looking multi-blade tools in thick plastic packaging. Then, after it packs up, it lies spidery and empty for a few hours, flickering under electric light. And then at night it becomes this sort of sanctuary for people who are five pints in and need somewhere to sit in silence and eat a Big Mac, which they do, sat hoiked up on the abandoned stalls with their legs circling lightly in the air above the floor, like large drunk children.
Once we were walking through the market at night – like, 4am, some dumb goth-kids-up-too-late-over-summer time – and I told my mates this thing I learned at school, which was: this fountain, in the centre of the market, has deep grooves on it from where butchers used to sharpen their blades there back in the day. My friend Lain had a penknife on him on the time (because goths) and dragged the blade down it a few times, more to pay homage to the long-dead market butchers than to sharpen his blade (I am actually quite sure he extremely fucked up his blade, doing this), then we wandered off. Only: about three minutes later, the sun smudging over the horizon, some dude in his 40s half-jogged up to us and started yelling. He was like, "you shouldn't have that knife, you shouldn't have that knife. That's illegal." And we kind of tried to ignore him and walk off but he was insistent that he was going to confiscate this penknife. And there was a moment, there, where Lain nearly handed him his knife – there's an age between childhood and adulthood where you still automatically cede authority to grown ups – and we realised: hold on, maybe we shouldn't hand a fucking knife to a mad fucker who is up at 4am and alone in an abandoned market. And then we ran away until our legs were knackered.
Living in a small town with nothing much to do sends you to weird places, to do weird things. It did not help that I had weird friends. We used to take long walks at night, in those summers where the sun rises early and fades away late and none of you have jobs yet but you have this restless burning energy to stay up late and shiftless, talking shit and drinking supermarket own-brand Irn Bru, and growing your hair long and rank and greasy, and sincerely thinking Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster were an important band. Those were the nights we used to walk to the 24-hour Tesco on the edge of town and buy Frijj milkshakes and Dairylea Dunkers and packets of those bakery biscuits – you know the ones, the good ones, the big chewy ones, the ones with Smarties in them, or Rolos sometimes – and congregate in the underpass nearby, doing stupid shit, the kind of stupid shit you can only do when you're 17, when girls hate you slightly more than you hate yourself. We would play end-to-end football with a miniature ball. We got up on the bridge once and dropped a rock onto a pile of crackers. We, for reasons I still do not fully understand, played Fire Tennis, a game where you set fire to a tennis ball – soak it in paraffin – then ping it delicately to each other until it goes out. Hit the ball right and a perfect trail of alight paraffin sets the night ablaze. Hit the ball wrong and you accidentally set fire to some on-offer malt loaf you'd been tasked with picking up for your mum. Do not play Fire Tennis.
Another time we bought a load of end-of-the-day discounted bread and made a man out of it, a bread man. Big sourdough head. Baguette limbs with cob hands and kneecaps. We linked it together with old coat hanger wire, carried it gingerly to a main road and left it propped up on a bench. When we went to look at it the next day it was a pile of bread, pecked to shreds by passing birds and, weirdly, someone had taken all the wire out of it. In dark quiet moments of the night I still think of that:What did they do with the wire?
There was a summer, later, where we all got Really Into Pitch And Putt Golf. Sometimes you have a summer like this. It was in that summer when we all had months off from uni, or some of us had jobs but not really, but we all sort of just about had the money to do things, but not the inclination. So we got Really Into Pitch And Putt Golf. This, like the bakery outside school, went hard against the ideas and morals of the old guy operating the club shop: he was almost visibly against the idea of selling us – a gaggle of waifs and strays in unironed trousers and without a single polo shirt or lone white glove between us – each a £3 game of pitch 'n' putt every day of the summer. So fuck this guy, we thought. Fuck this dickhead. And we— look, there's no cool way of saying this. We bought a million-candle torch, charged it for 16 hours, then broke onto the golf course at night to play a game of pitch 'n' putt gratis. Fuck the system.
This is where, in the dark blurry night, I played the best golf of my life. We were playing teams of drunk vs. stoned – this was the summer we discovered supermarket vodka and extremely rancid little joints of marijuana – and I somehow hit par or, in one case, under par. The million-candle torch started to falter by around the third hole, so we flicked the switch and started to trudge back. And then we noticed, in the blue light of a golf course at 2AM, some other man there. Just walking, in a shooting jacket, alone. And he looked at us and we looked at him. Beat. And then someone went, "fucking RUN" and we all sprinted pissed and stoned through dinks and sand traps until we emerged, panting, carrying golf clubs, into the stark glow of the nearest street light.
I think wherever you go in the UK there is always just a dude, milling about on his own at 2AM. Never is that truer here in Chesterfield.
This is my favourite urinal in the world. I shouldn't have to elaborate on that, but I will: once my mate Party got floppy drunk and we had to help him upstairs to wee, but mid-flow we loosened our grips beneath his armpits and he fell like he had no bones until – clunk – he split his head on this urinal and fell, pissing and bleeding, bleeding and pissing, softly to the floor. Some images you can never erase from your head. I will see Party, prone and pink and pissing, until my dying day.
This is my old road, with my old school at the top of it, and everything has changed but also nothing has really changed at all. I suppose that was the weirdest part of going back: I didn't realise I'd miss Chesterfield until I was there. It's hard not to miss a place that has so many corners, with so many traces of yourself in them.
I don't go back, much – I haven't got anywhere to stay now, and it's not like I felt any special affinity with the town anyway, so when I go home I only do so to hang out and do dumb shit with my friends, in the last few years before kids and jobs and mortgages stop us from dropping bricks from a height onto crackers. When I went to my old house, which I haven't seen for three years or so: there was steam rising out of the flue and new curtains in the windows, a wilting Hallowe'en pumpkin on the doorstep, reminders that another family lives there now, the space is no longer my own. The primary school I went to has bricked up the entrance: the draughty old Victorian windows have been replaced with double-glazing, so it can turn so inevitably into flats. I marvelled at weird changes nobody notices day-to-day: when did the big B&Q turn into a Matalan? When did that pub nail wood to the windows and declare foreclosure? When did these odd, delicately decorated backstreet tea rooms come from? When you leave a town, it pulsates with life and death: places open, places close, memories get concreted over and bedded in with grass. Chesterfield isn't my town anymore – it never was, really – but there are still shadows of myself lurking there, still people and places I love, and still a statistically incredible number of places to buy chips. Long may it carry on without me.
@joelgolby / @cbethell_photoA lawsuit alleging that outsourcing firm Infosys favored hiring Indian workers over U.S. workers now includes an account from a recruiter about the alleged practice.
The case, filed in federal court in Wisconsin, is from four IT workers around the country who are suing the company for "ongoing national origin and race discrimination."
An amended complaint was posted online by one of the attorneys representing the workers, and filed with the court last week.
It includes an account by Samuel Marrero, who worked as a recruiter in Infosys's talent acquisition unit from 2011 until May 2013.
In weekly conference calls held by company officials, the lawsuit says, recruiters were encouraged to focus their efforts on Indian candidates and "stick to the talent we're used to."
In response, Marrero asked, "Are you saying you just want Indian talent?" One of the Infosys officials on the call, and identified in the complaint, allegedly responded: "Yes. They know our style and culture."
The Infosys officials are identified in the lawsuit, one with the title of "senior vice president and global head," the other as a "global enterprise officer lead."
Marrero and other recruiters "frequently complained" to higher-ups at Infosys during these weekly calls that many of the highly qualified American candidates they had presented were being rejected in favor of Indian prospects.
The lawsuit includes employment that claims that about 90% of Infosys' workforce is South Asian, and the high percentage is intentional.
In about October 2012, in response to one of these complaints, Infosys' global enterprise lead allegedly said, "Americans don't know shit."
Infosys is one of the largest users of H-1B visas, according to government data. It does not disclose the percentage of its workforce comprised of visa holders.
On July 10, Computerworld wrote about this lawsuit, and asked Infosys in advance for a comment. The company finally responded on July 18, saying in part:
"It is incorrect to insinuate that we exclude or discourage U.S. workers. Today, we are recruiting to fill over 440 active openings across 20 states in the US. These include 300 openings for professional hires and about 140 openings targeting local and recent MBA graduates, Masters degree holders and under graduates to bolster our sales and management consulting teams. This hiring program is a key investment to strengthen our future leadership pool. The program will see us investing in an extensive training and leadership-mentoring exercise to groom young MBAs for a rewarding career with us.
"Attracting the best and brightest talent is paramount to Infosys' success," the company said in the July 18 statement. "We are committed to creating a work environment where every employee feels included, valued and respected."
Infosys officials could not be reached for comment on the recently amended complaint.Sometimes you see a car at a dealership and say to yourself, "Wow, that is one sexy ride!" But if you think it's sexy enough to have sex on top of, you should make sure you clean up the evidence once the deed is done. Or at least before you take pictures of the car to sell it.
This Lubbock, Texas dealership didn't notice the strange marks in the dust on the hood of a used BMW 3-series they're selling before they posted photos to post on their website and Craigslist. The imprint of what appears to be outstretched hands and cocktail dress-clad breasts is unmistakable. There also appears to be another set of hands just above them.
Somebody appears to get turned on by Bimmers.
Of course, with this scant evidence, we can't be sure if this was someone getting railed on the car's hood, or if it was a BMW fetishist enjoying a nice rub against one after hours. It could always be a hoax, although that doesn't negate the fact that the dealer posted it to their website and Craigslist. Then again, the front plate does say "Friendly Ford," so whoever the mysterious boob-rubber was may have taken that as an invitation.
We called the Don listed in the Craigslist advertisement and he said "Good catch." He also says he has no idea how it happened as someone else takes photos for his dealership but he thinks it's hilarious and agrees it does look like someone had sex on the car.
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Whatever is going on here is good for a laugh, and is reminder to car salesman everywhere to give your cars a quick spray/chamois before taking pictures to post online. We're watching.
(Hat tip to WarShrike!)
Photo credit: Pollard FordMerry Christmas, dear readers!
Since it’s the season of giving, Packt Publishing offered to organize a contest with prize – 2 print copies and 2 ebooks of my book NumPy Beginner’s Guide.
The Prize
What you will learn from NumPy 1.5 Beginner’s Guide
Installing NumPy
Learn to load arrays from files and write arrays to files
Work with universal functions
Create NumPy matrices
Use basic modules that NumPy offers
Write unit tests for NumPy code
Plot mathematical NumPy results with Matplotlib
Integrate with Scipy, a high level Python scientific computing framework built on top of NumPy
The book is written in beginner’s guide style with each aspect of NumPy demonstrated by real world examples. You can also download a sample chapter.
How to Win NumPy Beginner’s Guide
You can enter by writing a comment to this post explaining why you would like to have the book. The contest has already started and will end on January 31st 2012 at 11:59 PM GMT. Winners will be randomly chosen and notified by email, after termination of the contest.
The contest is open to everybody in the world, however print copies are only available to residents of the US and Europe.
Comments are moderated by me, so your comment will not appear immediately.
Good luck, readers!The Home Secretary has admitted there could be as many as one million illegal migrants in the UK, but doesn’t know for sure either way.
Critics say the admission from Amber Rudd, who is responsible for immigration and the UK’s borders, shows the government is not in control of immigration and is more concerned with forcing people to pay their TV licences than deportations.
Ms. Rudd was being questioned by David Wood, a former Director General of Immigration Enforcement, who claimed there are “probably over a million foreigners here illegally” and “no one could ever remove them really”.
According to The Mirror, she said the estimate of a million “may be” a “sensible judgement”, adding: “But we need to deal in facts, and there aren’t facts to back that up unless he gave you some which we don’t know about.”
It was suggested she could neither confirm nor deny the million figure because she did not know, and Ms. Rudd replied: “I think that’s correct, yes.”
An official said there were too few staff for the number of migrants https://t.co/kf1R2ezmUa — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) February 20, 2017
Tory MP Christopher Chope blasted: “So he may well be right.” Ms. Rudd replied back: “Or wrong!” Home Office Permanent Secretary Philip Rutnam added: “It’s not something we have an estimate of.”
Mr. Chope reentered the exchange, describing the Tory target of removing 35,000 people from Britain as a “drop in the ocean”.
He claimed: “Why is it the government’s view that TV licence evasion is more serious and needs more deterrents than illegal migration?”
The government has kept its estimates of illegal immigrant numbers secret since 2005, but in a paper for Civitas published in June, Mr. Wood revealed the department estimates that, annually, up to 250,000 foreign nationals who are supposed to return to their home countries fail to do so.
In addition to visa overstayers – a category which includes students and others – the figure includes bogus asylum seekers, of which there were around 26,000 last year, and migrants who break into Britain riding in the back of trucks.
In April, Breitbart London reported that deportations of failed asylum seekers had hit a record low.Also check out our Let’s Talk Beer Styles: Christmas Beers companion piece, where we dive into the history of Christmas/winter seasonal beer styles.
The first holiday season I was at Paste was in 2014, and we tasted 31 Christmas beers. By the time the holiday season rolled around in 2015, our beer coverage and press contacts had expanded greatly, and we blind-tasted a much more robust 71.
Well, it’s another year later. And now we have 104. Dear lord, people.
As these blind tastings continue to grow larger and larger, and we hear a wonderful array of feedback from both breweries and readers, I find myself reflecting on a few things. First, how fortunate we are to have an opportunity to do this. And second, how much I’ve learned about tasting in the last few years. If I came into Paste with a pretty experienced palate, it’s now a palate that has been drilled with military or scientific rigor. Over the course of 2016, I’ve probably blind-tasted nearly 1,000 beers in the name of “work” … and 247 IPAs in August alone. It’s dizzying, or maybe that’s just the booze.
The Christmas/holiday beer tasting, though, is one that predates my time at Paste, and it’s the tasting that probably means the most to the people who founded this company. As a group of guys who are uniformly passionate about big, malty, boozy, Belgian-y beers, they look forward to this one all year round. So let’s get into it.
A Note on Beer Acquisition
Like every other blind-tasting at Paste, we acquire these beers in a variety of ways. Most are sent in directly by the breweries when we send out a call for that style. Others we’re able to purchase directly because they’re available in Georgia. In the end, we’re at the mercy of press contacts and seasonal availability. Sometimes, we simply can’t get a beer that we know we should have. This year (and last year as well), one of those beers was the great Corsendonk Christmas Ale from Belgium, which for some reason still hasn’t arrived in the Atlanta market as I type this. Others, like Scaldis Noel, we were only lucky enough to acquire on the last day of tasting. For whatever reason, perhaps due to lack of demand, the classic Belgians in particular seem to not be arriving in our market as often as they once did.
A Note on Beer Selection For This Tasting
There’s no other way to say it, so I’ll just say it: The beers in this tasting don’t make a whole lot of sense. In past years, we limited it only to “Christmas” beers that specifically featured the holiday. That, however, would eliminate the likes of Sierra Nevada Celebration or any of the other beers featuring “snow” and “winter” themes … so we expanded the criteria. Ultimately, I accepted anything with holiday or winter theming, or even specific mentions of them in the beer description. If it was described as being for the holidays or winter on the package, then it’s in this tasting. The end result is rather schizophrenic, but we’ll be back to tasting a single style next month (non-barrel aged imperial stout!).
Rules and Procedure
— There was no ABV limit for this tasting, for obvious reasons. And for the reasons explained above, there was no limit on which styles were acceptable.
— There was no limit of entries per brewery. The beers were separated into daily blind tastings that approximated a sample size of the entire field.
— Tasters included professional beer writers, brewery owners, multiple professional brewers and beer reps. Awesome, style-appropriate glassware is from Spiegelau.
— Beers were judged completely blind by how enjoyable they were as individual experiences and given scores of 1-100, which were then averaged. Entries were judged by how much we enjoyed them for whatever reason, not by how well they fit any kind of preconceived style guidelines. As such, this is not a BJCP tasting.
The Field: Christmas/Winter Beers #104-31
The biggest trend I’ve noticed in these winter tastings for the last few years is that it has become harder for the “standard” winter warmers and Christmas ales to stand out. Sure, many of them are tasty, and serve their purpose, but any time we have a specific style that makes up a vast chunk of the entries, it’s harder for one to really catch the attention of the tasters or rise above. There are a whole lot of spiced beers here; brews that taste like ginger snaps or snickerdoodles or oatmeal raisin cookies. A handful of those types of beers were able to rise into the top 30, but a lot of them are here in The Field. And you’ll no doubt notice that many of the big Belgian ales and barrel-aged beers made the final, but observe that not ALL of them did. Although objectivity in rating is difficult when comparing so many different types of styles, we tried our best to treat them all alike.
The beers below in The Field are simply listed in alphabetical order, and are thus not ranked. I repeat: These beers are not ranked.
Alaskan Brewing Co. Winter Ale
Bell’s Christmas Ale
Bell’s Winter White Ale
Boneyard Beer Co. Backbone Chocolate Espresso Stout
Boulder Beer Co. Killer Penguin
Boulder Beer Co. Slope Style Winter IPA
Brew Kettle Winter Warmer
Brooklyn Brewery Insulated
The Bruery 9 Ladies Dancing
Canton Brewing Co. Winter Beer
Capital Brewery Schwarz in a Box
Capital Brewery Winter Skal
Coronado Snowy Plover Winter IPA
Double Mountain Fa La La La La
Drake’s Brewing Jolly Rodger Winter Warmer
Elysian Brewing Co. Bifrost Winter Ale
Evolution Southern Pecan Pie Imperial Brown Ale
Fat Head’s Holly Jolly Christmas Ale
Fiction Beer Co. Wintry Emblem
Fort Collins Brewery Sled God
Fremont Brewing Co. Bonfire Ale
Fremont Brewing Co. Winter Ale
Full Sail Brewery Session Fest
Full Sail Brewery Shortest Day CDA
Full Sail Brewery Wassail
Full Sail Brewery Wreck the Halls
Golden Road Back Home Gingerbread Stout
Grand Teton Brewing Co. Coming Holiday Ale
Great Lakes Brewing Co. Christmas Ale
Great Lakes Brewing Co. Bourbon Barrel Aged Christmas Ale
Great Raft Brewing Awkward Uncle
Harpoon Brewery UFO Winter Blonde
Heavy Seas Winter Storm
Highland Brewing Co. Cold Mountain
Indeed Brewing Co. Old Friend
Iron Hill Reindeer’s Revenge
Karbach Yule Shoot Your Eye Out
Lakefront Brewery Brandy Barrel Spiced Winter Lager
MadTree Brewing Thundersnow
New Belgium Accumulation
New Belgium Anne Francoise
New Holland Brewing Cabin Fever
Ommegang Lovely, Dark and Deep
pFriem Belgian Christmas Ale
Point Beer Snow Pilot
Red Hare Brewing Berry Belgian Waffle
Revolution Brewing Co. Fistmas
Rogue Ales Santa’s Private Reserve
Rogue Ales Yellow Snow IPA
Saint Arnold Sailing Santa
Sam Adams Hopflake
Sam Adams White Christmas
Sam Adams Winter Lager
Samuel Smith Winter Ale
SanTan Brewing Co/ Winter Warmer
Schlafly Christmas Ale
Sebago Brewing Slick Nick
Second Self Beer Co. JunIPA
Shmaltz Brewing Hanukkah Beer
Sierra Nevada Christmas Jam
Silver City Brewery Wonderland Winter Lager
Sixpoint Global Warmer
Sixpoint “Old Ale”
Smuttynose Smistletoe
Summit Winter Ale
SweetWater Festive Ale
Third Street Brewhouse Sugar Shack
Troegs Blizzard of Hops
21st Amendment Fireside Chat
Two Brothers Brewing Co. Peppermint Porter
Two Roads Brewing Co. Holiday Ale
Uinta Brewing Rise & Pine
Warped Wing Esther’s Little Secret
Wormtown Brewery Blizzard of ‘78
Yards Poor Richard’s Tavern Spruce
Next: The finals! Christmas/winter beers #’s 30-1Pop sensation Beyoncé has been spotted on a night out with her husband, Jay Z. Nothing weird about that, right? Not unless we begin to delve into the infamous infidelity rumours. However, while the pair have been frequent visitors to the NBA playoffs, this time something truly brilliant happened.
If seated near the famous couple, most people would either a) act incredibly starstruck and avoid them at all costs, or b) go completely fanboy/fangirl and lost it, Steve Cespedes took a different approach (whether he knew it or not).
They were sitting court side at game six of the 2016 NBA Finals between the Cleveland Cavaliers and Golden State Nuggets last week at Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio.
They were there with none other than Steve Cespedes. Who is that? I have absolutely know idea. But from here on out everyone should just assume that he acquired some form of Beyoncé-esque super human powers from this exchange.
This harmless side eye from Queen B continued to blow up the internet. Click over to the next page to see the damage.It might not have been word of the year for 2013, but “Bitcoin” figured prominently in the shortlists. Known formerly only to true geeks, the mysterious cryptocurrency was in the news almost every day. Many of the stories were tales of riches gained and lost: a Norwegian student who discovered that the 5,600 bitcoins he purchased for $24 in 2009 were now worth $700,000; a British man who accidentally threw away a hard drive containing digital keys to bitcoins worth over $6 million. Others were tales of crime: websites where anonymous buyers could use bitcoins to buy drugs or even pool money for potential assassinations of public figures. And still others focused on attempts at regulating Bitcoin, which ranged from declaring it altogether illegal (Thailand) to embracing it wholeheartedly (Switzerland).
Why all the fuss? Much of it has to do with Bitcoin’s pure novelty and its wild price fluctuations (from under $20 per bitcoin at the start of 2013 to a high of $1,203 in December to around $925 now). But above all, it is because Bitcoin is an extraordinary idea -- one whose ramifications no one can fully foresee. Its foundational premise is that monetary systems do not need a central government. Instead, Bitcoin relies on clever mathematics to ensure that everyone plays by the rules. In theory, at least, no one can control Bitcoin. And this means, of course, that nobody can tell Bitcoin users what they should and shouldn’t be spending their money on -- for good or for ill. That presents regulating agencies with difficult questions: Should they try to control Bitcoin? Can they control it?
If all this sounds familiar, it should. The world faced these same questions in the early days of the Internet. Whether Bitcoin is more like AOL or Google, of course, is yet to be seen. Still, how governments choose to respond to it could change global finance for good.
Click here for the full infographic.
HOW IT WORKS
Bitcoins are sometimes called virtual cash. But a better analogy is• Argentinian made'serious error of judgment', say City • Tevez: 'I did not mean any disrespect to Sir Alex Ferguson'
Manchester City have criticised Carlos Tevez for a "significant error of judgment" after he waved a banner reading "RIP Fergie" during the club's title-winning parade. The newly crowned Premier League champions also apologised to Sir Alex Ferguson and Manchester United for the striker's conduct.
Tevez was handed the placard, which had the offending words written on the image of a gravestone, by someone in the crowd watching the club's celebration on the streets of Manchester.
The move prompted hundreds of Twitter users to voice disquiet at a gesture that may be viewed in bad taste due to Ferguson being 70 years old. Tevez later issued an apologetic statement but that did not save him from criticism from his club.
A City spokeswoman said: "The creation of the tasteless material is in itself reprehensible and in accepting and brandishing it, Carlos has made a significant error of judgment.
"The club wishes to express its sincerest apologies to Sir Alex Ferguson and Manchester United Football Club for any offence or distress caused."
The meaning behind the banner could well be a reference to Ferguson's famous response when asked three years ago if United would ever be underdogs against City. "Not in my lifetime," he said.
Tevez was smiling as he lifted the banner above his head on the top of City's open-top bus parade but later said: "I got carried away in the excitement of the moment and I certainly didn't mean any disrespect to Sir Alex Ferguson, who I admire as a man and a manager."
Tevez played for two years under Ferguson at Old Trafford before leaving for City in 2009. United's manager said at the time that the striker, who had been on loan, was not worth the asking price to sign permanently. "Quite simply he is not worth £25m," he said.
This is not the first time that Tevez has upset his employers at City. He spent more than three months on unauthorised leave in Argentina after falling out with the manager, Roberto Mancini, for refusing to warm up at Bayern Munich.
Tevez's conduct soured City's celebration of their first top-flight title since 1968. The club have, though, inevitably started thinking about next season and are determined to take a tough line over their strategy in the transfer market this summer, refusing to pay over the odds to strengthen their squad or sell any player for less than their valuation.
With the demands of Uefa's financial fair play regulations City know they may have to sell before operating towards the higher end of the market, with up to 11 of Mancini's squad potentially available and Eden Hazard, the Lille attacking midfielder, among their prime targets.
The club believe that Milan's failure to prise Tevez away in January for less than the £25m asking price, despite the striker's dispute with Mancini, provided a watershed decision that underlined their refusal to let players leave on the cheap.
Ferguson claimed on Monday night that City "are going to spend fortunes, pay stupid money, pay silly salaries" but that is disputed by Khaldoon al-Mubarak. City's chairman said on Monday there would be "no major changes", as Mancini is generally content with his squad. Mubarak also stated the club's long-term vision is to focus on the development of homegrown talent.
Mubarak told the club's website: "Let's start from this point - this team we have is a championship team, it's won the Premier League so we |
Shays of Connecticut loses, which is possible, that would leave New England without a single House Republican.
CNN is projecting that Tom Udall, the Democrat, is the winner in New Mexico over Republican Steve Pearce. Added to Warner, Hagan and Shaheen, that makes four Democratic pickups. Mr. Udall’s cousin, Mark Udall, has his own race in Colorado, which still hasn’t been called. The Udalls have a rich history in the West. Their fathers — Tom’s (Stuart) and Mark’s (Morris) — were legendary.
CNN projects that Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who battled mightily against his challenger, Bruce Lunsford, a businessman, will survive and be re-elected. Mr. McConnell poured extra money into his campaign in recent weeks and stumped throughout the state, even as he was hammered for his leadership on the economic bailout. But imagine being the minority leader with an even smaller minority.
Some may consider the turnover from red to blue in North Carolina’s Senate race a harbinger for the top of the ballot. The state’s early voters showed a higher percentage of African-Americans than their overall portion of the electorate, and they tend to vote Democratic.
But Senator Dole, who once made a bid for her party’s presidential nomination, seemed at times early on to have taken her re-election for granted. She wasn’t campaigning that hard or investing that much time on the stump earlier this year, at a time when the Obama campaign moved in with its sophisticated registration drive and ground game. In addition, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee began giving Ms. Hagan an enormous lift with a series of campaign ads. Some of them were quite artful, questioning Mrs. Dole’s real residence, or, as in this one depicting two men rocking on a porch asking whether she shouldn’t be the senator from China as all the jobs went overseas.
Some projections are showing that longtime Representative Tom Feeney, a Republican, may be losing to his Democratic challenger, Suzanne Kosmas in Florida. She racked up early leads as the returns were coming for the 24th CD that covers Titusville and New Smyrna Beach. She is a former state legislator whose used the airwaves in a well-financed campaign to hammer away at Mr. Feeney, the veteran lawmaker. Mr. Feeney was among those lawmakers who went on a golfing spree with Jack Abramoff, the disgraced (and now imprisoned) lobbyist. The Florida congressman’s trip was to Scotland.
Remember Larry Craig of the “wide stance” at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport last year? Mr. Craig’s seat was always considered a safely Republican one, and it appears more than likely that Lt. Gov. Jim Risch will inherit the solidly red slot.
The Times calls the North Carolina Senate race for Kay Hagan.
Our colleague Sarah Wheaton caught up with Dalton Hatfield (remember him?), who became the darling of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s run for president when he sold his bike to contribute to her campaign. With a day off from his sixth-grade classes in McAndrews, Ky., Dalton has been working for Bruce Lunsford, a Democrat, in a competitive race to unseat Senator Mitch McConnell, the minority leader. “We’re very confident,” Dalton, now 12, told Sarah.
He said he “was not that excited” after Mrs. Clinton withdrew from the race, but he got involved in the Lunsford campaign after she invited him to join her at a Lunsford rally. Since then, he’s been canvassing and putting up signs.
The Times calls the New Hampshire Senate race for Jeanne Shaheen, adding yet another seat to the Democratic column.
In a closely contested Senate race between two old foes in New Hampshire, NBC is calling a victory for former Gov. Jeanne Shaheen over Senator John E. Sununu, a moderate Republican. And Fox News projects that Kay Hagan will beat Senator Elizabeth Dole in North Carolina.
In Maine, Susan Collins won re-election, despite a few moments there earlier this summer when her challenger, Tom Allen, tried to wrest the seat from her. And in South Carolina, Lindsey Graham, longtime Republican and stalwart campaign supporter of Senator John McCain, won re-election.
The McConnell race: Even though Kentucky went red for Senator John McCain, as expected, in the presidential race, we won’t be calling the Senate race there anytime soon because there are no exit polls, too few precincts are reporting and it was considered a close matchup heading in to today.
In other races in Virginia, (besides the big one for president), there are two other House seats we want to watch: Republican Thelma Drake’s in the 2nd CD and the 11th CD seat being vacated by Representative Tom Davis, a Republican who is retiring.
In a profile by Peter Baker awhile back, Mr. Davis — who was ushered in 14 years ago during the Gingrich era — expressed his dissatisfaction with his party’s label under Mr. Bush. Mr. Baker wrote:
The revolution is over, the thrill is gone and the Republican brand under President Bush has, in Davis’s view, been so tarnished that, as he likes to say, “if we were a dog food, they would take us off the shelf.” These will be Davis’s last few weeks in Congress. He decided against re-election, disaffected by the partisanship, by a process he calls broken, by a party he considers hijacked by social conservatives. “We’re just not getting much done,” he said.
No Surprise Here: The Times has just called Virginia’s Senate race for Mark Warner, the former governor. Exchanging one Warner for another, so to speak, although the two hold very different views. Mark Warner had very little competition from former Republican governor Jim Gilmore, who in the early part of the presidential primary season tried to wade through the thick field of G.O.P. contenders but dropped out early.
Great Anticipation | 6:35 p.m. Get ready for a rush of news tonight on the congressional front, which promises cliffhangers in some Senate races, including a possible runoff in the deep South, as well as an anticipated rout of Republicans in formerly G.O.P.-safe districts.
While we don’t want to be predictive, we already know that the tightening of some Senate races – reaching even the longtime Kentucky seat of Minority leader Mitch McConnell — will make for an exciting night. (And by the way, Kentucky’s polls closed at 6 p.m., so we may know more about his contest against Democratic challenger Bruce Lunsford sooner rather than later.)
Fanning out across the country, what’s at issue tonight is no less than a broadening of the majority in the Senate for the Democrats, who now hold a narrow 51-49 lead.
That seems certain, given that the Republicans have to defend 23 of the 35 seats up this year in a climate unparalleled in recent memory. President Bush’s unpopularity had been a worry-vane for members of his party facing re-election long before the economic meltdown this fall.
The question tonight is: By how much and by how many seats will the Democratic tide rise? All eyes will be watching to see if the Democrats can reach a 60-seat majority that would be, as our dear mentor and former colleague Adam Clymer would prefer we call it, a “filibuster-resistant majority.” If the Democrats reach 60, they would be better able to thwart Republicans’ efforts to block legislation by filibuster, a tactic they have employed frequently the last two years. Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, has stopped short of declaring that Democrats will reach the magic number, but some signs point that they’ll come fairly close.
The Republicans, led by Senator John Ensign, the head of the party’s Senate election arm, have been struggling to stave off substantial losses. At one point last summer, Mr. Ensign told a group of us that if they could keep their losses to four seats, that would be a good night. While it’s not clear that their opponents will meet the 60-seat hurdle, it’s fairly apparent that the Republicans will lose more than four. The National Republican Senatorial Committee is keeping score at its own Web site.
In both House and Senate races, in state after state, the foreclosure rates, the financial downturn, the earlier spike in gasoline prices, all turned into a groundswell of unhappiness with anything associated with the Bush administration, including his party’s followers. By contrast, the 2006 mid-term elections felled many Republican incumbents in the House, who were tarnished by the Abramoff lobbying and the page scandals (in seats in Ohio, Florida and elsewhere), while opposition to the war in Iraq helped elect their Democratic opponents. This year, the war subsided over time as an overarching issue, only to be replaced by the economic crisis and the $700 billion bailout.
We’ll be live blogging updates and results in critical Senate races and some of the most competitive House races (all 435 seats are up) throughout the evening, and using Twitter at times to telegraph our thoughts. In addition, we have a series of maps and dashboard graphics where you can watch the returns in real time, and map out your own game plans, depending on who’s winning where as the returns come in.
For the Senate, the Big Board page;
and the Senate map page. For the House of Representatives, the Big Board and the House map page.
For the presidential race, my colleague Katharine Q. Seelye will be live blogging the main event, and you can watch the returns or view what’s going on through the presidential map.
Here’s a breakdown of some of the most competitive Senate seats, or in some instances, simply interesting ones:
Georgia Wow, did this race turn downward for the incumbent Republican, Saxby Chambliss, within the fall season. Buffeted by the ill economic winds, and an extraordinary early voter turnout among African-Americans, Mr. Chambliss has lost what once seemed a sure re-election bid. His opponent, Jim Martin, has made significant gains in recent weeks, and this race is quite possibly going to spill over into runoff territory. Georgia law requires a runoff, which would be held on Dec. 2 if neither candidate gets a majority of more than 50 percent. My colleague Carl Hulse examined the consequences of a runoff, and the forces driving the close contest, just a few days ago.
New Hampshire: Senator John Sununu, a moderate Republican, has been defending one of the hottest seats going this year, in his re-election fight with former Gov. Jeanne Shaheen, the Democrat. Two years ago, Democrats captured the House seats here, upending a tradition of Republican congressmen in this wildly independent state. My colleague David Herszenhorn, has been closely following this rematch between two bitter rivals in our “Hot Seat” series. His latest dispatch on Saturday signaled how vulnerable Mr. Sununu may be.
Virginia: What a difference a few years makes. In 2006, the Virginia seat that gave Democrats the razor-line edge in the Senate was the last one decided, remember? The incumbent George Allen, of “macaca-fame” wasn’t down by much and didn’t concede on election night as his challenger, Jim Webb, waited and waited.
Now, with the state’s elder statesman, the longtime veteran John Warner retiring at age 81 after five terms, the open seat has been one Democrat’s for the taking. Former Gov. Mark Warner (no relation) has raced so far ahead of his Republican opponent, Jim Gilmore (another of the state’s governors), from the get-go that you won’t need exit polls or a rising tide of blue votes in the state to call that one. The only question for Mr. Warner will be a win by how much?
North Carolina: Senator Elizabeth Dole, who was elected just six years ago, has faced a surprisingly rough re-election battle with some polls now indicating she may lose. First, Democrats went after her for not spending much time in her home state, with an address at the Watergate. Then in this last week, Mrs. Dole began broadcasting ads titled “Godless” against her opponent, Kay Hagan, stemming from a fund-raiser the Democrat attended that was sponsored by a group of atheists. The Dole ads were roundly criticized, and viewed as a desperate move against her opponent, who also teaches Sunday school.
Minnesota: Few races have been as downright nasty – or as flush with personal attacks — as the contest between incumbent Republican Norman Coleman and Democrat Al Franken. In their final debate on Sunday night, the moderator called it the most negative in Minnesota history. Mr. Franken painted his opponent as allied with Mr. Bush at every turn, while the Republicans repeatedly hammered the Democratic comedian-turned-serious candidate for writings that were considered offensive and his failure to pay several years of taxes. Ad after ad in this race took on the purchase of men’s suits or the derogatory language used by Mr. Franken. Mr. Coleman had been under fire for several years from more liberal constituencies because of his support for the Iraq war. Complicating the results in this contest is the candidacy of Dean Barkley, the Independence Party candidate, whose popularity in the polls has sometimes reached double-digits.
Alaska: By any stretch of the imagination, this race should’ve been cooked once Senator Ted Stevens, 84, was convicted two weeks ago in a public corruption case. Even before the trial, the longtime senator had been in a close race with Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich, the Democratic challenger. But Mr. Stevens vowed to fight on, calling his trial unjust despite the fact that Minority leader McConnell, Senator John McCain and others called for him to step aside. This week Mr. Stevens put up a two-minute commercial appealing to voters, and still has broad support in his home state after seven terms. But the criminal case — coupled with other sprawling corruption inquiries that have ensnared several Alaska politicians has to be wearying for voters.
Oregon Another Republican incumbent with a rather moderate record, Senator Gordon Smith, also has watched his chances for re-election grow slimmer as his opponent, Jeff Merkley, gained ground. National Democrats targeted this race, another one in which ties to the Bush administration and its policies wafted across the state’s landscape. Mr. Merkley seems sure to benefit from the Obama-wave sweeping the state. This is the only state where Mr. Obama did an advertisement for a Senate candidate this year, one that was unveiled early last week as the state’s vote-by-mail only system reached its peak.
The House Democratic leaders say they expect to pick up somewhere between 20 and 30 seats tonight. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has out-raised and outspent its Republican counterpart in a cycle that has spelled trouble for many G.O.P. incumbents. The DCCC spent $73 million, against the NRCC’s R20 million through last week, according to recent reports.
Some seats we’ll be watching tonight, as outlined by Carl Hulse in a piece about how deeply into red territory the Democrats were going as they smelled blood in state after state.
Among open House seats Democrats say they have a good chance of capturing include those being vacated by Representatives Ralph Regula and Deborah Pryce in Ohio, Jim Ramstad in Minnesota, Jerry Weller in Illinois and Rick Renzi in Arizona. On the list of incumbents Democrats believe they can defeat are Representatives John R. Kuhl Jr. in New York, Joe Knollenberg in Michigan, Tom Feeney and Ric Keller in Florida, Don Young in Alaska, Robin Hayes in North Carolina and Bill Sali in Idaho.
Among other House races we’re watching:
In Pennsylvania, the ever-outspoken Jack Murtha, a Democrat, infuriated many constituents a few weeks ago by calling his region racist.
In Florida, scandal again dogs the 16th Congressional District, where Mark Foley’s page imbroglio in 2006 spelled trouble for several of his G.O.P. colleagues in other parts of the country. This time around, his Democratic successor Tim Mahoney, is involved in his own scandals involving extramarital affair(s), with questions about money that was paid to one of them.
Special thanks for Congressional race coverage goes to Carl Hulse and David Herszenhorn.Get the biggest football 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
Manchester City manager Roberto Mancini ducked out of a ceremony to welcome his title-winning team to their pre-season training camp in Austria on Sunday night as speculation grows over his future.
However, Blues fans will be relieved that the Italian HAS travelled with the squad to the high-altitude base for the next two weeks after he was linked with quitting for the Russian national team job.
The title-winning players arrived in Seefeld tonight to cheers from locals and the boom of an oompah band, but Mancini avoided the crowds.
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Sources suggested he may have used a private entrance round the back of the five-star hotel or even delayed his arrival altogether to escape attention.
The move disappointed local officials, who had planned to hand over a specially-made lederhosen to the Blues boss on the red carpet.
City players who have been on Euro 2012 duty have been given a break and will not be coming to the camp, during which the club will play three training matches.
A crowd of around 500 - one-sixth of the village's population - had turned out to welcome the latest Premier League club to stay in the spa resort in the Alps.
Players from AS Monaco are staying in the four-star hotel next door to City.
Read more:HOUSTON - The eldest son of a slain Houston priest was arrested in Mississippi and is the prime suspect in the brutal murders of his father, mother and their 5-year-old son.
Isaac Tiharihondi was taken into custody around 2:30 a.m. Wednesday in Jackson, Mississippi, by FBI agents. Jackson police said he was arrested at the Diamond Motel on Highway 80.
Tiharihondi, 19, is now charged with two counts of capital murder. He remains in custody in Raymond, Mississippi, awaiting extradition back to Harris County.
Diamond Motel manager Amit Patel said that Tiharihondi checked in on Saturday and had been in room 207 ever since. Patel also showed KPRC2 some of Tiharihondi's receipts. They indicated that he paid for at least one of the nights at the motel with his father's credit card. Patel said Tiharihondi mostly kept to himself.
"I was surprised," Patel said of Tiharihondi's arrest. "Because every night was quiet. That guy stayed three or four days (with) no trouble."
A friend of the family, Nancy Taylor, talked exclusively to KPRC2 and said Tiharihondi was a sweet person that everyone loved.
"There was absolutely nothing in his demeanor that was out of the ordinary," said Taylor "He couldn't have been more pleasant, more sweet, more fun."
She says she took him out to lunch on what could have been the day after he allegedly murdered his family.
"It makes you think there had to be something terribly, psychologically wrong," she said.
Crime scene investigators spent nearly two days at a west Houston apartment where Israel Ahimbisibwe, his wife, Dorcus, and their young son, Israel Ahimbisibwe Jr., were found dead Monday.
Church members went to the apartment in the 800 block of Strey Lane to check on the family after they failed to show up for services at the Redeemer Episcopal Church Sunday.
Court documents state the three bodies were found covered with blankets and towels in a rear bathroom of the apartment, with the child in the bathtub. Investigators said the pastor and his wife were beaten to death with a bat, lamp and hammer. The boy suffered stab wounds to his neck and back.
According to court documents, floor rugs inside the apartment were moved in such a manner to conceal blood stains throughout the apartment, and that there were signs the bodies had been moved or dragged.
There were no signs of forced entry, investigators said, and the only unlocked window was in a back bedroom used by Tiharihondi. The window was unlocked from the inside with the blinds closed and the screen in place.
The wallets of Israel and Dorcus Ahimbisibwe were found lying open on the floor and were missing credit cards, court documents show. An ATM receipt for an invalid transaction on Jan. 28 due to a wrong PIN entered was on the dining room table.
According to investigators, the last time anyone saw the victims alive was on Jan. 27.
Neighbors reported last seeing Tiharihondi on the property Friday evening. He had not been seen since. Investigators had been trying to locate Tiharihondi for questioning since Tuesday.
Tiharihondi allegedly told church members he was going to enlist in the Marine Corps, but Marine recruiters in Houston said there is no record of that ever happening.
Court documents reveal Tiharihondi's brother, who is in boarding school in California, told investigators when he last spoke to Dorcus Ahimbisibwe on Jan. 27, she told him she didn't believe Tiharihondi was being truthful about enlisting and that she and Israel were planning to talk to Tiharihondi about it.
Investigator said Dorcus Ahimbisibwe's cell phone hadn't been used since Jan. 28 and Tiharihondi's cell phone hadn't been used since Jan. 31.
According to court documents, an FBI agent spoke with a cab driver who stated she picked up Tiharihondi on Jan. 31 in New Orleans, Louisiana, and transported him to another location. She told investigators he had a temporary cell phone with him, and he tried to buy her cell phone from her, but she refused.
That's when the investigation led to Tiharihondi in Mississippi.
Autopsies were performed on the victims Tuesday.
A prayer service for the three victims is scheduled for 2 p.m. Thursday at Rice Chapel, and at 6 p.m. Thursday at St. John the Divine.
Stay with KPRC 2 News and Click2Houston.com for the latest details on this story.
Copyright 2015 by Click2Houston.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Internationally recognized Greek filmmaker and producer Theodoros Angelopoulos died on Tuesday night after he was seriously injured by a passing motorcycle in the area of Drapetsona, in Athens. The accident happened at 7 pm on Tuesday while Angelopoulos was shooting for a new film project.
The 77-year-old filmmaker tried to cross the street when a motorcycle hit him severely. The rider of the motorcycle was a special marshal, who at the time was off duty.
Both Angelopoulos and the motorcycle rider were immediately taken to a Faliro hospital for further medical examinations.
Theo Angelopoulos was born in Athens in 1935. He studied law at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, but after his military service went to Paris to attend the Sorbonne. He soon dropped out to study film at the IDHEC (Institute of Advanced Cinematographic Studies) before returning to Greece. He was hired as film critic for the daily Allagi, which was closed down by the military junta. He began working on Forminx Story, a feature-length film about a pop group in 1965 but the film was never finished. This was followed by Broadcast (Ekpompbi) a short he made in 1968.
In 1970 he completed his first feature Reconstruction (Anaparastassi). “Out of the story”s thriller-type plot,” writes Jean-Loup Passek, “- an immigrant returning from Germany is murdered by his wife and her lover – emerges an ideological style and approach which sets the film quite apart from the conformism of Greek cinema of the same period. The crime itself is far less interesting for the filmmaker than the ins and outs, as well as the individual and collective implications, of the inquiry.” The film won an award at the Festival d’Hyeres and got noticed in Berlin, calling the attention of critics the world over to Theo Angelopoulos.
His next three films make up a trilogy on the history of contemporary Greece. Days of ’36 (Meres tou ’36) takes place just prior to the election during which General Metaxas imposed his dictatorship. The film is about the sequestration of a reactionary Member of Parliament. The government hesitates several times, but the hostage-taker is finally killed and this murder foretells the greater repression to follow.
The Traveling Players (O Thiassos, 1975), received the International Critics’ Award at the Quinzaine des realisateurs, at the Cannes Film Festival. Largely considered a masterpiece of modern cinema, the action centers around a troupe of actors touring Greece from 1939 to 1952. Functioning on the principle of “collective memory”, the film deliberately ignores chronological principles, traveling at will through the recent and dramatic past, including the Metaxas dictatorship, the Nazi occupation, the Greek resistance and its various tendencies, the victory of the monarchy, the civil war, the defeat of the communists in 1949, and the 1952 elections.
The members of the troupe relate to each other on several levels – as characters in the popular story they are attempting to perform; through the psychology of their characters; and on an historical level, concerning their relationship to Greece and its evolution. They bear the illustrious names of the Atridae. “For the first time in the short history of Greek cinema,” explains Tassos Goudelis, “a film makes a truly ambitious attempt to dramatize the ordeals of contemporary Greece. Allusions to the Atridae give the viewer direction, inviting him to take stock of Greece’s recent history – both political and social – in the light of a more global destiny, the roots of which reach back to ancient times. The tragic dimensions of the characters are explored in the conflict which pits them against reigning political power.”
With this four-hour fresco, and then with The Hunters (I Kynighi, 1977), which begins with the discovery of the body of a resistance soldier by six hunters (introducing the story of Greek political history from 1949 to 1977) some of the thematic and stylistic constants of Angelopoulos’ cinema were established – the weight of history, a clinical examination of power, a Brechtian theatricality, wherein the individual has no importance with respect to the group, a rejection of conventional narration in favor of an intentionally broken one, in which stationary cameras and sequence-length shots create an alternative sense of time.
Power is once again at issue in Megalexandros (1980), the story of a turn-of-the-century highway robber who attempts to reign as tyrant. Born of common folk, he is ultimately destroyed by the common folk. After making a short documentary in 1982, Athens, Return to the Acropolis, Angelopoulos collaborated for the first time with screenwriter and poet Tonino Guerra on Voyage to Cythera (Taxidi sta Kithira, 1984), which won the Cannes Festival’s International Critics’ Award for best screenplay. We follow the path of a filmmaker who wants to make a film about his own father and who returns to the Soviet Union after thirty years in exile, a stranger in his native land. Through this story of a society in which all spirituality appears to have been banished, Angelopoulos expresses more generally his own disillusionment with democratic Greece. A quest for identity, quite clearly marked by Antonioni, replaces the study of the group. The voyage, usually a coming home and signaled by the crossing of a border, becomes a basic tenet of the filmmaker’s writing.
The Beekeeper (O Melissokomos, 1986), the last trip of an old man who has left his family, then Landscape in the Mist (Topio stin Omichli, 1988), the voyage of two children searching for an imaginary father, pursues this examination of a world without spirit and direction. In the latter, which won the Silver Lion at the Venice Mostra, Theo Angelopoulos quotes explicitly from The Traveling Players through the character of Orestes, who meets the film’s two heroes. His next film is The Suspended Step of the Stork (To meteoro vima tou pelargou, 1991). Set on the borderline between two imaginary countries, in the heart of a village overflowing with refugees, a journalist believes he has recognized a politician who had mysteriously disappeared. With this film, Theo Angelopoulos begins his bitter reflection on the loss of reference points in the world since the fall of the Berlin Wall.
In 1994, he began shooting Ulysses’ Gaze (To vlema tou Odyssea), throughout the Balkans. Writing about the film, which starred Harvey Keitel, Andrew Horton says, “«Ulysses’ Gaze is a triple odyssey. On one level it is a search for the roots of Balkan cinema and, really, of cinema itself. It is also a voyage through the history of the Balkans, leading up to and including the ongoing tragedy of Bosnia. Finally, it represents a man’s individual journey through his life, his loves and his losses.» Ulysses’ Gaze won the Grand Jury Prize and the International Critics’ Prize at Cannes and was named “European Film of the Year” by the critics.
With his next film Eternity and a Day (Mia eoniotita kai mia mera) Angelopoulos finally won the coveted Palm D’Or in Cannes and represented Greece at the American Film Academy Awards. Michael Wilmington called Eternity and a Day “a visually spellbinding study of an aging writer’s journey through the present and past.» while in VARIETY David Stratton wrote, “«Eternity and a Day finds Angelopoulos refining his themes and style. Just as the other great filmmakers have in the past explored similar themes time and again, so Angelopoulos has evolved and come up with one of his most lucid and emotional journeys thus far.”
His regular collaborators include the cinematographer Giorgos Arvanitis, the screenwriter Tonino Guerra and the composer Eleni Karaindrou.
Angelopoulos died on Tuesday January 24th 2012 in Athens.
Filmography
* Feature Films
o Reconstruction (Anaparastasi) (1970)
o Days of ’36 (Meres tou ’36) (1972)
o The Travelling Players (O Thiassos) (1975)
o The Hunters (I Kinighi) (1977)
o Alexander the Great (O Megalexandros) (1980)
o Voyage to Cythera (Taxidi stin Kythira) (1984)
o The Beekeeper (O Melissokomos) (1986)
o Landscape in the Mist (Topio stin Omichli) (1988)
o The Suspended Step of the Stork (To Meteoro Vima tou Pelargou) (1991)
o Ulysses’ Gaze (To Vlemma tou Odyssea) (1995)
o Eternity and a Day (Mia aioniothta kai mia mera) (1998)
o The Weeping Meadow (Trilogia I: To Livadi pou dakryzi) (2004)
o The Dust of Time (I skoni tou chronou) (2009)
* Other Films
o Broadcast (I Ekpombi) (1968) (Short Film)
o Athens (Athina, epistrofi stin Akropoli) (1983) (TV Movie)
o Lumière and Company (Lumière et compagnie) (1995) (Segment of portmanteau film, with contributions from 40 directors)
o Chacun son cinéma (2007) (Segment of portmanteau film, with contributions from 33 directors)The Los Angeles Clippers have officially listed star point guard Chris Paul as questionable for Game 1 of the Western Conference semifinals against the Houston Rockets on Monday.
Paul is receiving around-the-clock treatment after straining his left hamstring in Saturday night's series-clinching win over the San Antonio Spurs.
Chris Paul is receiving around-the-clock treatment after straining his left hamstring in Saturday night's series-clinching win over the San Antonio Spurs. Stephen Dunn/Getty Images
"I know he had an MRI and that all came out pretty well," coach Doc Rivers said Sunday. "We'll wait until tomorrow to find out. You have to be careful. If there's any risk, he won't play, I can tell you that right now. I just don't know yet. We'll find out tomorrow."
Rivers had been pessimistic about Paul's status after Saturday night's game.
"Yeah, yeah, very," he said then when asked whether he was concerned about Paul's injury. "Someone is going to have to step up. I was thinking it's funny how coaches think with three minutes left, I'm thinking, 'OK, if we win this game, thank God I signed Lester [Hudson] because now you have two guards left.' We almost went big, and then we would literally have no other guards left. That was the first thing I thought.
"Chris may play or may not play the first game, but the game is Monday. My guess right now if I had to guess, I would say no, but I'm not sure."
Paul grabbed his left hamstring right before hitting a 3-pointer to give the Clippers a 23-22 lead with 2:11 remaining in the first quarter and exited 20 seconds later. He looked to be in tears as his head was buried in his hands while Clippers head athletic trainer Jasen Powell talked to him and sent him back to the locker room.
Paul returned in the second quarter but was limping noticeably throughout the game and occasionally grabbed his left hamstring. He finished with 27 points -- including the game-winning shot with 1 second left -- and six assists.
"Yeah, I'm going to get with our training staff," Paul said after the game. "I know my grandmother back in North Carolina is praying right now. She's praying, and she'll let my mom pray over it and all that, too, and it will be all right."
Paul, who turns 30 on Wednesday, averaged 19.1 points, 10.2 assists and 1.9 assists per game this season. This was the first time in his 10-year NBA career he started all 82 games during the regular season.by
To what extent do information and communication technologies (ICTs) contribute to the development and political transformation of human societies? How might the implementation and adoption of technologies, such as cell phones and the Internet, affect the political fates of some of the world’s least-included nation-states, peoples, and communities, which desperately invest their time and efforts on democratic development? Technology itself is an important part of nearly everything human, not merely an aid to contemporary human activity. It has powerful effects that reshape human activities and alter their meaning, sometimes without overt perceptibility. Also, the human relationship with technology is forever evolving; through social and political constructs, and also entrepreneurial energies in some cases, the final outcomes of technology in development will have an increasingly multifaceted interaction. Still, can ICTs in particular affect different levels of democracy or political corruption in, say, ‘emerging societies’? Can it play a more decisive role in shaping development? The answer is in the affirmative. The Arab Spring presented the world a moment in time when human action stirred up a great deal of curiosity about the ICT and democratic development issue. After 12 June 2009, when millions of citizens voted in Iran’s 10th presidential election, state-run media announced that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the incumbent candidate, had won reelection to a second four-year term. Hundreds of thousands of Iranians flocked to the streets and public city spaces in the following days to protest what they decried a nationwide election fraud perpetrated by their government. The state swiftly cut service to cell phones and stymied the Internet there. It also ejected most foreign journalists. Nevertheless, many Iranians found their way around state-sponsored communication and information sharing impediments. The world witnessed video footage and news of the historic events as they poured out of Iran’s ICTs systems and into the eyes of the world. Some weeks later, the ruling faction dampened public dissent through violence, fear, and incarceration. Yet, cellular phone video and Internet dialogue proved to the world that many Iranians yearned for change. By the 20th century, scholars had already outspokenly observed that technology, as well as changes in development, exacted more influence on societies and their processes and policies than any other elements of like importance. In a pre-Internet world, some reasoned that technological advances, and the implicit structural changes they portended, would mark society with both organization and deliberate control. They were unsure, though, as to what other political, social, or existential changes the computer age might bring. Many thought technological determinism (or, the powerful impact of machines on the course of history) would be apropos until the public might have far-reaching control over technology. Examining the influence of ICTs—cell phones and the Internet, particularly—does more than suggest that technology affects both the democracy and political corruption in emerging societies now. The extant dynamism between ICTs and the economic, social, and political infrastructures is plainly evident. And, it is more than worth considering as humanity progresses and wrestles with persistent problems in development. Today, nearly all “developing” countries maintain a modern sector. Some of the patterns that living and working create in such countries mirror those of “developed” countries. At the same time, however, there are “non-modern” sectors. Patterns of living and working in these sectors can also be found to decay at an accelerated clip. Yet, if ICTs make for a critical pillar of “modern society,” then understanding why many countries strive for progress in relevant areas is critical. ICTs and their economic and political effects are manifold. Studies show that such technology enhances socio-economic development. Striving for a more inclusive information society also affects what development looks like and how economics and politics factor into preexisting social power structures. Some benefits include gains in productivity or better performance in education—even newer social business models and opportunities. Many countries that invest in ICTs are also moving towards “more intensive” approaches to ICT usage because the benefits of ICTs are not a given; successful implementation remains a key factor in determining results. Moreover, if an economy fails to recognize the advantage of using and investing in these new technologies, then the future effects that such decisions have on economic growth and development will be uncertain for a time. Recognizing the difficulties with development goals and technological advances never ceases to be important. Consider the case of Serbia, which set out to achieve European Union (EU) development goals. Serbia worked on becoming a full member of the EU; however, its ICTs development indicators proved considerably lower than requisite standards. Serbia recognized its need to improve upon this. Despite that the ICT sector was one of Serbia’s most lively and quickly growing, underscored by years of |
a dark room, facedown on a bed—and Marsalis was anally raping her. The pain felt as if he were ripping her in two. Her limbs were leaden, her mind sluggish. "Stop, please stop," Leigh mumbled. Marsalis simply chuckled. Leigh slid back into unconsciousness but kept resurfacing that endless night to discover Marsalis violating her limp body. Finally, she opened her eyes to an apartment filled with late-morning light.
"Good morning," Marsalis said, smiling and leaning in for a kiss; Leigh, stunned, kissed him back. "I had a wonderful time last night. I hope you did, too," she says he told her, staring into her eyes. Leigh felt groggy and confused as she pulled on her jeans. So when Marsalis walked Leigh to her car and suggested they get together again, Leigh heard herself say, "Sure." She was certain she hadn't gone to bed with her date of her own volition—and that she couldn't possibly have blacked out after barely three drinks—but her certainty was softening in the face of his chivalry. Am I reading the situation wrong? Leigh wondered as she drove herself home. Would a rapist act this nicely?
Baffling as her experience seemed on that day in February 2005, Leigh was only the latest woman to struggle with the same confusion. Because Jeffrey Marsalis wasn't really an ER doctor looking for love. He was an unemployed paramedic and nursing-school dropout whose true profession, prosecutors assert, was full-time predator. Investigators would discover 21 women who claimed Marsalis drugged and raped them—many listed in a file on his computer called "The Yearly Calendar of Women." Authorities suspect his true tally is far higher. "Any woman was potential prey," says Philadelphia special prosecutor Joseph Khan. "Plenty of women were attracted to him, but this guy was aroused by the very idea of nonconsent."
As Leigh drove home that morning, she had no idea what lay in her future: that she would join 9 of those 21 accusers to face Marsalis in Philadelphia courtrooms over the course of two trials, telling nearly identical stories of assault. They would be 10 educated, professional women versus a demonstrated liar—a man who had pretended to be a doctor, a CIA employee, even an astronaut—whom a court-appointed psychologist would decide met the legal definition of a "sexually violent predator." And yet the most remarkable thing about both trials wasn't the way they exposed the alleged tactics of a serial date rapist. It was that despite the outrageousness of the accusations against Marsalis, the testimony of 10 women wasn't enough to get a single rape conviction against him. The verdicts in these cases would be far lighter than his accusers sought—and victims' advocates say the outcome reveals a disturbing truth about the justice system. Nationwide, despite all the legal advances of the past three decades, little has changed for women who report a date rape. Because in far too many instances, juries don't believe date rape exists.
When it comes to rape prosecutions as a whole, so much has changed for the better: Thirty years' worth of advocacy, better investigation techniques and tighter laws have led more women than ever to come forward and report the crime to police. But in cases of nonstranger rape—which represent three quarters of all rape cases in the United States—all that progress often comes screeching to a halt in the deliberation room. "Cases where a victim knows her assailant are still extraordinarily hard to win," says Jennifer Long, director of the National Center for the Prosecution of Violence Against Women in Alexandria, Virginia. "Juries are extremely resistant."
Until now, it's been impossible to know exactly how many of these cases collapse in court, because no prosecution data was being collected. But the research and training group End Violence Against Women International in Addy, Washington, just completed a four-year study across eight states and has allowed self an exclusive early look at its conclusions. Of all the rape cases that come across prosecutors' desks, stranger-rape cases have the best courtroom odds, with 68 percent ending with a conviction or guilty plea. But when a woman knows her assailant briefly (less than 24 hours), a mere 43 percent of cases end in a conviction. When they know each other longer than 24 hours, the conviction rate falls to 35 percent. Even fewer, 29 percent, of intimate partners and exes are punished. "And keep in mind, the cases that come through the prosecutor's door are the strongest ones—strong enough for the police to have referred them along in the first place," notes EVAW International research director Kimberly Lonsway, Ph.D.
Back in the 1970s, most reported rapes were committed by strangers; those cases are now in the minority. Yet juries—and many judges as well—still think of rape as being only between strangers, says Lynn Hecht Schafran, director of the National Judicial Education Program of Legal Momentum, a woman's advocacy group in New York City. "To a juror, a rapist is a guy who jumps out of the bushes and throws a woman to the ground," Schafran explains. "She has terrible injuries, and she leaps up and reports it immediately to the police. Anything that falls short of that story is questionable."
Incredibly, that analysis holds true even in a situation as extreme as that of Marsalis. What's especially troubling is that the very things that some of his accusers speculate made the juries so skeptical are typical elements of nonstranger assaults. It doesn't fit with most people's misguided concept of rape, for example, that Marsalis's accusers went out with him willingly—thinking him a worldly doctor, the embodiment of Mr. Right—and were initially enjoying their evening with him. As the defense hammered home, none of the women stormed to the nearest police station or went to a hospital for a rape exam and toxicology test. In fact, the opposite happened: In a near-masochistic twist, most of Marsalis's dates had contact with him again—behavior that seems too bizarre to be believed, but that psychologists say is actually not uncommon among women raped by someone they know. Nonstranger rape is a distinct crime whose survivors exhibit equally distinct behaviors—the very actions the Marsalis defense used against his accusers. It makes you wonder: If these 10 women didn't get a satisfying result, what chance does anyone have in a date rape case?
"You hate to tell people that we have such terrible success with these cases at trial, because it makes victims think, Well then, why press charges?" says retired police sergeant Joanne Archambault, president and training director of Sexual Assault Training and Investigations, also in Addy, Washington, a firm that educates law enforcement about rape. "But the truth is, until we change the public's attitude about how they see women and sexual violence, we're going to keep losing."
Two days after Leigh awoke in Marsalis's bed, she found herself seated across the table from him at a Chinese restaurant. This is not a date, she reassured herself; rather, it was a fact-finding mission. "I wanted to confront him about what happened. I needed to figure out what was going on," Leigh remembers. She hadn't told anyone she feared she'd been raped. She needed more information first, some validation of her suspicions. "And all that went wrong," Leigh whispers, eyes glazing with tears.
The last thing Leigh says she remembers about that dinner, she was picking at the noodles Marsalis was dishing from a serving plate, trying to muster up her courage to ask: Did you rape me? Then, she says, she blacked out. As Leigh would later tell the court, she woke up in Marsalis's bed again. He was on top of her, once again having sex with her inert body. "It was just devastating," Leigh says. She spends a long moment composing herself, tucking wisps of hair behind her ears. "I made the stupidest decision to go out with him that second time," she says finally. "I think to myself all the time, How could I have done something like that? But I did."
How could Leigh have done such a thing? The idea of reaching out to one's rapist seems like nothing any woman in her right mind would do. Yet the majority of the 10 women who ultimately testified against Marsalis had contact with him afterward. One 33-year-old woman testified that, after regaining consciousness in Marsalis's apartment, she discovered his bed was soaked with her menstrual blood, humiliating her; she later FedExed Marsalis a set of sheets. Two of his accusers befriended him. Two others went on to briefly date Marsalis. Yet another accuser, a 26-year-old pharmaceutical representative, told the court that the assault left her pregnant—and she allowed Marsalis, of all people, to accompany her to the abortion.
"There are so many reasons why victims reengage offenders," says Veronique Valliere, a clinical psychologist in Fogelsville, Pennsylvania, who specializes in sexual abuse. By establishing a relationship on her own terms, a person feeling helpless can reclaim her lost dignity. "Someone yanks that sense of control from you, and you need to get it back," Valliere explains. Denial also plays a powerful role, as many survivors have a hard time accepting the idea of themselves as a victim—and turn to their attackers to help explain away their fears. "We can't believe someone would do something so terrible to us," Valliere says. "We work under the assumption that this must be something we can understand through talking it over." It's the classic female response to tackling a problem: Let's discuss it.
Marsalis's accusers may have been especially prone to have further contact with him because in many cases their memories of those nights were foggy. And prosecutors argue that Marsalis skillfully exploited that confusion. In interviews with self, one accuser described how it unfolded: In October 2003, Marie was a 23-year-old grad student living in Marsalis's building when one evening, she ran into her neighbor "Dr. Jeff." Marsalis asked her out for a drink at a nearby bar. Two gin and tonics later, she would testify, it was suddenly sunrise, and Marie was naked from the waist down in Marsalis's bed. "I was bleeding and hurting," she remembers. "But I just didn't remember anything. And I didn't want to acknowledge that I'd been raped." The whole thing didn't make sense to her—she'd never blacked out before in her life—so Marie got out of there as fast as she politely could and avoided Marsalis for several weeks. But when she came face-to-face with him at the building's Christmas party, she acted perfectly friendly. "Talking to him, I guess it was a way of asserting myself, an attempt to restore some normalcy," Marie says. "I was trying to be logical instead of emotional."
Nevertheless, Marie's subconscious couldn't forget. She began withdrawing socially and starving herself. A 5-foot, 100-pound pixie to begin with, Marie lost so much weight that within three months, she was hospitalized for a heart arrhythmia. As she lay in the ER, it occurred to Marie that Marsalis had said he worked at that very same hospital.
"I called him," she says hollowly. And Marsalis visited her, playing the role of doctor by wearing a stethoscope and flipping through her chart. Two days later, after Marie had gone home, the "doctor" showed up at her apartment to check on her. Then, as Marie would tell the court, Marsalis steered her to her bed, pinned her down and raped her again. This time, there was no blackout to cloud her perception; Marsalis offered no smooth talk as he pulled up his scrubs and left. Marie made her way to the shower, curled up under the water and cried. Yet she didn't even consider calling the police.
Think most women would behave differently—that in the same situation, they would jump up and call 911? Think again. According to government estimates, a mere 19 percent of rapes, including stranger rapes, are ever reported in the first place. As Valliere notes, women who have been sexually assaulted find so many reasons not to call police, including denial, shame or their hazy grasp of the facts due to drugs or alcohol. Many survivors assume they won't be believed. Still others, such as Marie and Leigh, are mortified into silence by what they see as their complicity in their own attacks. "I brought myself to this situation," Leigh explains, voice surging with emotion. "And I had done it not once, but twice. Who in the world's gonna believe that?"
Leigh never called the police. Instead, she did her best to move on. She forced herself to date again on Match.com—"I didn't want to be afraid," she says—where she soon met a man and fell in love. In September 2006, Leigh had been engaged for three days when she got a call from an FBI agent. "He said in a voice mail that it's about a man I dated from Match," she recalls. "And I knew, immediately." Leigh met with the agent in his Philadelphia office and poured out the story she'd been holding back for so long. It was only then that Leigh learned who Jeffrey Marsalis really was and why investigators were so keen on speaking with her.
The agent told Leigh that Marsalis had recently been tried for the rapes of three other women. The first accuser had called the police in March 2005—roughly two weeks after Leigh's attack. She was a 25-year-old pharmacist, a religious woman who had been saving her virginity for marriage until, she would testify, she had blacked out during a date with Marsalis and had awoken underneath him. In a surprising turn of events, when police showed up at Marsalis's apartment with a search warrant, the building's 29-year-old manager had blanched—and blurted, unprompted, that Marsalis had drugged and raped her, too. Up in Marsalis's apartment, law enforcement collected his computer; they realized they had an even bigger case when they found "The Yearly Calendar of Women," listing some 58 first names, and other files with contact information. Among them was a 27-year-old lawyer who told an uncannily similar tale.
The following January, all three of the women had taken the stand in Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v. Jeffrey Marsalis. By uniting them in a single trial, the Philadelphia district attorney's office had hoped to prove a pattern of predation, to erase any doubts a jury might have. But during the weeklong trial, the case had come undone. For one thing, the defense denied that Marsalis drugged the women, and there was no physical evidence to support that accusation. Police had found a syringe of liquid diphenhydramine in Marsalis's apartment, a drug that can cause powerful sleepiness, and theorized that he'd used expired medications he'd had access to at school or work. But testing was not completed and the syringe was not introduced as evidence. Plus, none of the accusers had gotten a toxicology screening—which presumably wouldn't have turned up anything anyway, because the drug would have left their system quickly. It was the behavior of the women, however, that the defense used to truly torpedo the case. The apartment manager had become friends with Marsalis. The attorney had gone on to have a short relationship with him. Neither had immediately called police or gone to a hospital for a rape-kit exam. As for the pharmacist, she had waited more than a month to make a report.
The jury had acquitted Marsalis on all counts. Even so, moments after the jury read the not-guilty verdict, Marsalis was rearrested right in the courtroom: He had new charges to face. Already in custody during his first trial, he was denied bail again and sent immediately back to jail.
Prosecutor Joseph Khan urged Leigh to join this second trial, for which they planned to combine the strongest cases among Marsalis's long list of accusers. Marie, too, was contacted by the D.A.'s office. She was reluctant, but they told her that her story was compelling enough to bolster the other cases. "I wouldn't have done it if it was just me," Marie says. "But because I could help the others, I felt it was something I had to do." So the two women joined five others to face down Marsalis in court. They had safety in numbers; no way could they lose this time.
"Jeffrey is a playboy," said defense attorney Kevin Hexstall, speaking to the jury in June 2007. "You don't have to like him for that, but you got to respect and understand the fact that's all he is."
The core of the defense's theory was simple: All seven women were lying. Each had gotten drunk, had consensual sex with Marsalis and regretted it. Then, when authorities called them and revealed that Marsalis had lied about his profession, they felt betrayed and cried rape as revenge. "This is not the forum for that!" Hexstall told the jury in his closing argument. "Throw a brick through his car window, slash his tires. Get online and tell the rest of the world he's not a doctor.... You don't come up with this kind of nonsense and play with this man's life!"
The jury sat rapt. "Let's think about what some of the real patterns are, and some of the real similarities in these cases," Hexstall boomed. "All of these women wanted to date Jeffrey Marsalis," he said. "They all went out drinking. Nobody said, 'Let's catch a movie, we want to go to a ball game, let's just have dinner, let's meet in the park, I just want to talk.' They all went out with Dr. Jeff, and they all went out drinking alcohol."
Although rape-shield laws protect women from having their sexual past discussed at trial, acquaintance-rape defenses continue to "play into these myths about how 'good' women act versus 'bad' girls," Long says. "And that it's the risky behavior of the 'bad' girls that somehow invites a rape." Trials often hinge not on the behavior of the defendant, but rather on whether the woman did enough to protect herself from his advances. From that point of view, Marsalis's seven accusers had done everything wrong. "We were definitely on trial," Marie comments drily. "If it was the 1600s, it would have been a stoning."
The women's composure may not have helped their standing with the jury. Although a couple of them became emotional during their testimony—including Marie, who blotted her eyes and took breathers—most, like Leigh, kept it together. But experts say many jurors expect women to weep when they are talking about a rape. "If you don't cry, it means nothing happened to you," says Legal Momentum's Schafran. "Of course, if you cry too much, you're too hysterical to be believed." (Hexstall reminded the jury that one woman had cried while testifying about her abortion, but not while discussing the alleged rape—proof, he claimed, that the sex had been consensual.) The fact that many of the women had continued to function in their everyday life was further evidence that nothing had occurred. "Rape is the only crime where victims aren't allowed to be OK," says psychologist Valliere, who points out that in cases of car theft, for example, the theft's emotional impact doesn't factor into the verdict—only whether the car was taken against the victim's will. "But if someone is raped and seems OK, we say, 'Could that really have been a rape?'"
It's a given, too, that no one on a rape jury has any real insight into the crime or its consequences, because during the jury-selection process lawyers routinely weed out almost anyone who admits to real-life experience with sexual assault. Clouding matters further, Pennsylvania law forbids the use of expert testimony to explain the behavior of rape victims (a policy state legislators are trying to change, as a result of outcry over this case). So the Marsalis jury had little context in which to understand the lurid, difficult-to-digest details they were hearing.
Judge Steven Geroff also wouldn't allow witness testimony from yet another accuser, a woman who had worked with Marsalis at an Idaho ski resort. And in one final confusing stroke, right before jurors headed into the deliberation room, they were read a jury instruction—antiquated and misleading yet still standard in Pennsylvania—saying in part that the women's failure to immediately report their assault "should be considered" in the jury's decision.
When the jury returned after five days, it proclaimed Marsalis not guilty of eight of the nine counts of rape he was facing. They had deadlocked on the remaining charge, unable to decide whether Marie's second, violent encounter had indeed been a rape. Instead, the jury opted to find Marsalis guilty of two counts of the lesser charge of sexual assault. One assault conviction was for Marie's second attack. The other conviction was for the case of a 26-year-old advertising exec who, upon waking in Marsalis's bed in the middle of the night, had driven herself home; when Marsalis had called to apologize for "things getting out of hand," she had refused to see him again. She was the only one of the seven women who had called police—albeit four years later, after she saw a TV news report of Marsalis's courtroom rearrest.
The jury isn't talking, but courtroom observers have a theory about why the jury chose to believe these two women above the other five: Their behaviors fit best with the rape-victim stereotype. Both had welled up while testifying and described lasting emotional damage. They were also the slightest physically of the accusers; in a parade of strikingly put-together women, they may have come across as most vulnerable. And so the jury seemed willing to acknowledge that something had happened to them—although whatever it was, it didn't rise to the level of rape.
As for the other five accusers, including Leigh, the jury concluded that no crime at all had been committed against them.
"Twelve people looked me in the face and called me a liar," Leigh says softly, hugging her knees at the kitchen table of the apartment she shares with her husband. "I put myself out there. I told them every terrible detail. And they said no." Even Marie, who had the most positive verdict, felt cheated, especially when she realized she'd have to endure a retrial on the hung rape charge. As she watched footage of jurors sprinting from the courtroom, some shielding their face, Marie became enraged. "If you're going to make a decision that affects people's lives, tell us why you decided what you did," she demands. "Don't go running out of there, hiding your face like you're ashamed!"
In the end, Marsalis took a plea deal to avoid a retrial: Prosecutors agreed to drop Marie's remaining rape charge in exchange for Marsalis pleading no contest to a charge of "unlawful restraint" for yet another accuser who had not been part of either trial. "They used my hung charge to get some vindication for her, which she wouldn't have gotten otherwise. So that made it worth it," Marie says.
Although Marsalis faced as little as community service, at his sentencing hearing, Judge Geroff delivered a stronger message than the jury had: He sentenced Marsalis to 10.5 to 21 years behind bars plus 4 years probation, the maximum allowed, and noted that he'll face mandatory Megan's Law registration for the rest of his life. "What you were was a wolf in sheep's clothing," Geroff told Marsalis from the bench. "Your lifestyle was a fantasy. What's happened to your victims is reality." Seated together in two rows at the front of the courtroom, a group of Marsalis's accusers smiled with relief, some through tears. The sentencing softened the blow of the disappointing verdict; finally, their combined efforts had yielded something. "At least he's locked away, and I know he won't do this to anyone else. Without all of us there, that might not have happened," Leigh says. "And of course, all this isn't even over yet," she adds.
Because in January, Marsalis heads to a courtroom to be tried for rape a third time. Court documents filed by the D.A. in the Philadelphia cases describe the accuser's story: Back in late September 2005, shortly before his first trial was to begin, Marsalis made his way to Idaho, where he took a job as a security guard at a ski resort. There he invited a 21-year-old coworker to join him for a drink at a local bar. Over beers, she told him she wasn't interested in him romantically—she was a lesbian. Marsalis ordered another round and handed her a kamikaze. She noticed a sugary-looking residue at the bottom of the glass; when she drank it down, however, it tasted bitter, not sweet. The rest of her story unfolds in a now-familiar way: She awoke the next day in Marsalis's bed, feeling sore and nauseated. He graciously walked her back to her dorm, chatting the whole way and leaving her with the suggestion that they "hang out sometime."
Instead, this accuser did something unusual: She contacted the police. Then she had a rape kit done. The prompt investigation turned up eyewitnesses who said they had seen Marsalis dragging her, barely coherent, out of a taxi while she mumbled, "No, I'm going to stay here." And when police confronted Marsalis, he initially denied having sex with her. "She is more of a manly type of a woman for one," he told police. "If I was going to have sex with somebody, wouldn't I have picked someone who is some drop-dead gorgeous woman? You think?"
This case has it all, it seems, everything to erase doubt from the mind of a juror: prompt reporting, physical evidence, eyewitnesses, Marsalis's inconsistent statements to police and, because of the accuser's sexual orientation, no dating behavior to confuse a jury. In other words, her case bears no resemblance at all to a typical report of nonstranger rape. And that is exactly why experts predict that this time around, the woman taking the stand will finally win.
Photo Credit: AP Images. Photolibrary.com.The Yale Daily News appears to have violated tax laws by endorsing Hillary Clinton on Wednesday, despite being prohibited from doing so as a tax-exempt 501(c)3 organization.
The nation’s oldest student newspaper describes itself as the “primary division of the Yale Daily News Publishing Co., which is headed by the News’ editor in chief and its publisher.” However, IRS records show that the Yale Daily News Publishing Co. is listed as a tax-exempt organization.
According to the organization’s 2014 tax returns (the latest edition publicly available), the Yale Daily News is listed as a 501(c)3 tax-exempt organization, and is “operated for literary and educational purposes.”
The IRS makes clear that “tax-exempt organizations described in section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code are prohibited from participating or intervening in any political campaign on behalf of, or in opposition to, any candidate for public office. Charities, educational institutions and religious organizations, including churches, are among those that are covered under this code section.”
“These organizations cannot endorse any candidates, make donations to their campaigns, engage in fund raising, distribute statements, or become involved in any other activities that may be beneficial or detrimental to any particular candidate. Even activities that encourage people to vote for or against a particular candidate on the basis of nonpartisan criteria violate the political campaign prohibition of section 501(c)(3),” the IRS website states.
Despite being seemingly legally prohibited from doing so, the Yale Daily News went ahead and endorsed Hillary Clinton anyway.
“We do not endorse Clinton solely because of the disqualifying flaws of her opponent, Donald Trump, whose campaign has disgusted and astonished our board. Indeed, our endorsement of Clinton should come as no surprise: A recent survey conducted by the News found that a vast majority of students support her candidacy,” the newspaper’s endorsement states.
“We endorse her because we, as young people, recognize this election is a turning point for our country. And the choice couldn’t be more clear.”
When asked about the newspaper’s tax-exempt status with regards to its endorsement of Hillary Clinton, a spokesman for the paper called the whole matter a “misunderstanding” but repeatedly declined to either confirm or deny that the Yale Daily News is a tax-exempt 501(c)3 organization.
“I’m disturbed but not surprised by the Yale Daily News’ choice to explicitly endorse Hillary Clinton. It is generally accepted on campus that the YDN is a liberal publication, and the conservative writers at Yale either grin and bear the derision they receive on social media outlets from affiliating with the YDN or write for publications like the Yale Free Press,” said Quinn Shepherd, a Yale sophomore.
“Given that, the YDN’s choice to endorse a popular candidate on a liberal campus is confusing at best and senseless pandering at worst. No one on campus should be, and I would go as far to say will, make their decision on Election Day based on who the YDN’s Editorial Board is supporting. There is no need for the YDN to endorse a candidate except to receive the praises of Yale’s liberal chorus for their self-important appeal to a campus that is already vastly supporting Clinton,” she continued.
According to his Facebook page, the newspaper’s editor-in-chief, David Shimer was a policy intern for Hillary for America. The paper claims he abstained from the endorsement process.
Yale senior Alexander Michaud said, “With regard to the tax law violation, I’m also not surprised that the YDN either doesn’t know or doesn’t care about the laws that are relevant to them. It’s incredible the lengths they go to seem like a serious publication, going out of their way to be the only major student organization at Yale that is incorporated separate from the university, and yet they don’t know the first thing about good journalistic practices. The worst part is, I don’t imagine there’ll be any serious consequences, because the relevant authorities probably see it as a victimless crime. They endorse candidates all the time, and no one cares enough to call them out.
“Truthfully, I’m glad that someone is going after them for this, because at the end of the day the YDN is just a glorified college gossip rag. They don’t report controversies: they generate them. They take whatever story, significant or otherwise, and bombard the Yale student body with it until everyone thinks it’s a major problem,” Michaud continued.
“Their favorite words are ‘complaints,’ ‘controversy,’ and ‘outrage.’ They pick an issue, and they belabor it as long as people show interest, and then next year they pick a new one. A few years ago it was mental health. Then it was sexual assault. Now it’s the residential college names. They make tons of Yale administrators’ lives more difficult for no good reason, just so they can pad their resumes. They deserve whatever penalty the IRS wants to deal out, and then some.”
This wouldn’t be the first time that the Yale Daily News has seemingly disregarded the law in endorsing a candidate. In 2012, the newspaper endorsed President Barack Obama for re-election.
The paper issued a statement saying, “Our editorial board, like those of many college newspapers, expressed an opinion regarding the upcoming national election, as it did in 2004, 2008 and 2012. The editor in chief chose to recuse himself from that process and played no part in the board’s decision to support Hillary Clinton.”
One Yale alumni speaking on the condition of anonymity said, “This is also not the first time that the News has endorsed a candidate (of course, it always endorses the democrat). It’s disappointing but not surprising to see the country’s oldest student newspaper sacrifice journalistic integrity for whatever liberal position happens to be in vogue.”
Update: This story was updated with the statement from the Yale Daily News, as well as reactions from students.
Follow Hasson on Twitter @PeterJHassonThe creativity and resourcefulness of the definitions, the broadness and rigor of the rules and codes, have always betrayed their more Orwellian purpose: when I was at Princeton in the ’90s, the guidelines distributed to students about sexual harassment stated, “sexual harassment may result from a conscious or unconscious action, and can be subtle or blatant.” It is, of course, notoriously hard to control one’s unconscious, and one can behave quite hideously in one’s dreams, but that did not deter the determined scolds.
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If this language was curiously retrograde in the early ’90s, if it harkened back to the protection of delicate feminine sensibilities in an era when that protection was patently absurd, it is even more outdated now when women are yet more powerful and ascendant in the workplace. In her brilliant and enduring critique of the women’s movement in 1972, Joan Didion wrote that certain strains of feminism were based on the idea of women as “creatures too ‘tender’ for the abrasiveness of daily life, too fragile for the streets... too ‘sensitive’ for the difficulties and ambiguities of adult life.”
And, in fact, the majority of women in the workplace are not tender creatures and are largely adept at dealing with all varieties of uncomfortable or hostile situations. Show me a smart, competent young professional woman who is utterly derailed by a verbal unwanted sexual advance or an inappropriate comment about her appearance, and I will show you a rare spotted owl.
Codes of sexual harassment imagine an entirely symmetrical universe, where people are never outrageous, rude, awkward, excessive or confused, where sexual interest is always absent or reciprocated, in other words a universe that does not entirely resemble our own. We don’t legislate against meanness, or power struggles, or political maneuvering, or manipulation in offices, and how could we? So should we be legislating against rogue flirtations, the floating out of invitations? Obviously there is a line, which if the allegations against Mr. Cain are true, he has crossed, but there are many behaviors loosely included under the creative, capacious rubric of sexual harassment that do not cross that line.
In our effort to create a wholly unhostile work environment, have we simply created an environment that is hostile in a different way? Is it preferable or more productive, is it fostering a more creative or vivid office culture, for everyone to vanish into Facebook and otherwise dabble online? Maybe it’s better to live and work with colorful or inappropriate comments, with irreverence, wildness, incorrectness, ease.
Is the anodyne drone typing away in her silent cubicle free from the risk of comment on her clothes, the terror of a joke, the unsettlement of an unwanted or even a wanted sexual advance, truly our ideal? Should we aspire to the drab, cautious, civilized, quiet, comfortable workplace all of this language presumes and theorizes? At this late date, perhaps we should be worrying about different forms of hostility in our workplace.Published online 2 December 2010 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2010.645
Updated online:
News
Oddball bacterium can survive without one of biology's essential building blocks.
A bacterium in California's arsenic-filled Mono Lake performs a novel chemical trade-off. Feargus Cooney/Lonely Planet Images
A bacterium found in the arsenic-filled waters of a Californian lake is poised to overturn scientists' understanding of the biochemistry of living organisms. The microbe seems to be able to replace phosphorus with arsenic in some of its basic cellular processes — suggesting the possibility of a biochemistry very different from the one we know, which could be used by organisms in past or present extreme environments on Earth, or even on other planets.
Scientists have long thought that all living things need phosphorus to function, along with other elements such as hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, nitrogen and sulphur. The phosphate ion, PO 4 3-, plays several essential roles in cells: it maintains the structure of DNA and RNA, combines with lipids to make cell membranes and transports energy within the cell through the molecule adenosine triphosphate (ATP).
But Felisa Wolfe-Simon, a geomicrobiologist and NASA Astrobiology Research Fellow based at the US Geological Survey in Menlo Park, California, and her colleagues report online today in Science1 that a member of the Halomonadaceae family of proteobacteria can use arsenic in place of phosphorus. The finding implies that "you can potentially cross phosphorus off the list of elements required for life", says David Valentine, a geomicrobiologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Many science-fiction writers have proposed life-forms that use alternate elemental building blocks, often silicon instead of carbon, but this marks the first known case in a real organism. Arsenic is positioned just below phosphorus in the periodic table, and the two elements can play a similar role in chemical reactions. For example, the arsenate ion, AsO 4 3-, has the same tetrahedral structure and bonding sites as phosphate. It is so similar that it can get inside cells by hijacking phosphate's transport mechanism, contributing to arsenic's high toxicity to most organisms.
Element of surprise
Wolfe-Simon thought the parallels between the two elements could mean that despite its toxicity, arsenic was capable of performing phosphorus's job in the cell. Her search for an organism that would not just tolerate arsenic but make biological use of it took her to Mono Lake in eastern California. The 180-square-kilometre lake has an extremely high arsenic concentration, owing to arsenic-bearing minerals that wash down from nearby mountains.
Wolfe-Simon and her colleagues collected mud from the lake and added the samples to an artificial salt medium lacking phosphate but high in arsenate. They then performed a series of dilutions intended to wash out any phosphate remaining in the solution and replace it with arsenate. They found that one type of microbe in the mix seemed to grow faster than others.
The researchers isolated the organism and found that when cultured in arsenate solution it grew 60% as fast as it did in phosphate solution — not as well, but still robustly. The culture did not grow at all when deprived of both arsenate and phosphate.
When the researchers added radio-labelled arsenate to the |
past six years, which highlights our tremendous shark and ray biodiversity," Indonesia's foremost shark expert, known by the single name Fahmi, said in a news release from Conservation International. "We now know that six of the nine known walking shark species occur in Indonesian waters, and these animals are diver favorites with excellent potential to help grow our marine tourism industry."
The latest species of walking shark was first photographed by divers in 2008, and has now been described as a new species in the journal Aqua. It's known as the epaulette (long-tailed carpet) shark, or Hemiscyllium halmahera. Two specimens were caught by scientists from the Western Australian Museum and Conservation International in Indonesia's Maluku Islands (also known as the Moluccas or the Spice Islands). The species name refers to Halmahera, the largest island in the Malukus.
Walking sharks uses their pectoral and pelvic fins to move across the sea bottom while foraging at night for small fishes and invertebrates. H. halmahera is distinguished from other walkers by the distinctive pattern of brown spots on its head.
Indonesia is home to at least 218 species of sharks and rays. In a blog post, Conservation International's Mark Erdmann marveled at how much progress Indonesia has made in protecting its native sharks. "If you asked me a year ago about the long-term future of shark populations in Indonesia, I probably would have responded: 'Bleak.'"
Indonesia has been the world leader in the export of dried shark fins and other products from the animal group that includes sharks as well as rays and skates, known as elasmobranches. But over the past year, the Indian Ocean country has come to appreciate that the creatures are worth more alive than dead.
"We now know, for instance, that a living manta ray is worth up to $1.9 million to our economy over the course of its lifetime, compared to a value of only $40 to $200 for its meat and gill rakers," said Agus Dermawan, director of the Marine Conservation Directorate at the Indonesian Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries.
A recent study showed that Indonesia ranks second globally as a manta tourism destination, with an estimated direct economic benefit of more than $15 million to the country's economy annually.
To preserve marine biodiversity — and keep the tourist dollars coming in — new sanctuaries for sharks and rays are being created. The Indonesian government also has pledged new regulations to comply with the CITES treaty on species protection.
Update for 2:15 p.m. ET Aug. 30: On the "Why Evolution Is True" blog, Matthew Cobb says the shark's walking style looks a lot like the gait of a typical tetrapod. "So this suggests that the neuronal control of the way that you run (your right arm moves with your left leg, and your left arm moves with your right leg – try it) goes waaaayyyy back even beyond our fishy ancestors, to the time before the evolution of bone," he writes. "Another alternative is that this is convergent evolution — if you are going to 'walk,' the alternate gait is the best way of doing it. Today’s question: How could we test between these two hypotheses?"
More about sharks:
Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the NBC News Science Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with NBCNews.com's stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.First large-scale use of chemical weapons leading to their banning
The use of toxic chemicals as weapons dates back thousands of years, but the first large scale use of chemical weapons was during World War I.[1][2] They were primarily used to demoralize, injure, and kill entrenched defenders, against whom the indiscriminate and generally very slow-moving or static nature of gas clouds would be most effective. The types of weapons employed ranged from disabling chemicals, such as tear gas, to lethal agents like phosgene, chlorine, and mustard gas. This chemical warfare was a major component of the first global war and first total war of the 20th century. The killing capacity of gas was limited, with about ninety thousand fatalities from a total of 1.3 million casualties caused by gas attacks. Gas was unlike most other weapons of the period because it was possible to develop countermeasures, such as gas masks. In the later stages of the war, as the use of gas increased, its overall effectiveness diminished. The widespread use of these agents of chemical warfare, and wartime advances in the composition of high explosives, gave rise to an occasionally expressed view of World War I as "the chemist's war" and also the era where weapons of mass destruction were created.[3][4]
The use of poison gas by all major belligerents throughout World War I constituted war crimes as its use violated the 1899 Hague Declaration Concerning Asphyxiating Gases and the 1907 Hague Convention on Land Warfare, which prohibited the use of "poison or poisoned weapons" in warfare.[5][6] Widespread horror and public revulsion at the use of gas and its consequences led to far less use of chemical weapons by combatants during World War II.
History of poison gas in World War I [ edit ]
1914: Tear gas [ edit ]
The most frequently used chemicals during World War I were tear-inducing irritants rather than fatal or disabling poisons. During World War I, the French army was the first to employ tear gas, using 26 mm grenades filled with ethyl bromoacetate in August 1914. The small quantities of gas delivered, roughly 19 cm³ per cartridge, were not even detected by the Germans. The stocks were rapidly consumed and by November a new order was placed by the French military. As bromine was scarce among the Entente allies, the active ingredient was changed to chloroacetone.[7]
In October 1914, German troops fired fragmentation shells filled with a chemical irritant against British positions at Neuve Chapelle; the concentration achieved was so small that it too was barely noticed.[8] None of the combatants considered the use of tear gas to be in conflict with the Hague Treaty of 1899, which specifically prohibited the launching of projectiles containing asphyxiating or poisonous gas.[9]
1915: Large-scale use and lethal gases [ edit ]
The first instance of large-scale use of gas as a weapon was on 31 January 1915, when Germany fired 18,000 artillery shells containing liquid xylyl bromide tear gas on Russian positions on the Rawka River, west of Warsaw during the Battle of Bolimov. Instead of vaporizing, the chemical froze and failed to have the desired effect.[8]
The first killing agent was chlorine, used by the German military.[10] Chlorine is a powerful irritant that can inflict damage to the eyes, nose, throat and lungs. At high concentrations and prolonged exposure it can cause death by asphyxiation.[11] German chemical companies BASF, Hoechst and Bayer (which formed the IG Farben conglomerate in 1925) had been making chlorine as a by-product of their dye manufacturing.[12] In cooperation with Fritz Haber of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry in Berlin, they began developing methods of discharging chlorine gas against enemy trenches.[13][14]
It may appear from a fieldpost letter of Major Karl von Zingler that the first chlorine gas attack by German forces took place before 2 January 1915: "In other war theatres it does not go better and it has been said that our Chlorine is very effective. 140 English officers have been killed. This is a horrible weapon...".[15] This letter must be discounted as evidence for early German use of chlorine, however, because the date "2 January 1915" may have been hastily scribbled instead of the intended "2 January 1916," the sort of common typographical error that everyone makes at the beginning of a new year. The deaths of so many English officers from gas at this time would certainly have been met with outrage, but a recent, extensive study of British reactions to chemical warfare says nothing of this supposed attack.[16] Perhaps this letter was referring to the chlorine-phosgene attack on British troops at Wieltje near Ypres, on 19 December 1915 (see below).
By 22 April 1915, the German Army had 168 tons of chlorine deployed in 5,730 cylinders from Langemark–Poelkapelle, north of Ypres. At 17:30, in a slight easterly breeze, the liquid chlorine was siphoned from the tanks, producing gas which formed a grey-green cloud that drifted across positions held by French Colonial troops from Martinique, as well as the 1st Tirailleurs and the 2nd Zouaves from Algeria.[17] Faced with an unfamiliar threat these troops broke ranks, abandoning their trenches and creating an 8,000-yard (7 km) gap in the Allied line. The German infantry were also wary of the gas and, lacking reinforcements, failed to exploit the break before the 1st Canadian Division and assorted French troops reformed the line in scattered, hastily prepared positions 1,000–3,000 yards (910–2,740 m) apart.[8] The Entente governments claimed the attack was a flagrant violation of international law but Germany argued that the Hague treaty had only banned chemical shells, rather than the use of gas projectors.[18]
In what became the Second Battle of Ypres, the Germans used gas on three more occasions; on 24 April against the 1st Canadian Division,[19] on 2 May near Mouse Trap Farm and on 5 May against the British at Hill 60.[20] The British Official History stated that at Hill 60, "90 men died from gas poisoning in the trenches or before they could be got to a dressing station; of the 207 brought to the nearest dressing stations, 46 died almost immediately and 12 after long suffering."[21]
On 6 August, German troops used chlorine gas against Russian troops defending the Fortress of Osowiec. Surviving defenders drove back the attack and retained the fortress.
Germany used chemical weapons on the eastern front in an attack at Rawka, south of Warsaw. The Russian army took 9,000 casualties, with more than 1,000 fatalities. In response, the artillery branch of the Russian army organised a commission to study the delivery of poison gas in shells.[22]
Effectiveness and countermeasures [ edit ]
British emplacement after German gas attack (probably phosgene)
It quickly became evident that the men who stayed in their places suffered less than those who ran away, as any movement worsened the effects of the gas, and that those who stood up on the fire step suffered less—indeed they often escaped any serious effects—than those who lay down or sat at the bottom of a trench. Men who stood on the parapet suffered least, as the gas was denser near the ground. The worst sufferers were the wounded lying on the ground, or on stretchers, and the men who moved back with the cloud.[23] Chlorine was less effective as a weapon than the Germans had hoped, particularly as soon as simple countermeasures were introduced. The gas produced a visible greenish cloud and strong odour, making it easy to detect. It was water-soluble, so the simple expedient of covering the mouth and nose with a damp cloth was effective at reducing the effect of the gas. It was thought to be even more effective to use urine rather than water, as it was known at the time that chlorine reacted with urea (present in urine) to form dichloro urea.[24]
Chlorine required a concentration of 1,000 parts per million to be fatal, destroying tissue in the lungs, likely through the formation of hypochlorous and hydrochloric acids when dissolved in the water in the lungs.[25] Despite its limitations, chlorine was an effective psychological weapon—the sight of an oncoming cloud of the gas was a continual source of dread for the infantry.[26]
Countermeasures were quickly introduced in response to the use of chlorine. The Germans issued their troops with small gauze pads filled with cotton waste, and bottles of a bicarbonate solution with which to dampen the pads. Immediately following the use of chlorine gas by the Germans, instructions were sent to British and French troops to hold wet handkerchiefs or cloths over their mouths. Simple pad respirators similar to those issued to German troops were soon proposed by Lieutenant-Colonel N. C. Ferguson, the Assistant Director Medical Services of the 28th Division. These pads were intended to be used damp, preferably dipped into a solution of bicarbonate kept in buckets for that purpose; other liquids were also used. Because such pads could not be expected to arrive at the front for several days, army divisions set about making them for themselves. Locally available muslin, flannel and gauze were used, officers were sent to Paris to buy more and local French women were employed making up rudimentary pads with string ties. Other units used lint bandages manufactured in the convent at Poperinge. Pad respirators were sent up with rations to British troops in the line as early as the evening of 24 April.[27]
In Britain the Daily Mail newspaper encouraged women to manufacture cotton pads, and within one month a variety of pad respirators were available to British and French troops, along with motoring goggles to protect the eyes. The response was enormous and a million gas masks were produced in a day. The Mail's design was useless when dry and caused suffocation when wet—the respirator was responsible for the deaths of scores of men. By 6 July 1915, the entire British army was equipped with the more effective "smoke helmet" designed by Major Cluny MacPherson, Newfoundland Regiment, which was a flannel bag with a celluloid window, which entirely covered the head. The race was then on between the introduction of new and more effective poison gases and the production of effective countermeasures, which marked gas warfare until the armistice in November 1918.[27]
British gas attacks [ edit ]
British infantry advancing through gas at Loos, 25 September 1915
Football team of British soldiers with gas masks, Western front, 1916
A British gas bomb from 1915
The British expressed outrage at Germany's use of poison gas at Ypres and responded by developing their own gas warfare capability. The commander of II Corps, Lieutenant General Sir Charles Ferguson, said of gas:
It is a cowardly form of warfare which does not commend itself to me or other English soldiers... We cannot win this war unless we kill or incapacitate more of our enemies than they do of us, and if this can only be done by our copying the enemy in his choice of weapons, we must not refuse to do so.[28]
The first use of gas by the British was at the Battle of Loos, 25 September 1915, but the attempt was a disaster. Chlorine, codenamed Red Star, was the agent to be used (140 tons arrayed in 5,100 cylinders), and the attack was dependent on a favourable wind. On this occasion the wind proved fickle, and the gas either lingered in no man's land or, in places, blew back on the British trenches.[8] This was compounded when the gas could not be released from all the British canisters because the wrong turning keys were sent with them. Subsequent retaliatory German shelling hit some of those unused full cylinders, releasing gas among the British troops.[29] Exacerbating the situation were the primitive flannel gas masks distributed to the British. The masks got hot, and the small eye-pieces misted over, reducing visibility. Some of the troops lifted the masks to get fresh air, causing them to be gassed.[30]
1915: More deadly gases [ edit ]
An Atlas of Gas Poisoning, 1918 Plate I, Microscopic section of human lung from phosgene shell poisoning, American Red Cross and Medical Research Committee,, 1918
The deficiencies of chlorine were overcome with the introduction of phosgene, which was prepared by a group of French chemists led by Victor Grignard and first used by France in 1915.[31] Colourless and having an odour likened to "mouldy hay," phosgene was difficult to detect, making it a more effective weapon. Phosgene was sometimes used on its own, but was more often used mixed with an equal volume of chlorine, with the chlorine helping to spread the denser phosgene.[32] The Allies called this combination White Star after the marking painted on shells containing the mixture.[33]
Phosgene was a potent killing agent, deadlier than chlorine. It had a potential drawback in that some of the symptoms of exposure took 24 hours or more to manifest. This meant that the victims were initially still capable of putting up a fight; this could also mean that apparently fit troops would be incapacitated by the effects of the gas on the following day.[34]
In the first combined chlorine–phosgene attack by Germany, against British troops at Wieltje near Ypres, Belgium on 19 December 1915, 88 tons of the gas were released from cylinders causing 1069 casualties and 69 deaths.[32] The British P gas helmet, issued at the time, was impregnated with sodium phenolate and partially effective against phosgene. The modified PH Gas Helmet, which was impregnated with phenate hexamine and hexamethylene tetramine (urotropine) to improve the protection against phosgene, was issued in January 1916.[32][35][36]
Around 36,600 tons of phosgene were manufactured during the war, out of a total of 190,000 tons for all chemical weapons, making it second only to chlorine (93,800 tons) in the quantity manufactured:[37]
Germany 18,100 tons
France 15,700 tons
United Kingdom 1,400 tons (also used French stocks)
United States 1,400 tons (also used French stocks)
Phosgene was never as notorious in public consciousness as mustard gas, but it killed far more people, about 85% of the 90,000 deaths caused by chemical weapons during World War I.
1916: Austrian use [ edit ]
Italian dead after the Austrian gas attack on Monte San Michele
On 29 June 1916, Austrian forces attacked the Italian lines on Monte San Michele with a mix of phosgene and chlorine gas.[38] Thousands of Italian soldiers died in this first chemical weapons attack on the Italian Front.
1917: Mustard gas [ edit ]
An Atlas of Gas Poisoning, 1918 Plate X, Microscopic section of human lung from mustard gas poisoning, American Red Cross and Medical Research Committee,, 1918
The most widely reported and, perhaps, the most effective chemical agent of the First World War was sulfur mustard, known as "mustard gas". It is a volatile oily liquid. It was introduced as a vesicant by Germany in July 1917 prior to the Third Battle of Ypres.[8] The Germans marked their shells yellow for mustard gas and green for chlorine and phosgene; hence they called the new gas Yellow Cross. It was known to the British as HS (Hun Stuff), and the French called it Yperite (named after Ypres).[39]
A Canadian soldier with mustard gas burns, 1917/1918
Mustard gas is not an effective killing agent (though in high enough doses it is fatal) but can be used to harass and disable the enemy and pollute the battlefield. Delivered in artillery shells, mustard gas was heavier than air, and it settled to the ground as an oily liquid. Once in the soil, mustard gas remained active for several days, weeks, or even months, depending on the weather conditions.[40]
The skin of victims of mustard gas blistered, their eyes became very sore and they began to vomit. Mustard gas caused internal and external bleeding and attacked the bronchial tubes, stripping off the mucous membrane. This was extremely painful. Fatally injured victims sometimes took four or five weeks to die of mustard gas exposure.[41]
One nurse, Vera Brittain, wrote: "I wish those people who talk about going on with this war whatever it costs could see the soldiers suffering from mustard gas poisoning. Great mustard-coloured blisters, blind eyes, all sticky and stuck together, always fighting for breath, with voices a mere whisper, saying that their throats are closing and they know they will choke."[42]
The polluting nature of mustard gas meant that it was not always suitable for supporting an attack as the assaulting infantry would be exposed to the gas when they advanced. When Germany launched Operation Michael on 21 March 1918, they saturated the Flesquières salient with mustard gas instead of attacking it directly, believing that the harassing effect of the gas, coupled with threats to the salient's flanks, would make the British position untenable.[citation needed]
Gas never reproduced the dramatic success of 22 April 1915; it became a standard weapon which, combined with conventional artillery, was used to support most attacks in the later stages of the war. Gas was employed primarily on the Western Front—the static, confined trench system was ideal for achieving an effective concentration. Germany also used gas against Russia on the Eastern Front, where the lack of effective countermeasures resulted in deaths of over 56,000 Russians,[43] while Britain experimented with gas in Palestine during the Second Battle of Gaza.[44] Russia began manufacturing chlorine gas in 1916, with phosgene being produced later in the year. Most of the manufactured gas was never used.[22]
The British Army first used mustard gas in November 1917 at Cambrai, after their armies had captured a stockpile of German mustard gas shells. It took the British more than a year to develop their own mustard gas weapon, with production of the chemicals centred on Avonmouth Docks.[45][46] (The only option available to the British was the Despretz–Niemann–Guthrie process). This was used first in September 1918 during the breaking of the Hindenburg Line with the Hundred Days' Offensive.
The Allies mounted more gas attacks than the Germans in 1917 and 1918 because of a marked increase in production of gas from the Allied nations. Germany was unable to keep up with this pace despite creating various new gases for use in battle, mostly as a result of very costly methods of production. Entry into the war by the United States allowed the Allies to increase mustard gas production far more than Germany.[47][48] Also the prevailing wind on the Western Front was blowing from west to east,[49] which meant the British more frequently had favourable conditions for a gas release than did the Germans.
When the United States entered the war, it was already mobilizing resources from academic, industry and military sectors for research and development into poison gas. A Subcommittee on Noxious Gases was created by the National Research Committee, a major research centre was established at Camp American University, and the 1st Gas Regiment was recruited.[48] The 1st Gas Regiment eventually served in France, where it used phosgene gas in several attacks.[50][48] The Artillery used mustard gas with significant effect during the Meuse Argonne Offensive on at least three occasions.[51] The United States began large-scale production of an improved vesicant gas known as Lewisite, for use in an offensive planned for early 1919. By the time of the armistice on 11 November, a plant near Willoughby, Ohio was producing 10 tons per day of the substance, for a total of about 150 tons. It is uncertain what effect this new chemical would have had on the battlefield, as it degrades in moist conditions.[52][53]
By the end of the war, chemical weapons had lost much of their effectiveness against well trained and equipped troops. At that time, chemical weapon agents inflicted an estimated 1.3 million casualties.[54]
Nevertheless, in the following years, chemical weapons were used in several, mainly colonial, wars where one side had an advantage in equipment over the other. The British used poison gas, possibly adamsite, against Russian revolutionary troops beginning on 27 August 1919[55] and contemplated using chemical weapons against Iraqi insurgents in the 1920s; Bolshevik troops used poison gas to suppress the Tambov Rebellion in 1920, Spain used chemical weapons in Morocco against Rif tribesmen throughout the 1920s[56] and Italy used mustard gas in Libya in 1930 and again during its invasion of Ethiopia in 1936.[57] In 1925, a Chinese warlord, Zhang Zuolin, contracted a German company to build him a mustard gas plant in Shenyang,[56] which was completed in 1927.
Public opinion had by then turned against the use of such weapons which led to the Geneva Protocol, an updated and extensive prohibition of poison weapons. The Protocol, which was signed by most First World War combatants in 1925, bans the use (but not the stockpiling) of lethal gas and bacteriological weapons. Most countries that signed ratified it within around five years; a few took much longer – Brazil, Japan, Uruguay, and the United States did not do so until the 1970s, and Nicaragua ratified it in 1990.[58] The signatory nations agreed not to use poison gas in the future, stating "the use in war of asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases, and of all analogous liquids, materials or devices, has been justly condemned by the general opinion of the civilized world."[59]
Chemical weapons have been used in at least a dozen wars since the end of the First World War;[57] they were not used in combat on a large scale until Iraq used mustard gas and the more deadly nerve agents in the Halabja chemical attack near the end of the 8-year Iran–Iraq War. The full conflict's use of such weaponry killed around 20,000 Iranian troops (and injured another 80,000), around a quarter of the number of deaths caused by chemical weapons during the First World War.[60]
Effect on World War II [ edit ]
All major combatants stockpiled chemical weapons during the Second World War, but the only reports of its use in the conflict were the Japanese use of relatively small amounts of mustard gas and lewisite in China,[61][62] Italy's use of gas in Ethiopia (in what is more often considered to be the Second Italo-Ethiopian War), and very rare occurrences in Europe (for example some mustard gas bombs were dropped on Warsaw on 3 September 1939, which Germany acknowledged in 1942 but indicated had been accidental).[56] Mustard gas was the agent of choice, with the British stockpiling 40,719 tons, the Soviets 77,400 tons, the Americans over 87,000 tons and the Germans 27,597 tons.[56] The destruction of an American cargo ship containing mustard gas led to many casualties in Bari, Italy, in December 1943.
In both Axis and Allied nations, children in school were taught to wear gas masks in case of gas attack. Germany developed the poison gases tabun, sarin, and soman during the war, and used Zyklon B in their extermination camps. Neither Germany nor the Allied nations used any of their war gases in combat, despite maintaining large stockpiles and occasional calls for their use.[nb 1] Poison gas played an important role in the Holocaust.
Britain made plans to use mustard gas on the landing beaches in the event of an invasion of the United Kingdom in 1940.[63][64] The United States considered using gas to support their planned invasion of Japan.[65]
Casualties [ edit ]
The contribution of gas weapons to the total casualty figures was relatively minor. British figures, which were accurately maintained from 1916, recorded that 3% of gas casualties were fatal, 2% were permanently invalid and 70% were fit for duty again within six weeks.[citation needed]
It was remarked as a joke that if someone yelled 'Gas', everyone in France would put on a mask.... Gas shock was as frequent as shell shock. — H. Allen, Towards the Flame, 1934
Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! — An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime...
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning. Wilfred Owen, "Dulce et Decorum est", 1917
An Atlas of Gas Poisoning, 1918 Plate III, Pallid type of asphyxia from phosgene poisoning, with circulatory failure, American Red Cross and Medical Research Committee,, 1918
Death by gas was often slow and painful. According to Denis Winter (Death's Men, 1978), a fatal dose of phosgene eventually led to "shallow breathing and retching, pulse up to 120, an ashen face and the discharge of four pints (2 litres) of yellow liquid from the lungs each hour for the 48 of the drowning spasms."
A common fate of those exposed to gas was blindness, chlorine gas or mustard gas being the main causes. One of the most famous First World War paintings, Gassed by John Singer Sargent, captures such a scene of mustard gas casualties which he witnessed at a dressing station at Le Bac-du-Sud near Arras in July 1918. (The gases used during that battle (tear gas) caused temporary blindness and/or a painful stinging in the eyes. These bandages were normally water-soaked to provide a rudimentary form of pain relief to the eyes of casualties before they reached more organized medical help.)
The proportion of mustard gas fatalities to total casualties was low; 2% of mustard gas casualties died and many of these succumbed to secondary infections rather than the gas itself. Once it was introduced at the third battle of Ypres, mustard gas produced 90% of all British gas casualties and 14% of battle casualties of any type.
Estimated gas casualties[43] Nation Fatal Total
(Fatal & non-fatal) Russia 56,000 419,340 Germany 9,000 200,000 France 8,000 190,000 British Empire
(includes Canada) 8,109 188,706 Austria-Hungary 3,000 100,000 United States 1,462 72,807 Italy 4,627 60,000 Total 90,198 1,230,853
Mustard gas was a source of extreme dread. In The Anatomy of Courage (1945), Lord Moran, who had been a medical officer during the war, wrote:
After July 1917 gas partly usurped the role of high explosive in bringing to head a natural unfitness for war. The gassed men were an expression of trench fatigue, a menace when the manhood of the nation had been picked over.[66]
Mustard gas did not need to be inhaled to be effective — any contact with skin was sufficient. Exposure to 0.1 ppm was enough to cause massive blisters. Higher concentrations could burn flesh to the bone. It was particularly effective against the soft skin of the eyes, nose, armpits and groin, since it dissolved in the natural moisture of those areas. Typical exposure would result in swelling of the conjunctiva and eyelids, forcing them closed and rendering the victim temporarily blind. Where it contacted the skin, moist red patches would immediately appear which after 24 hours would have formed into blisters. Other symptoms included severe headache, elevated pulse and temperature (fever), and pneumonia (from blistering in the lungs).
Many of those who survived a gas attack were scarred for life. Respiratory disease and failing eyesight were common post-war afflictions. Of the Canadians who, without any effective protection, had withstood the first chlorine attacks during Second Ypres, 60% of the casualties had to be repatriated and half of these were still unfit by the end of the war, over three years later.
Many of those who were fairly soon recorded as fit for service were left with scar tissue in their lungs. This tissue was susceptible to tuberculosis attack. It was from this that many of the 1918 casualties died, around the time of the Second World War, shortly before sulfa drugs became widely available for its treatment.
British casualties [ edit ]
British forces gas casualties on the Western Front[ citation needed ] Date Agent Casualties (official) Fatal Non-fatal April –
May 1915 Chlorine 350 7,000 May 1915 –
June 1916 Lachrymants 0 0 December 1915 –
August 1916 Chlorine 1,013 4,207 July 1916 –
July 1917 Various 532 8,806 July 1917 –
November 1918 Mustard gas 4,086 160,526 April 1915 –
November 1918 Total 5,981 180,539
A British nurse treating mustard gas cases recorded:
They cannot be bandaged or touched. We cover them with a tent of propped-up sheets. Gas burns must be agonizing because usually the other cases do not complain even with the worst wounds but gas cases are invariably beyond endurance and they cannot help crying out.[67]
A postmortem account from the British official medical history records one of the British casualties:
Case four. Aged 39 years. Gassed 29 July 1917. Admitted to casualty clearing station the same day. Died about ten days later. Brownish pigmentation present over large surfaces of the body. A white ring of skin where the wrist watch was. Marked superficial burning of the face and scrotum. The larynx much congested. The whole of the trachea was covered by a yellow membrane. The bronchi contained abundant gas. The lungs fairly voluminous. The right lung showing extensive collapse at the base. Liver congested and fatty. Stomach showed numerous submucous haemorrhages. The brain substance was unduly wet and very congested.[68]
Civilian casualties [ edit ]
The distribution of gas cloud casualties was not limited to the front. Nearby towns were at risk from winds blowing the poison gases through. Civilians rarely had a warning system to alert their neighbours of the danger and often did not have access to effective gas masks. When the gas came to the towns it could easily get into houses through open windows and doors. An estimated 100,000-260,000 civilian casualties were caused by chemical weapons during the conflict and tens of thousands (along with military personnel) died from scarring of the lungs, skin damage, and cerebral damage in the years after the conflict ended. Many commanders on both sides knew that such weapons would cause major harm to civilians as wind would blow poison gases into nearby civilian towns but nonetheless continued to use them throughout the war. British Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig wrote in his diary: "My officers and I were aware that such weapon would cause harm to women and children living in nearby towns, as strong winds were common on the battlefront. However, because the weapon was to be directed against the enemy, none of us were overly concerned at all."[69][70][71][72]
Countermeasures [ edit ]
A Smelling Case to allow officers to identify the gas by smell and thus act appropriately for protection and treatment
None of the First World War's combatants were prepared for the introduction of poison gas as a weapon. Once gas was introduced, development of gas protection began and the process continued for much of the war producing a series of increasingly effective gas masks.[48]
Even at Second Ypres, Germany, still unsure of the weapon's effectiveness, only issued breathing masks to the engineers handling the gas. At Ypres a Canadian medical officer, who was also a chemist, quickly identified the gas as chlorine and recommended that the troops urinate on a cloth and hold it over their mouth and nose. The first official equipment issued was similarly crude; a pad of material, usually impregnated with a chemical, tied over the lower face. To protect the eyes from tear gas, soldiers were issued with gas goggles.
The next advance was the introduction of the gas helmet — basically a bag placed over the head. The fabric of the bag was impregnated with a chemical to neutralize the gas — the chemical would wash out into the soldier's eyes whenever it rained. Eye-pieces, which were prone to fog up, were initially made from talc. When going into combat, gas helmets were typically worn rolled up on top of the head, to be pulled down and secured about the neck when the gas alarm was given. The first British version was the Hypo helmet, the fabric of which was soaked in sodium hyposulfite (commonly known as "hypo"). The British P gas helmet, partially effective against phosgene and with which all infantry were equipped with at Loos, was impregnated with sodium phenolate. A mouthpiece was added through which the wearer would breathe out to prevent carbon dioxide build-up. The adjutant of the 1/23rd Battalion, The London Regiment, recalled his experience of the P helmet at Loos:
The goggles rapidly dimmed over, and the air came through in such suffocatingly small quantities as to demand a continuous exercise of will-power on the part of the wearers.[73]
A modified version of the P Helmet, called the PH Helmet, was issued in January 1916, and was impregnated with hexamethylenetetramine to improve the protection against phosgene.[32]
Australian infantry wearing Small Box Respirators, Ypres, September 1917
Self-contained box respirators represented the culmination of gas mask development during the First World War. Box respirators used a two-piece design; a mouthpiece connected via a hose to a box filter. The box filter contained granules of chemicals that neutralised the gas, delivering clean air to the wearer. Separating the filter from the mask enabled a bulky but efficient filter to be supplied. Nevertheless, the first version, known as the Large Box Respirator (LBR) or "Harrison's Tower", was deemed too bulky — the box canister needed to be carried on the back. The LBR had no mask, just a mouthpiece and nose clip; separate gas goggles had to be worn. It continued to be issued to the artillery gun crews but the infantry were supplied with the "Small Box Respirator" (SBR).
The Small Box Respirator featured a single-piece, close-fitting rubberized mask with |
meditate. We are not alone. Day 5 – 1/5/2012 I don’t believe in a higher power consciously directing me but it does seem odd to me recently that every meeting I go to seems to exactly address the things I am struggling with that day. Today I was thinking a lot about being mixed race and how that often frustrates and complicates my activist work.
Being mixed in general, I think has caused me a lot of suffering because of the lack of certainty. I have always had a lot of confusion about who I am. I hung with folks of color but never felt ethnic enough, hung with the whites and bristled at their racism. In political spaces I feel myself often suffering from a desire that things be other than what they are—white spaces should have more POC, POC spaces should be more Marxist, less obsessed with identity politics. Is the discomfort real, or is it me? This question can be so overwhelming to me because it sometimes feels like I’ve been living my whole life asking that question. Interestingly enough, the speaker at tonight’s meeting talked a lot about being mixed race and not fitting in with either group of people, and how that caused a lot of discomfort with who they were. After, people shared a lot about that topic. A lot of mixed race people raised their hands and echoed similar experiences. It always so refreshing to hear other people struggling with that experience, because it is so real to me. It is almost even more of a real discussion to me than being POC. I remember I did this Hate in the Hallways youth program one time where we broke up into caucuses of our race and discussed issues we faced. I chose the mixed race caucus, and I was the facilitator for that caucus. I remember identifying so crazily strong with what every kid was struggling with, despite being all different kinds of mixes. The general dilemma of in-between-ness is very real to me, in a lot of ways. Of course, being mixed race has also been a blessing in that it has given me an incredible perspective into stuff. I have passed in both POC and white circles, and have seen the ways in which location and identity shape perspective. I think this encouraged critical thinking in me—the weighing of various viewpoints and the understanding that mine is shaped by my experience and context moment to moment. Anyway, In this particular meeting people also shared a lot of negative emotions they were dealing with. It was a particularly negative meeting. One guy spoke really angrily about not believing in God. He used to believe in God, but he didn’t anymore. He was angry at AA for “brainwashing” him into believing in God. He said he’d lost his Dad, his best friend and his wife. He was alone with a 9 year old, and found himself on the floor crying his heart out, pleading for help and help never came. I remembered my own moments like that- one in particular, where I just layed on the floor and waileddddddddd- “why me”, and “god please help meeeeee”. Rock bottom moments. These meetings are like dosages of empathy. Empathy for others and empathy for myself. I need empathy these days. I need an empathetic heart to face the betrayals, losses, and experiences of the past, I need empathy like a salve that will allow me to move smoothly through the experience at the right pace, neither lingering, nor rushing through. I need to look back without staring. I am doing that in these meetings. I also had a thought that the experience of hitting rock bottom seems like a moment where you finally acknowledge your own pain because it becomes undeniable. That resonates with me because of the way that being mixed race has often caused me to question my own view of reality, of my own pain, my own issues. In addition, growing up in an alcoholic home also caused me to doubt my view of reality because there was such denial of what was going on. As a result, I often minimize my own suffering or question its validity. To be honest, I spend a good time and a good amount of energy weighing the validity of my suffering, comparing it to others, etc. This is a painful habit of delegimitizing my pain and ignoring it. I have often found that I have ignored my own pain up until the moment where I am in such disrepair that I need a triple-bypass heart surgery. Always I wonder, how did I ignore things until they got this bad? This is a product and a symptom of being out of touch with one’s own emotions. I learned to not feel because as a kid I had to survive in a home with a lot of pain. This meant I had to leave (the experience, emotionally) while also staying. I had no choice then. I conditioned myself to learn to stay in painful experiences by blocking off my nerve endings and numbing myself to emotions. Living as an adult with damaged nerve endings has often lead me to stand with my hand on the stove, no reflex to recoil with pain from. This process of growth is helping me regrow my nerve endings. ——– My name means resurrection. To rise again from the dead. Literal translation. Maybe that’s why I have always been incredibly inspired by stories of redemption and revival. There is nothing that shakes me as deeply to the core of my being, than stories of people reaching deep down inside themselves for some almost supernatural courage in order to stand up for themselves, against what seems like an impossible situation. Obviously, I have come far enough to understand that stories of tremendous strength in the face of tragedy and pain speaks to me because of my own struggles, my own memories of life. There was a lot of sadness and pain in my life, in my home growing up (as I’ve mentioned countless times before). However, my name points to the silver lining of suffering. Traumatic situations, in which we face our mortality and our powerlessness in the face of tragedy, offer us an incredible opportunity—the chance to be reborn. The miracle of ‘resurrection’, seems to me like part of the miracle of our universe in general: the cycle of birth and death, of impermanence itself, of nonstop change. Every death is also a birth, every birth a death. My name to me, symbolizes the inevitability of that endless cycle of change. The inner pain, shame and suffering, fear and guilt I have struggled with since I was born continually offer me beautiful gifts—the chance to grow a deeper understanding of the fundamental quality of life and grow from it. That’s where I’m at.Diamond Profile Blog Joined May 2009 United States 9882 Posts Last Edited: 2013-05-08 19:33:00 #1
http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/ESV_Mapmaking_Team
The ESV Map Team has been quiet lately, but today I am very proud to announce our newest member, Justin "NewSunshine" Miller!
NewSunshine has been one of the top mappers ESV has been scouting for a long time, and with HotS out and TLMC 2 around the corner, I decided we could not go any longer without adding such a talented mapper to the team.
I plan to add more mappers in the future, and as always will be keeping our eye on the up and coming talent! With NewSunshine joining our other talented mappers, I have no doubts he will help raise the level of the maps for all ESV members, and in turn we can also help him become the best mapper he could be!
I am so happy to annouce this, and hope everyone welcomes NewSunshine to his new home! I would also like to thank DreamForge for being so professional and understanding of our desire to add NewSunshine, and work out everything for the smoothest transition possible.
I asked NewSunshine about why he joined ESV and he had this to say to all the fans:
I'm joining ESV to push myself. My goal is to become the best mapmaker on TeamLiquid, and between the strong minds already a part of ESV, and the higher standard set upon me by this new opportunity, this feels like a solid step towards that goal. I have nothing but respect for my former teammates, that should go without saying, but now they're my competition!
Also, be sure to check out I'm joining ESV to push myself. My goal is to become the best mapmaker on TeamLiquid, and between the strong minds already a part of ESV, and the higher standard set upon me by this new opportunity, this feels like a solid step towards that goal. I have nothing but respect for my former teammates, that should go without saying, but now they're my competition!Also, be sure to check out SC2melee.net, as well as the TeamLiquid Mapping Contest, I'll be doing my best to create the best maps out there, and these are two places that show the best the mapmaking community has to offer!
We hope everyone is as excited as ESV is for this wonderful addition, and make sure and follow NewSunshine on Twitter!
The ESV Map Team has been quiet lately, but today I am very proud to announce our newest member, Justin "NewSunshine" Miller!NewSunshine has been one of the top mappers ESV has been scouting for a long time, and with HotS out and TLMC 2 around the corner, I decided we could not go any longer without adding such a talented mapper to the team.I plan to add more mappers in the future, and as always will be keeping our eye on the up and coming talent! With NewSunshine joining our other talented mappers, I have no doubts he will help raise the level of the maps for all ESV members, and in turn we can also help him become the best mapper he could be!I am so happy to annouce this, and hope everyone welcomes NewSunshine to his new home! I would also like to thank DreamForge for being so professional and understanding of our desire to add NewSunshine, and work out everything for the smoothest transition possible.I asked NewSunshine about why he joined ESV and he had this to say to all the fans:We hope everyone is as excited as ESV is for this wonderful addition, and make sure and Ballistix Gaming Global Gaming/Esports Marketing Manager - twitter.com/esvdiamondWe still know nothing about Robin Ventura, but we'll learn a lot about him when we find out where he plans to play Alex Rios.
Ozzie Guillen, of course, cemented Rios in center field. He also used Rios as a defensive replacement in center field, even if it meant shoving the superior defender Alejandro De Aza to a corner spot. (He also never pinch-hit for Rios, but that's neither here nor there.)
In the event that Ventura is thinking Rios should be first in line for center field duties, allow me to present some video evidence. I'm knee-deep in player profiles for White Sox Outsider 2012, which means I have to relive the worst moments of the season -- multiple times! -- in order to accurately recount them. I may as well try to make lemonade out of lemons.
Below are 10 videos depicting the Alex Rios 2011 Center Field Experience. And mind you, there aren't just 10 times poor defense occurred; MLB.com only has embeddable highlights of misplays that result in runs. For instance, the drop against Colorado that got him benched, and the misplayed ground-rule double that set up two Texas runs in a 2-1 loss, aren't shown, because no runs scored on that particular play.
Nor am I counting a couple of homers he probably should have saved -- both hit by Eric Hosmer, one on July 4, and the other on July 6 -- because they have an above-average degree of difficulty by definition.
No. 1: April 22, 2011
An indirect route on a liner by Jhonny Peralta turns into a triple.
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No. 2: April 23, 2011
The very next day, Rios takes a right-angled route on what ends up being an Alex Avila triple.
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May 3: May 1, 2011
Rios underestimates the carry of Felix Pie's drive to center, which bounces off the wall and turns into a triple.
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No. 4: July 10, 2011
Rios gives up a base by making a fruitless throw home. The disgust in Tom Kelly's voice, both during and after the throw, is downright palpable.
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No. 5: July 25, 2011
This is the kind of play that Mark Gonzales seems to pin on Ramirez, but Ramirez had to chase these kinds of pop-ups while having no clue whether he could go at them 100 percent, or whether Rios would lurk underneath him at the last second. And Juan Pierre did this to him, too.
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No. 6: July 30, 2011
Rios allows a runner to score from first on a single by snaring a single awkwardly and taking his sweet time throwing the ball back in. And then he throws to the wrong bag.
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No. 7: Aug. 4, 2011
See No. 5.
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No. 8: Aug. 4, 2011
Rios misses the cut-off man.
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No. 9: Aug. 4, 2011 (skip to 0:49)
Rios gets caught in between charging a sinking liner, and lets it skip past him for a triple.
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No. 10: Sept. 14, 2011
Rios gets caught in between charging a sinking liner, but at least gets part of a glove on it. Which means he actually gets charged with an error.German Labor Minister Andrea Nahles' social welfare plans created a rare moment of accord between the center-left and center-right wings of Chancellor Angela Merkel's coalition on Wednesday.
Even before the cabinet rubberstamped the Social Democratic Party (SPD) minister's draft law, which will limit European Union immigrants' access to Germany's social welfare system, the Christian Social Union (CSU) was trumpeting its support.
"It's the right path, that Mrs. Nahles is now closing the loophole for uncontrolled immigration into our social systems that was opened by the Federal Social Court," the Bavarian Social Affairs Minister Emilia Müller said in the morning - though she couldn't resist voicing a minor niggle: "Bavaria," she added, would have preferred it if the waiting period had been five years of "legal status" in Germany, not just residing in Germany for five years.
Nahles said her law would strengthen Europe
Five-year plan
Indeed, Nahles' bill is stricter than might have been expected from a Social Democrat. The new measure stems from a legal uncertainty created when the Federal Social Court last year contradicted the European Court of Justice by ruling that non-German EU citizens had a right to basic unemployment benefits in Germany after six months in the country, regardless of their legal status.
Nahles' new law will make sure that EU immigrants cannot claim "Hartz IV" until they've been living in Germany for five years - before that deadline, the home country is responsible for paying their benefits. It also states that anyone who has only travelled to Germany for the sole purpose of looking for work will have no access to benefits.
Other measures in the new bill include a bridging benefit that will allow EU immigrants with no income a month's worth of rent and food money while they organize their return home, as well as a loan for their travelling expenses.
"With this clarification, we are strengthening the European idea and one of its biggest achievements: the free movement of workers," Nahles said in a statement. But, as she then added, another main reason for the new bill was to lighten the Hartz IV bills for local councils.
Cost-cutting?
But critics and opposition politicians were keen to point out the potential constitutional minefield that Nahles was treading. "The Basic Law makes clear: people who are living in Germany and whose loss of the right of residence has not been bindingly established have the right to a secure, humane existence, regardless of their nationality," Annelie Buntenbach of the German Trade Union Confederation (DGB) said in a statement. "As so often, the people who have to suffer are those who already live in difficult circumstances - now [the government] wants to sit and watch until their poverty has set in before they can claim access to their basic rights."
The German cabinet approved the new plan on Wednesday
According to Germany's Federal Labor Agency, 440,000 non-German EU nationals received social welfare in January this year - topping the list were Polish nationals with around 92,000 recipients, followed by Italians (71,000), Bulgarians (70,000), Romanians (57,000) and Greeks (46,000). They represent around a tenth of the 4.1 million EU immigrants living in Germany, and similarly a tenth of the total 4.3 million Hartz IV recipients in Germany.
Germany's local councils apparently believe that the country's social welfare system is too much of a temptation. "The current regulations and the ruling by the Federal Social Court could make Germany even more attractive to potential immigrants than it already is," said Gerd Landsberg, head of the association of German councils and cities (DStGB).
But for the Left party's labor market spokeswoman Sabine Zimmermann, the above figures belie Nahles' claim that the authorities are overburdened by the cost. "Most of the people who come to us from the European Union want to work here," she told DW. "And it's far too few [people claiming Hartz IV] to say that's why the councils are overburdened. That's just a pretext."
The real reason for this new measure, according to the Left party, is that the government, spooked by recent electoral results of the Alternative for Germany (AfD), is pandering to rising anti-immigrant sentiment.
The crux of the matter, to Zimmermann, is the contradiction of allowing free movement of workers in Europe to benefit the common labor market, without offering a common social safety net.
"I think that's wrong," said Zimmermann. "We can't just make an economic union; we have to make a social union too. Businesses are allowed to go all over Europe without worrying about borders, and we have freedom of movement for employees - if you want that, then you have to allow a certain social safety net across borders as well."Sixty-two percent of respondents say their confidence in Washington has decreased over the past 12 months. Poll finds low trust in feds
A majority of voters say their confidence in the federal government’s ability is falling, according to a new Public Strategies Inc./Politico poll.
Sixty-two percent of respondents say their confidence in Washington has decreased over the past 12 months, while only 8 percent said their confidence has increased. Less than a third of those polled said their confidence in the federal government remained the same.
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The poll, conducted Dec. 17-21, surveyed 1,000 registered voters nationwide.
That lack of confidence is demonstrated by the percentage of voters who think the country is on the right path: 65 percent said the country is on the wrong track, while 35 percent believe the country is heading in the right direction.
That pessimism extends to perceptions of the future, as half of all respondents described the likelihood that the next generation of Americans will enjoy a better life than we do today as either “not very much” or “none at all.”
The major source of dissatisfaction is the state of the economy and the government’s response to the financial crisis.
Only 5 percent said they have a “great deal” of trust that the federal government will manage its finances responsibly, while 23 percent expressed “some” trust that the government will be financially responsible. Meanwhile, an overwhelming 63 percent of respondents described their amount of trust as “not very much” or “none at all.”
See Also Public Trust Monitor survey results
Despite the glaring lack of confidence, voters want action to aid the economy.
When asked which issue should be the biggest priority, 45 percent listed an economic stimulus package with a focus on employing out-of-work Americans. None of the other options — which included health care reform, a national energy policy, financial services industry reform and withdrawal from Iraq — were rated as the top priority by more than 16 percent of voters.
Voters also indicated a desire for prompt action and expressed little concern that the incoming Obama administration may go “too far” in executing some of its many desired goals to revitalize the economy.
Just 13 percent worried that the government will go too far in cutting taxes on the middle class, and only 24 percent worried it will go too far in increasing taxes on corporations.
A majority of voters, meanwhile, expressed fear that the government will not go far enough to increase taxes on corporations or on households making more than $200,000.
Forty-two percent feared the government will not go far enough to increase taxes on corporations, and 37 percent said the government will not go far enough to increase taxes on those earning more than $200,000. Twenty-eight percent feared it would go too far in taxing those households.I had a panicky moment at the end of Act I when, at the party celebrating the engagement of Fraulein Schneider (Mary Gordon Murray) and Herr Schultz (Scott Robertson), Herr Ludwig (Patrick Vaill), wearing a swastika armband, begins to sing “Tomorrow Belongs to Me,” a horrifyingly catchy Nazi tune. He turns to us and asks everybody to join in, and, for terrible moment, I feared the audience would begin to sing with him. They didn’t, of course, but it did speak meaning about today’s political climate. And, I suppose, about the state of my psyche.
CABARET, the brilliant Kander and Ebb show, filled with some terrific songs (“Wilkommen,” “Maybe This Time”) is about the decadence of Weimar Germany and the rise of Nazism. A young American, Clifford Bradshaw (Benjamin Eakeley) arrives in Berlin to write a novel; he meets Sally Bowles (Leigh Ann Larkin), a showgirl at the Kit Kat Klub who becomes his roommate and his lover.
The proceedings are emceed by our guide through this sleazy world, Emcee (Jon Peterson). This is the role that Alan Cumming made famous, and reprised a few years ago in Roundabout Theatre’s sensational production at Studio 54 under Sam Mendes’ original direction. To say that Cumming is a hard act to follow is to state the obvious, and it takes a brave, and perhaps foolish man to follow that hard act. Jon Peterson is—maybe inevitably—disappointing.
The show is a blunt assault rather than an insidious argument; loudness is a problem throughout, as it often is with touring productions, as if everyone not in New York were somewhat deaf; the cast is miked to the max, obscuring lyrics and blasting the dialogue.
Whatever the distinction is between vulgar and decadent, it is a distinction blurred here: this debauched and degenerate Berlin looks more like a crude TV show, not a dangerous and somehow sophisticated ruin. But maybe the relevance factor is that it takes more to shock us these days: when everybody and his/her aunt/uncle is wearing green nail polish, we can’t be expected to gasp at Sally’s.
[Academy of Music 240 S. Broad Street] April 4-9, 2017; kimmelcenter.org.
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GoogleCause of War is a turn-based 3D game for PC. Modeling and animations were done in Blender. Its producer Robin Flodin tells us that they also made some Blender tutorials on their website.
Robin Flodin writes:
Hallo,
My name is Robin And I'm the producer of Cause of War (working title) a turn-based tactics game for the PC. It's a Full 3d title where models normalmaps and animation have been done in blender. The game is signed by the UK publisher Slitherine and will be out in about 6-8 month's time. I was thinking you might want to post about the project. We also (when we have time) try to make some Tutorials from what we lerned. More info can be found at Cause of War website.
Cheers
RobinSaturated thickness of the Ogallala Aquifer in 1997 after several decades of intensive withdrawals. The breadth and depth of the aquifer generally decrease from north to south. Regions where the water level has declined in the period 1980-1995 are shown in yellow and red; regions where it has increased are shown in shades of blue. Data from the USGS Groundwater withdrawal rates (fresh water, all sources) by county in 2000. Source: National Atlas
The Ogallala Aquifer is a shallow water table aquifer surrounded by sand, silt, clay, and gravel located beneath the Great Plains in the United States. One of the world's largest aquifers, it underlies an area of approximately 174,000 sq mi (450,000 km2) in portions of eight states (South Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Texas).[1] It was named in 1898 by geologist N. H. Darton from its type locality near the town of Ogallala, Nebraska. The aquifer is part of the High Plains Aquifer System, and rests on the Ogallala Formation, which is the principal geologic unit underlying 80% of the High Plains.[2][3]
Large scale extraction for agricultural purposes started after World War II due partially to center pivot irrigation and to the adaptation of automotive engines for groundwater wells.[4] Today about 27% of the irrigated land in the entire United States lies over the aquifer, which yields about 30% of the ground water used for irrigation in the United States.[5] The aquifer is at risk for over-extraction and pollution. Since 1950, agricultural irrigation has reduced the saturated volume of the aquifer by an estimated 9%. Once depleted, the aquifer will take over 6,000 years to replenish naturally through rainfall.[6]
The aquifer system supplies drinking water to 82% of the 2.3 million people (1990 census) who live within the boundaries of the High Plains study area.[7]
General characteristics [ edit ]
The deposition of aquifer material dates back two to six million years, from the late Miocene to early Pliocene ages when the southern Rocky Mountains were still tectonically active. From the uplands to the west, rivers and streams cut channels in a generally west to east or southeast direction. Erosion of the Rockies provided alluvial and aeolian sediment that filled the ancient channels and eventually covered the entire area of the present-day aquifer, forming the water-bearing Ogallala Formation.[8][9] In that respect, the process is similar to those currently prevailing in other modern rivers of the area, such as the Kansas River and its tributaries. The major differences are time and depth.
The depth of the Ogallala varies with the shape of then-prevailing surface, being deepest where it fills ancient valleys and channels. The Ogallala Formation consists mostly of coarse sedimentary rocks in its deeper sections, which transition upward into finer-grained material.
The water-saturated thickness of the Ogallala Formation ranges from a few feet to more than 1,000 feet. Its deepest part is 1200 ft. (300 m) and is generally greater in the Northern Plains.[10] The depth of the water below the surface of the land ranges from almost 400 feet (120 m) in parts of the north to between 100 and 200 feet (30 and 61 m) throughout much of the south. Present-day recharge of the aquifer with fresh water occurs at an exceedingly slow rate, suggesting that much of the water in its pore spaces is paleowater, dating back to the most recent ice age and probably earlier.
Groundwater within the Ogallala generally flows from west to east at an average rate of a foot per day. Hydraulic conductivity, or the ability for a fluid (water) to move through porous material, ranges from 25 to 300 feet (7.6 to 91.4 m) per day.[11] Water quality within the Ogallala varies with the highest quality for drinking and irrigation in the northern region while the southern region had the poorest.[12] Human and natural processes over the past 60 to 70 years, including irrigation density, climate, and nitrogen applications, have caused higher concentrations of contaminants including nitrates. Nitrate levels generally meet USGS water quality standards, but continue to gradually increase over time.[12] This trend can impact the future groundwater sustainability for portions of the aquifer.
Aquifer water balance [ edit ]
An aquifer is a groundwater storage reservoir in the water cycle. While groundwater is a renewable source, reserves replenish relatively slowly. The USGS has performed several studies of the aquifer, to determine what is coming in (groundwater recharge from the surface), what is leaving (water pumped out and baseflow to streams), and what the net changes in storage are (rise, fall or no change).
Withdrawals from the Ogallala Aquifer for irrigation amounted to 26 km3 (21,000,000 acre⋅ft) in 2000. As of 2005, the total depletion since before development amounted to 253,000,000 acre feet (312 km3).[1] Some estimates indicate the remaining volume could be depleted as soon as 2028. Many farmers in the Texas High Plains, which rely particularly on the underground source, are now turning away from irrigated agriculture as they become aware of the hazards of overpumping.[13]
Groundwater recharge [ edit ]
The rate at which recharge water enters the aquifer is limited by several factors. Much of the plains region is semiarid, with steady winds that hasten evaporation of surface water and precipitation. In many locations, the aquifer is overlain, in the vadose zone, with a shallow layer of caliche that is practically impermeable; this limits the amount of water able to recharge the aquifer from the land surface. However, the soil of the playa lakes is different and not lined with caliche, making these some of the few areas where the aquifer can recharge. The destruction of playas by farmers and development decreases the available recharge area. The prevalence of the caliche is partly due to the ready evaporation of soil moisture and the semiarid climate; the aridity increases the amount of evaporation, which in turn increases the amount of caliche in the soil. Both mechanisms reduce the amount of recharge water that reaches the water table.
Recharge in the aquifer ranges from 0.024 inches (0.61 mm) per year in parts of Texas and New Mexico to 6 inches (150 mm) per year in south-central Kansas.[14]
Groundwater discharge [ edit ]
2 area of fields (1443 km2) in NASA ASTER image of a roughly 557 miarea of fields (1443 km) in Kansas watered from the Ogallala Aquifer with center pivot irrigation systems
The regions overlying the Ogallala Aquifer are some of the most productive regions in the United States for ranching livestock, and growing corn, wheat, and soybeans. The success of large-scale farming in areas that do not have adequate precipitation and do not always have perennial surface water for diversion has depended heavily on pumping groundwater for irrigation.
Early settlers of the semiarid High Plains were plagued by crop failures due to cycles of drought, culminating in the disastrous Dust Bowl of the 1930s. Only after World War II, when center pivot irrigation became available, was the land mass of the High Plains aquifer system transformed into one of the most agriculturally productive regions in the world.
Change in groundwater storage [ edit ]
Ground water levels decline when the rate of extraction by irrigation exceeds the rate of recharge. At places, the water table was measured to drop more than 5 ft (1.5 m) per year at the time of maximum extraction. In extreme cases, the deepening of wells was required to reach the steadily falling water table. In the 21st century, recognition of the significance of the aquifer has led to increased coverage from regional and international journalists.[15][16][17][18]
The USGS estimated that total water storage was about 2,925,000,000 acre feet (3,608 km3) in 2005. This is a decline of about 253,000,000 acre feet (312 km3), or 9%, since substantial groundwater irrigation development began in the 1950s.[1]
Water conservation practices (terracing and crop rotation), more efficient irrigation methods (center pivot and drip), and reduced area under irrigation have helped to slow depletion of the aquifer, but levels are generally still dropping in areas including southwestern Kansas and the Texas Panhandle. In other areas, such as parts of eastern and central Nebraska and of the region south of Lubbock, Texas, water levels have risen since 1980.
The center-pivot irrigator was described as the "villain"[19] in a New York Times article, "Wells Dry, Fertile Plains Turn to Dust" recounting the relentless decline of parts of the Ogallala Aquifer. Sixty years of intensive farming using huge center-pivot irrigators has emptied parts of the High Plains Aquifer.[19] Hundreds to thousands of years of rainfall would be needed to replace the groundwater in the depleted aquifer. In 1950, irrigated cropland covered 250,000 acres (100,000 ha). With the use of center-pivot irrigation, nearly three million acres of land were irrigated.[19] In some places in the Texas Panhandle, the water table has been drained (dewatered). "Vast stretches of Texas farmland lying over the aquifer no longer support irrigation. In west-central Kansas, up to a fifth of the irrigated farmland along a 100-mile swath (160 km) of the aquifer has already gone dry."[19]
The center-pivot irrigation system is considered to be a highly efficient system which helps conserve water. However, by 2013, as the water consumption efficiency of the center-pivot irrigator improved over the years, farmers chose to plant more intensively, irrigate more land, and grow thirstier crops rather than reduce water consumption.[19] One approach to reducing the amount of groundwater used is to employ treated recycled water for irrigation; another approach is to change to crops that require less water, such as sunflowers.[20]
Several rivers, such as the Platte, run below the water level of the aquifer. Because of this, the rivers receive groundwater flow (baseflow), carrying it out of the region rather than recharging the aquifer.
The $46.1-million Optima Lake dam in western Oklahoma was rendered useless when the dropping level of the aquifer drastically reduced flow of the Beaver River, the lake's intended source of water.[21]
Accelerated decline in aquifer storage [ edit ]
The depletion between 2001 and 2008, inclusive, is about 32% of the cumulative depletion during the entire 20th century.[22] In the United States, the biggest users of water from aquifers include agricultural irrigation and oil and coal extraction.[23] "Cumulative total groundwater depletion in the United States accelerated in the late 1940s and continued at an almost steady linear rate through the end of the century. In addition to widely recognized environmental consequences, groundwater depletion also adversely impacts the long-term sustainability of groundwater supplies to help meet the nation’s water needs."[22]
Since the 1940s, pumping from the Ogallala has drawn the aquifer down more than 300 feet (90 m) in some areas. Producers have taken steps to reduce their reliance on irrigated water. Streamlined operations allow them to produce significantly greater yield using roughly the same amount of water needed four decades ago. Still, losses to the aquifer between 2001 and 2011 equated to a third of its cumulative depletion during the entire 20th century. The Ogallala is recharged primarily by rainwater, but only about one inch of precipitation actually reaches the aquifer annually. Rainfall in most of the Texas High Plains is minimal, evaporation is high, and infiltration rates are slow.[24]
Environmental controversies [ edit ]
Proposed Keystone XL Pipeline [ edit ]
In 2008, TransCanada Corporation proposed the construction of the 1,661-mile (2,673 km) Keystone XL pipeline to carry oil from the Athabasca oil sands of Alberta to refineries near Houston, Texas.[25][26] The proposed route of the pipeline crosses the eastern part of the Nebraska Sandhills; opponents of the route cite the risk to the Ogallala Aquifer posed by the possibility of contamination from spilled dilute bitumen.[27][28]
Research hydrogeologist James Goeke, professor emeritus at the University of Nebraska, who has spent more than 40 years studying the Ogallala Aquifer, phoned TransCanada officials and quizzed them on the project, and satisfied himself that danger to the aquifer was small, because he believes that a spill would be unlikely to penetrate down into the aquifer, and if it did, he believes that the contamination would be localized. He noted: "A lot of people in the debate about the pipeline talk about how leakage would foul the water and ruin the entire water supply in the state of Nebraska and that’s just a false", [29] Goeke said "... a leak from the XL pipeline would pose a minimal risk to the aquifer as a whole."[30]
Pipeline industry spokesmen have noted that thousands of miles of existing pipelines carrying crude oil and refined liquid hydrocarbons have crossed over the Ogallala Aquifer for years, in southeast Wyoming, eastern Colorado and New Mexico, western Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas.[31][32][33][34][35] The Pioneer crude oil pipeline crosses east-west across Nebraska, and the Pony Express pipeline, which crosses the Ogallala Aquifer in Colorado, Nebraska, and Kansas, was being converted as of 2013 from natural gas to crude oil, under a permit from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.[36]
As the lead agency in the transboundary pipeline project, the U.S. State Department commissioned an environmental-impact assessment as required by the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969. The Environmental Impact Statement concluded that the project posed little threat of "adverse environmental impacts",[27][37] the report was drafted by Cardno Entrix, a company that assisted both the Department of State and the Federal Energy |
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